An Experiment

Sunday was windy and very sunny here in Devon.  Clouds were blowing across the sky - and all looked promising to have a go at a technique I want to explore and perfect!
Kit needed was a camera (of course!) a sturdy tripod with 6" spikes on the ends of the legs.  This enables the tripod to be rammed into the ground, greatly improving stability.  Last of all, a collection of high density neutral density filters.  I had to end up stacking a 10-stop and an 8-stop together in order to get a 4 minute exposure.
Settings on the camera were f22 on a medium zoom lens (24mm on a full frame camera.)
The idea was to capture cloud movement!
Several attempts were needed before I got the picture posted below.  Not perfect - so I will have to keep trying - but hopefully, you will see what I'm trying to get at?

Zooming clouds over Brentor Church!

Tuscany

Not been a very good blogger recently.  Sorreee!!  

I've just got back from five days in Tuscany.  Somewhere I've long wanted to visit, so when the opportunity to do a photographic workshop there came up, I grabbed it with both hands!  Mind you, the emphasis was very much on the word WORK!  

Every day had the alarm ringing at 5.30am.  A hurried wash and a quick gulp of some tea, and we were off to catch the sun rising.  Got some lovely mist on two mornings - but the rest of the time it was - wait for it! - TOO SUNNY!  I know!  How can I complain?

The routine was to snap away like a mad thing until about 9.00am when we returned to base for a Continental breakfast.  On three days, we did as the locals do - which is, took a siesta!  On the remaining two days, we kept going all day, until midnight - as we needed to travel for a couple of hours to far-off locations!  Natch - on those days, we were poleaxed with tiredness!  But I wouldn't have missed it for the world!  Just a small selection of photos taken shown below.  

See more on my Flickr site - http://www.flickr.com/photos/snaphappyann/