Underneath the Maple Tree

The third part to my Westonbirt Arboretum trilogy, this is more specifically a Japanese Maple tree, one of many they have at the arboretum. As I said on Tuesday, it's anyone's guess what the best time of year to visit the arboretum is, but last weekend was quite a good time to picture these wonderfully coloured maple tress, as there is plenty of colour left on the tress, but a lot on the ground as well. This is one of the rare occasions where I have used the camera's popup flash, which helped give the photo nice foreground details whilst keeping the colours strong in the background. It is on my christmas list (stuff to buy after christmas, not the Father Christmas list) to get a decent flash unit for my camera, as I can see myself taking many more pictures that will benefit from it going forward.

I have mentioned a few times (though can't remember the last time when) I am doing a Photography Institute course at the moment, which is teaching a lot of things I didn't really care to know about before. One of the lessons has been the benefits of shooting in Manual mode, something I can now see myself doing a lot more of, rather than the typical Aperture mode I use for 90% of my shots. I will share  more more in-depth some of my learnings as the weeks go on.

HalewoodPhoto.com makeover

Please head over to HalewoodPhoto.com to see my new, and may I say more 'professional' look. I know it's easy for photographers to appear that they are being paid by certain photography companies, when they rave about them to death, but if you are interested in setting up a good website, I would recommend the SquareSpace team. I have used them for my HalewoodPhoto.com site, and continue to find them helpful and equipped with the best tools for photographers on a budget who still want to set up a very professional website.

I'm not one for new year resolutions, but one I think I have vowed to myself, is that I will spend much less time working on websites next year! I seem to lose a weekend or 2 working on them every couple of months, and would now like to invest that time in taking more pictures!