Three ladies and a dog!

I've been thinking a lot in the past few days about what sort of photographs I really want to be taking. This is partly due to a book I'm reading - Within the Frame by David duChemin - and partly because I want to up my game a bit a lot. It lead me to think about how I love taking candid shots of people (although I still feel very self-conscious about it) and about how much I love black and white photography and how the two things go so well together. I'm inspired by the photographs of people like Henri Cartier Bresson, Elliot Erwitt and Rui Palha. And I've been watching some video tutorials on the Scott Kelby site where he goes on a photo walk in Paris with Jay Maisel.

This is a photograph I took on holiday recently which comes nearest to what I want to do. Jay Maisel talks about the need for 'gesture' in photographs which is that moment when the person or people you're framing do something special or unusual that connects with the viewer. In the case of this photograph I think it's the dog and its appearance of boredom with the chatting women. I hope it goes in some small way to approach what he means.

Steam Engine

Another photo taken in North Yorkshire at Pickering Station. This beautiful steam engine caused such a huge welling up of nostalgia in me I almost burst into tears. Silly me...

Early morning cobwebs

Cobwebs caught early in the morning with the dew still on them

Process of Elimination

These two photographs are my submission for Kat's Exploring with a Camera: Process of Elimination post.

This is the original photograph with lots of busyness in the background which detracted from the colourful boats and kept dragging the eye into the top left-hand corner. It was badly in need of cropping.

This is the finished photograph, cropped so that the distraction is removed and with the shadows slightly lightened to give more definition to the movement in the sea.

Station Cafe

Tables and chairs set out on the platform at Pickering Station.

Chicken and door

Is this the chicken Rosie caught? She dropped it again, whichever one it was, and ran for home.

War Bikes

I've just got back from a holiday spent in North Yorkshire. One of the few remaining steam train lines in the country runs between Pickering and Whitby and each year in Pickering they hold a War Weekend based around the railway station. These two WW2 bikes were parked outside and I thought they'd make a good entry for The Weekend in Black and White.