Yesterday morning we woke up to temperatures of -6 in St Albans!  Pretty chilly as we set off on the school run but oh so pretty!  It took us twice as long as usual to walk to school as I think we stopped to admire every spiders web on the way, as they caught the sun preserved in a layer of frost. It was just magical, and Katie said to me “You should have brought your camera Mummy!”  I’m too busy I thought, I have prints to order, CDs to burn, appointments in town and so much still to do for Christmas.  But I caught myself and thought I can absolutely take half an hour out of my day to go and just play.  To shoot with no pressure, no expectations, just whatever catches my eye.  And so that’s what I did, just for half an hour, and I loved every minute!  It’s been a while since I shot just for me.  And as I (very happily) get busier I need to make sure I make the time to do that every so often as that’s where everything you see on this website all started.

The only problem with this is it’s left me with a bit of a hankering for a dedicated macro lens – sorry Rob!!!!!    I hope you enjoy the pictures as I so enjoyed taking them ♥

So here we are again in November, and that means it’s time to brush up on shooting fireworks again – not something that you do every day!

Last year I came away from Bonfire Night with my Christmas wish list – a wide angle lens and a better tripod!  This year – check!  So I was in good shape and I’m pretty pleased with how these came out!

For those who are interested in the technical details, I shot these all on manual and bulb setting, f18 and ISO 200 at a variety of shutter speeds varying from 1.5-14 seconds.

Enjoy!
]]> http://www.clairelanephotography.com/2012/11/fireworks-i-st-albans-photographer/feed/ 8 http://www.clairelanephotography.com/2012/10/barcelona-clickin-walk-i-september-2012/ http://www.clairelanephotography.com/2012/10/barcelona-clickin-walk-i-september-2012/#comments Fri, 05 Oct 2012 16:01:14 +0000 Claire Lane http://www.clairelanephotography.com/?p=2020 NOTE: the images in this feed have been downsized or removed for copyright reasons. To see them in their unmodified state, please view the original post by clicking here.

Last weekend 10 lovely and talented photographers from all around Europe all descended on Barcelona for a fun weekend of sun, sight-seeing and photography for the European Clickin Walk.

Unfortunately the weather hadn’t quite read the memo…. wow did it rain!!  So we had to revise the itinerary somewhat but we had a LOT of fun and these are the resulting pictures (and as you can see the weather was a little bit kinder to us on the Sunday!):

The lovely Anna:

Casa Ramona – Caixa Forum building – spot the wavy roof!

We saw a lot of puddles… might as well put them to good use!

Up at the Olympic Park:

Charlie’s Angels anyone?!

Placa d’Espanya Lightshow:

The things we made poor Rachel do for the perfect picture…

Stephanie striking a pose:

Anna was not harmed in the making of this picture…. but was completely drenched!!!

The “making of the picture”:

The lovely Rebecca.  We had to laugh at the poor unsuspecting tourists who, upon seeing 9 photographers all in a row taking pictures of her, decided she must be famous and started taking pictures of her too!!!!!

Very cute triplets ♥

“Happy Pills”, a very fabulous sweet shop!

Inside the beautiful Cathedral:

Yup – still raining!

The still unfinished Sagrada Familia… and as if by magic they switched the lights on for us!

Wait…. is that blue sky???  Five crazy helicopers, part of the airshow postponed from the day before due to the weather:

Steph gets soaked – again!

Ana’s very talented son, David:

Ana’s happy family ♥

Parc Guell:

Passeig de Gracia:

What an amazing weekend!  Thank you to Ana for organising us all and looking after us so well.  Same time next year ladies, where shall we go?!?!?!

A recent trip for the children to visit their Grandparents up in Chester for a few days meant a bit of free time for Mummy!  Not my usual photographic subjects, but I do especially love taking pictures of flowers, especially macro…..they are just so compliant!

Can you spot the little ant?

And one more just for fun!

So we had a snow day across much of England yesterday!  Those in colder climates would laugh I’m sure, but here in the UK we don’t cope well with snow.  The country tends to grind to a halt with the first few flakes!

But when it’s on a Sunday there’s none of that “Shall I try and make it to work?” and “How long is a reasonable amount of time to try before I give up?”.  You can just get on the cold weather gear and go out and have some FUN!!!!  On a personal note I was glad to finally get some use out of the snow boots we all bought at the start of the winter – I knew I would jinx the weather being so organised!!

We spent most of the day outside yesterday, building snowmen, sledging and snowball fights with the neighbours! Mummy also got a little bit of time with her tripod and macro tubes to have a play as well!  Having my “big” camera is a good excuse not to be the target of too many snowballs too! It’s great to practice when we have some snow as it’s so infrequent for us. You really need to be shooting fully manual otherwise you’re going to end up with some very grey, underexposed pictures.

And we finally put to bed two absolutely exhausted children last night who went to sleep without a peep for the first time in a long while!  A happy day