A happy little disruption

Its amazing how a little bundle of fur can take over your life in less than a week. A casual trip to visit a breeder and see if this was the type of dog that we wanted, turned into love at first sight and bringing him back to his new home.
The puppy learning curve has been quite steep since then but its been brilliant. There may not be any new photos or trips for a little while and im trying not to saturate my posts with doggie pictures 🙂
I still dont have an autofocus lens and my animal photography wasnt that great to begin with, so at the moment im catching him when hes slow and asleep, at least now I have a reason to practice

This is 10 week old Harvey

seeing double

Sometimes an image needs a little bit of help
The last image on this post is a fake picture, its fairly obvious that it is, but the image that I had in my mind when I entered this place was one of a science fiction lair or some sort of grand futuristic chamber.
The narrow walkway and difficult lighting conditions meant that I felt that my photo didnt do the place justice. So this was the process that I went through to end up with the final image

The original Photo:

I was playing around with this and flipped it, and hey, it worked, thats a bit more like what I had in my mind.

There were parts of the image which didnt work in flip mode, the signs and text would be back to front so i cloned these out on the flipped side

Then to add some depth, i darkened the highlights on one side of the image

Finally I was left with : Neptunes Chamber

The Empire Strikes back

The Landscape Exhibition at Worchester Museum and Art Gallery is now open!

This is my photograph thats on display, the first from the fine art Republic series which im currently working on which will hopefully end with an exhibition sometime next year
printed on 300gms art rag, this gives the print a watercolour feel to it which for these images especially suits the subject

more images will be posted here : darrennisbett.co.uk

The exhibition is on now at The Old Library Space at The City Museum and Art Gallery in Foregate Street Worcester
from the 7th to 28th December 2013
http://www.whub.org.uk/cms/museums-worcestershire/mag.aspx

Probably (hopefully) the last camera that i will buy

A bit of a techie post to end off the week
I watched the announcement of the new sony camera a few months ago with great interest and since then I have been trying to decide whether or not to go ahead and get one

my recent change over to the Fuji X-E1 had pretty much rendered my Canon 5D mk2 into the background and I was almost at the stage of selling everything. The X-E1 is now going to take its place as my IR camera.

I had almost made up my mind before going to the camera shop, but actually having a go on it made my decision for me!

I picked up the new camera last week, the 36 megapixel Sony A7R and ordered a leica mount adaptor and Voigtlander 21mm F1.8 lens. Together the camera looks like a lump of solid metal and feels it too. Its not heavier than my DSLR but it just feels weighty. the manual focus of the lens just feels right with this camera and the few times that I have been out and used it has felt like photography should – its hard to actually describe it but it feels more connected.
Manual focus is quite a difficult thing to get to grips with, maybe its partially a confidence thing – you get so used to technology doing things for you that you loose a grip on how things actually work.

I did however leave the camera on ISO 1600 all day!

Here were some of the results

Artists Quarter

One of my enquiries from the Royal Academy exhibition got in contact with me, firstly to purchase some prints and then we started to discuss other possibilities. which led to this, an interview on their new site. Their ‘artist’ side of the company aims to purchase from up and coming artists and eventually help with exhibitions and other activities.

we are going to be working together to put on an exhibition, hopefully next year around the new portfolio that im working on called Republic

please check out the interview and like the page here : http://www.facebook.com/artistsquarter

The Fountain

Sometimes what you find while driving around is quite bizarre, and even more bizarre is where you find them
This looked to have been an elaborate water fountain, tiered basins at the top of the pyramid would have spilled out and out until it reached the base where it would spill down over the 4 sided brick channels before following a channel into a shallow circular pool below.

This would not be an unusual site if I told you that it was in a town centre in Barcelona or London or even any large city, but in actual fact, this was out in the middle of nowhere and surrounded on all sides by dried up desert, rocks and the kind of trees that live for centuries on a drop of water.

Worchester Contemporary Landscape Exhibition

Something a little different for December. I wouldn’t describe myself as a Landscape photographer so being picked for this one was a bit of a shock, especially after seeing a few of the other exhibitors websites and there are some serious landscapes on there.

But hopefully my print will look OK alongside these and being just before christmas, may even tempt a few buyers as well (image to follow once its mounted)

The exhibition will take place in The Old Library Space at The City Museum and Art Gallery in Foregate Street Worcester from the 7th to 28th December 2013