The Author – Bart Busschots
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Dec
31
Reflections on My Photographic 2010
Filed Under Photography on December 31, 2010 | 5 Comments
Since it’s the last day of 2010 now seems like a good time to take stock and look back at my photographic output from this year to see how its evolved since 2009.
I spent some time this evening looking back over my very best shots from this year, and I’m relieved to see that I’ve continued to hone my skills when it comes to the basics, my shots on average are just that little bit tighter than they were in 2009. The compositions are more finely tuned and imaginative, and the post-processing that little bit more subtle and effective. My HDRs in particular look a lot more natural than they did the year before. There’s absolutely nothing un-expected or interesting here – when you do something more you get better at it! What is interesting is in how my style has changed – how I’ve started to do things I never did before.
Dec
28
Simple but Tasty Pan-fried Chicken
Filed Under Cooking & Food on December 28, 2010 | 4 Comments
This is the first post in what I expect will become a semi-regular series on this blog. I’ve always enjoyed cooking, but I never thought to blog about it because I consider the food I cook to be very simple and not all that interesting. But, people keep asking me how I cook things, so I figured I may as well share my ‘secrets’ here. If you’re wondering what kind of food you’ll find here, I think I could best describe it as simple and wholesome. I hate processed foods, so I try to cook with as many fresh ingredients as possible. As for the style – it’s very eclectic. I neither like bland food nor spicy food, so I tend to cook things that have a lot of flavour, but aren’t spicy – a little tangy maybe, but never spicy.
I promise I’ll get to the first recipe in a moment, but before I do I want to share my ethos on cooking. For me it’s all about sharing, what’s the fun in cooking a nice meal if you can’t share it? And what’s the fun in sharing food if you don’t also share ideas and methods with people? I’m always changing how I cook things, and I’m always learning from people. I get ideas and I edit them to make them my own. The best thing that could come out of this series of posts for me is that I inspire people to customise and change my recipes and to share their thoughts and modifications with the community here.
Dec
27
Photo of the Week 150 – Yarrow
Filed Under Photography on December 27, 2010 | Leave a Comment
I’m so fed up of snow and ice now that I thought this week I’d go for a more summery theme for my Photo of the Week post, a nice flower! To be more precise, a closeup of a Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) flower. These lovely white flowers grace Irish hedgerows in the late summer each year.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/1600 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/5.6
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: -1.0ev
Dec
22
Photo of the Week 149 – Common Darter
Filed Under Photography on December 22, 2010 | Leave a Comment
I’ve had quite enough of all this snow and cold at this stage, so I thought I’d go back to some shots from my new project this year, dragonflies and damselflies. The shot I’ve chosen for today shows a very common kind of dragonfly we see a lot around rivers, lakes, and canals in Ireland, the Common Darter (Sympetrum striolatum). This shot was in some ways very serendipitous – I’d put my bike down along the canal and was waiting for some butterflies or dragonflies to come by, when I noticed that the yellow walls of the the tyres on my bike seems to actually attract this guy! Maybe it looked like a massive yellow flower or something, or maybe it was just nice and warm. What ever his reason was, he sat there happily for about 10 minutes, and let me get as close to him as my lens could focus. I tried about 100 shots from different angles, with different depths of field, and with and without varying amounts of fill flash, but I settled on this one as my favourite. To give you some idea of how ruthlessly I often edit my images down, of the approximately 100 shots I took of this guy, I kept five!
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/400 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Flash: manually turned on (for fill flash)
- Flash Exposure Compensation: -3.0ev
- Processing: cropped to a square and tweaked with Aperture’s built-in Dodge & Burn plugin
Dec
15
Photo of the Week 147 & 148 – Winter Trains
Filed Under Photography on December 15, 2010 | 2 Comments
Despite the fact that it’s been thawing for 5 days now, there is still an inch of ice on the street in front of my house, so I figured it might be appropriate to stick to a winter theme for this double post. I’m still ill, so none of these shots are from our recent cold snap, but instead, from the one before that, in January this year. Knowing my fascination with trains I’m sure no one will be surprised that I’ve picked two railway shots for this post.
The first shot I’ve chosen is of an Irish Rail Commuter train taken from Pike’s Bridge near Maynooth. This is a Class 29000 Diesel Multiple Unit (DMU), and it’s making it’s way from Dublin to Maynooth. The frozen water in the foreground is the Royal Canal.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Exposure: 1/160 sec
- Focal Length: 18mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 200
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: 1.0ev
- Processing: created by merging the original version of this shot with a version enhanced using the Topaz Adjust plugin
The second shot shows an Irish Rail InterCity service from Sligo to Dublin approaching Jackson’s Bridge near Maynooth. This is also a DMU, but this time of the newer and more comfortable Class 22000.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Exposure: 1/320 sec
- Focal Length: 22mm
- Focal Ratio: f/3.8
- ISO: 200
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: 0.67ev
- Processing: tweaked using the Topaz Adjust plugin
Dec
2
Photo of the Week 146 – Snow in Carton
Filed Under Photography on December 2, 2010 | 4 Comments
It’s unseasonably cold and snowy here in Maynooth at the moment. The snow has now been on the ground for days, and temperatures are staying below freezing day and night. I’m still sick so rather than enjoying this cold snap’s photographic opportunities I’m sitting at home grumbling about how awkward it makes everything, and praying that heating doesn’t break down again! Still – it did remind me to go have a look at some of my shots from the last unseasonable cold snap we had, in January this year. This is not the first shot from that cold snap to make it to this Photo of the Week series, but it’s definitely a worthy addition IMO.
This shot was taken in the grounds of Carton Estate on the outskirts of Maynooth. The mist that hung over the snow-covered landscape gave it a wonderful other-worldly feel. By shooting into the sun that feel was magnified even more. To get the detail out of this shot I first processed the RAW file in Aperture, and then round-tripped it through the Topaz Adjust plugin to really get it as close to what it felt like to be there as I could.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Exposure: 1/320 sec
- Focal Length: 22mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 200
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Bias: 1.33ev
- Processing: RAW initially processed with Aperture, tweaked using Topaz Adjust plugin