Change of key

July 13, 2013 / mikeosbornphoto / 13 Comments

A glorious English summer’s day at the Chelsea Physic Garden in London. Floral shots are everywhere.

This is a case of a single shot and two takes. The first (below) is saturated with bright yellow and green, almost luminescent. I decided to try again, winding down the exposure compensation. The shot above is still bursting with life, colour and summer – but is deeper, richer in tone.

The high key shot has quite an artistic feel to it, with bold brush strokes. I can’t decide between the different qualities of the two photographs. Which do you prefer?

My beautiful launderette

July 7, 2013July 7, 2013 / mikeosbornphoto / 18 Comments

The crisis of a broken washing machine prompted a visit to this place – better known as a laundromat to my friends on the other side of the Atlantic.

I haven’t used one since my student days, but there are plenty of them in west London and they seem to do a good trade. Along with our suitcases filled with clothes needing a wash, I took my camera.

Although a public place, maybe this was too intimate a venue to take photographs. But in this establishment on King Street in Hammersmith, the mild-mannered attendant was too busy emptying machines and dealing with customers to worry – strange for a place where rules and guidance are plastered on every wall.

With its banks of washers and tumble dryers, the lines and shapes caught my eye, along with the movement of machines constantly in motion. Still, I was careful to avoid taking candids of people doing something that is best suited to your own private space.

Our machine is finally fixed now and a visit to the washeteria is unlikely to be repeated soon. It might be a mundane, functional place, but one to stretch your photographic eye and achieve some unexpected results.

Click on first image to launch the gallery

Poolside

June 15, 2013June 25, 2013 / mikeosbornphoto / 12 Comments

An inviting blue Spanish pool. Your instinct isn’t to dive into the cool waters, but to observe its ripples, glints of sunshine, textures and colours. Click first image to view the gallery

You also feel compelled to capture the top arch of the steps that take you gently into the water – but never set a foot in yourself. It’s almost a crying shame that the searingly bright metal is dappled with watermarks.

Photography rules over a luxuriously cool dip in a Spanish pool.

Marilyn

June 7, 2013 / mikeosbornphoto / 11 Comments

I was taking a stroll around the outer reaches of the Canarian town of Corralejo on my recent holiday, and came across something totally unexpected.

On a whitewashed wall next to an ordinary pavement on an undistinguished street, was an image of Marilyn Monroe. A simple stencil graffiti in dark paint, with those iconic features very clear in the fading light.

Who put her there and why? I can’t find the answers to those questions but am pleased with the photograph – she is almost outdone by the bokeh from some distant traffic in this shot.

It seems there is a lot of Marilyn street art all over the world. If anyone knows any more about this example, I would love to find out.

Night lights

May 5, 2013 / mikeosbornphoto / 27 Comments

A train line which runs behind your house has its advantages, although it’s taken me eight years to exploit this. It’s after dark and pleasant enough to set up the camera and tripod by an open window.

The Hammersmith and City line trains are less frequent at night and tend to thunder straight past. So these are bright, fast-moving objects under low light conditions. It was very hard to catch them.

But what I did capture were numerous colourful, thick streaks of light zipping past the sky, which I discovered can be made into beautifully neat abstract frames.

I managed to see into the carriage of one train and also turned my lens on the trees when the trains were absent, finding a beautiful ink blue sky. A good and unexpected evening’s work.