Bit random! But I wanted to try something different. I used a load of brushes over the top of the eye photo in overlay mode to make them faint, and to add texture and interest, and maybe a little background info to the photo. I moved the camera during exposure to get the eye nice and blurred. I then made the whole thing red to add a sense of fear or danger. As a final touch I added some black dirt with a brush in PS to add some non-red to the photo. It's kinda like a high key grunge... if that exists?

I took the photo with my Canon 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro lens, slightly out of focus on purpose. I did upload a different PaD earlier but I really didn't like it so pretend you didn't see it ;) I'm pretty happy with 90% of my photos from January, but some just seemed lazy to me :P Hopefully I can keep the 90% satisfaction rate up throughout the rest of the year! That would be a great target.
-Ben
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Yo ho, yo ho, a student's life for me!

Actually, I'm more of a cider guy myself, but this is a shot of the recycling box in our flat. The University has since decided that they're not going to collect recycling from our building anymore due to cost reasons. So there are 4 boxes like these sitting in our kitchen waiting for something to be done!

I'm quite lucky to have been able to get this shot today. When I copied the photos over to the computer yesterday after the football, I forgot to turn off the camera, so it was using up the battery for ages! I left my charger at home cos I wasn't planning on staying here that long. I finally remembered just in time! Today I turned the camera on and the battery low thing started flashing immediately. As soon as I took the photo, the camera powered down. I forgot to turn flash off, hence the glare, but I couldn't reshoot.

The only way to get the photos onto the computer though, was to plug it into the dock and that into the USB port. My card reader doesnt read Sony MemoryStick Pro Duo! I waited 5 minutes and then finally tried turning the camera on... success! I managed to get into the camera, click copy, go into C:\... power down. Damn! Didn't get a chance to paste! Wait another 5 mins... turn it onPASTE!!! Yes! It did it just in time!

I'm still on my rubbishy computer so the post processing isnt all that. Just levels, sharpen, slight vignette, thats the lot. I think I'm going home tomorrow, back to my fully charged 300D :)
-Ben
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Bit of a quickie today! I came into Bristol to check out a house that I could be getting with my flatmates for next year, but we played football (soccer) instead! I'm going to see the house tomorrow. We just went for a quick kick around on the field outside Bristol Cathederal, but we met these Ukranian guys there who must have been 6 or 7 years older than us. They challenged us to a game, which lasted well over an hour!

I had my little Sony DSC-T1 in my pocket just incase, and managed to find a second to breathe and take a few shots of the cathederal. Originally I had a pretty distorted wider shot as my PaD but upon second look, I really didn't like it so I changed it to this one, which I much prefer!
-Ben
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This is a macro of a piece of my trumpet. I used to play when I was younger but I stopped when I was about 15. I kept the instrument tho because it is great for abstract type photos :) I will probably end up having to sell it one day when I run into debt from uni :P

It may seem like I'm posting this quite late today, but somehow (no idea how!) I didn't wake up until 5pm today! I went to bed at 3am which is pretty much normal for me, but I didn't wake up until I heard the oven beeping downstairs for tea! Today's seemed pretty short so far and I don't believe it's already 8pm hehe.

I took this shot with my Canon 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro lens on my 300D. In Photoshop all I did was boost the contrast a bit, sharpen, and darken the edges slightly. I don't know why but I always like photos with a slight vignette lately. Weird.
-Ben
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I was playing around in Photoshop today. I don't think this is great but I liked the colours and the effect that multiple layers of grain and scratches had.

I woke up really late today, about 2, then watched the new episode of Lost, and I'm going out for a meal later, so I didn't have much time to take an amazing photo, so here is what I came up with :P

It's abstract but its more about the textures and colours from post processing, rather than the shot itself.
-Ben
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After yesterdays slight deviation, I thought I'd get back to my roots today with a lovely blue abstract. I'm back from Uni so I have a decent monitor again, not to mention access to my Canon 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro lens, woo! :)

Also... I'm free! Yay! I've handed in all my work to Uni so now I'm free until Feb 15th, it's great! :)
-Ben
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When Seagulls Attack!

I'm not sure how this is going to look because I edited it on my old rubbishy computer at Uni, where I'm going to be until tomorrow evening, but if it looks poo I'll edit it again at home. Someone threw a burger on the floor in the city centre and all the pigeons flocked right to it, but it didn't take long for the seagulls to catch on! They got pretty violent, despite being outnumbered.

Since I'm only in Uni for a couple of days and I wanted to travel light, I only brought my little Sony DSC-T1, so that's what I took this with. The motion blur wasn't intentional but it was getting dark. I think it actually adds quite a nice dynamic though!

Tonight is the last night for me to finish my essay. I have to hand it in tomorrow! After I've handed it in, Jodie is coming up to see me and we're going ice-skating, yay! Then she's driving me back home, where I can stay being a lazy-arse until Feb 15th! Jodie's going back to uni on Saturday though :( Hopefully I can go and visit her! :)

Oh the new DPChallenge topic is blue, w00t! I should be able to come up with a shot for that maybe! Hehe :) Oh, and by the way, yesterday's abstract was one of those energy saving light bulbs :)
-Ben
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This is a blue abstract, how original! I wonder if anyone can guess today's mystery object? If you can't get it, check back tomorrow I'll shed some light on the subject!

Taken using my Canon 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro lens, lit with monitor light. I was going to have it red and orange, but it just looked so much better when I made it blue!
-Ben
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This photo was taken when I was waiting to be picked up from Uni using my trusty Canon... oh wait, no, it was my Cell Phone!

Admittedly the full size version of this is a bit poo, but it looks pretty reasonable at 640x480 with a "little bit" of post processing done :) Nothing special today as I should really be writing my essay which is due in thursday, but I got a major headache, which sucks. Must be the cold!

I hope to give you a better PaD tomorrow!
-Ben
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Back to my usual abstracts today :) This one isn't hard to guess, but I really like the colours and shapes in it.

It won't come as a surprise to anyone that I used my Canon 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro for this shot. I think it's my favourite lens! The DoF it creates is great, and it's so versatile! In my PaD so far I've used it for macros, still life, abstracts, portraits, and sports. I'm sure it'll get a lot more use in the future too!
-Ben
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Today I went to a Volleyball tournament in Bristol. I played for the team in the black and red, but I was rested this particular game, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to take some photos!

Each game was 30 minutes long, with the team having most points at the end winning. We won this game 50-28, which is a pretty good result! In the last game one of our players fell awkwardly and sprained her ankle, and so we had to take her to the hospital. We finished 2nd place in our group but we had to leave early so we couldn't play the 3rd place playoff against the 2nd place team in the other group. We've beaten them before though, so I'll just say we came 3rd overall! :)

I started taking photos with my Canon 75-300mm f/4-5.6 lens, but there wasn't enough light to use that really, so I switched to my usual Canon 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro, which let in much more light and let me freeze the action much better. I used ISO 400 in the end, which was a good compromise.
-Ben
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Don't run, it's only me! Hehe :) I thought that since I got Jodie to pose for my PaD yesterday, it was only fair for me to take a photo of myself today! I accidently left my tripod in my flat at Uni, so I had to take this hand held. I used to love the little flip-out screen on my old Canon G2 for self-portraits! It's sooo much harder with a DSLR when you can't see what the photo looks like. It takes a lot of trial and error! I look a bit fat in this photo and my head looks way too big, but never mind :P

I took this with the same lens as yesterday, using just natural window light again. I processed it in pretty much the same way. I wanted to have it similar to the one I did of Jodie so that they could be displayed as a pair, but facing the other way so they would look better together :) Since I'm the guy I thought I'd give myself a darker background, just for a bit of contrast.

I probably won't submit another portrait for a while now, until I run out of other ideas! You could be seeing this face quite a lot throughout the year! Hehe :)
-Ben
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This is a photo of my beautiful girlfriend, Jodie. She's never let me take a proper photo of her before because she says, and I quote, "I'm so un-photogenic"! How far from the truth could that be?

I might be biased but I love this photo! I've never really done portraits before so I found it hard telling her how to pose and things, but I think in the end this shot was definately my favourite.

Taken with my handy-dandy Canon 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro lens using natural window light. I used f/2.5 to get a nice shallow DoF and soft focus effect (which I enhanced in Photoshop admittedly) but I think maybe f/2.5 was slightly too shallow since only one eye is in sharp focus. Anyway, I hope you enjoy Jodie's gorgeousness as much as I do!
-Ben
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I've gone back to my roots today with another lazy PaD, sorry! I've been busy today reading for my essay, as well as commenting on the Best of 2005 challenge. I'm now up to 50% comments! Not bad going even if I do say so myself :) I should finish this weekend!

This was taken with my Canon 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro lens again, on a 10 second exposure. Do ya know what it is yet? I'll let you ponder. Anyway, Big Brother is about to start so I'd better get going! Ciao!
-Ben
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Recognise this anyone? I got a letter from Jones' Soda today telling me my photo had been chosen to appear on the Valentines Day Limited Edition soda labels! Woo!

What better way to let everyone know that to enter a photo of them as my PaD? I thought I would do a little tribute to myself and try the same setup as before, hehe. Obviously they are not book shaped, so the heart wouldn't work, but I thought I would use the red to highlight one of the labels. If anyone sees one of these labels on an actual bottle, I would be really greatful if you could take a photo of it, or even buy one and I'll pay you to ship it to me!

This was lit using a desk lamp, and taken with my Canon 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro lens. Its not so much a nice looking photo today, as one to remember a happy event! Hehe :) As far as commenting on all of the Best of 2005 entries goes... "You have commented on 163 of 835 images (20%) in this challenge" :)
-Ben
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Holy Photoshop Batman!

I've done so much to this photo in Photoshop, I can't even remember what it was! I saw so much potential in the scene, but my poor camera skills enabled me to capture zero of it, which is a shame. Anyway, the photos sucked but I thought I would experiment anyway, creating some kind of weird surrealist impressionistic scene.

Taken with my 300D and Canon 28-105mm f/4-5.6 lens, this is a photo of Ashton Court in Bristol, which is the location of my University campus. It's actually a Deer park, altho there are currently no Deer there for some reason. I should hopefully be going back home for a while tomorrow so expect more boring abstracts and less "out and about" shots :P Oh, I also set myself a challenge to comment on all 836 photos in the "Best of 2005" challenge over at DPC... am I mad!? I probably won't manage it but I can only try!
-Ben
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I'm not sure that you'll ever guess what this is, but I'll let you try! I thought I'd go try some more abstracts today because I really enjoy doing them, and messing around with them in Photoshop.

I took with, yet again, with my Canon 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro lens, using my desk lamp for lighting. I enhanced the colour to make it extra fiery.

I couldn't really spend much time on it today because I have an essay due in tomorrow. I don't know what I'm going to do for tomorrow's since I'll be in Uni all day, so I'll probably just take my little Sony in and try to snap off the odd shot or 2, but I'm not holding my breath for anything great!

Anyway, back to work!
-Ben
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Freedom of Speech?

Wow quite a difference in today's PaD! My first black and white, and my first with a title, and my first with a person in it, and my first with some kind of message. I'm not very good at this type of photography, I normally just like making pretty pictures :P

Half in light and half in dark, it shows the 2 sides of freedom of speech. Sometimes it can be good, but other times people can take it too far. That might be what it means to you, it might not, just take a minute to look at the photo and think about what it suggests to you personally.

I took the photo using natural window light with my Canon 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro lens and edited in Photoshop. The editing I did was a channel mixer layer to get high contrast B&W, and a hue/saturation layer to tint it sepia. I then did a slight dodge on the teeth and burn on the right side of the face to make it darker. Hope you enjoy this little deviation from my norm :)
-Ben
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Not the best photo but it had to be done! This is the view from my bedroom in my flat at Uni. Don't ask what any of the buildings are, I have no idea! Oh yeh, and the moon's obviously fake!

I apologise for not making many comments on other PaDs lately, I've had a busy week in uni, editing my film etc. I used my Canon 75-300mm lens for the moon photo at around this time last year, but the scene was taken with my Canon 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro lens.

The scene originally had the traditional night-shot orange cast, but I changed it to blue because... well, I like blue :P
-Ben
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Recognise another theme developing yet? :) I took this walking home from uni and tried to mix foreground elements and background elements, so that the photo has 2 distinct halves of interest.

Same camera and stuff as yesterday, and similar post processing, except I used a blue tint instead of a sepia one, to represent the fact that today was much colder than yesterday!

I'm not in Uni again till Monday, so you should get a different type of photo tomorrow, hehe :)
-Ben
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Is it blue? Is it an abstract? OMGLOLWTF?!

This is a classic photo view of the Clifton Suspension Bridge over the River Avon in Bristol. I bet you can't guess what lens I took it with!? WRONG! Hehe :) I didn't even take this with my 300D. I took it walking home from Uni with my teeny-weeny Sony DSC-T1 - a very nifty little camera :)

In post processing I made it sepia, then faded the sepia, to give it a slightly tinted colour version. I then moved the bird to a more appealing position in the sky, added some grain, and did a little dodge/burn just for shits and giggles :)

I hope you enjoy my ventures into the unknown with this non-blue non-abstract PaD entry! :)
-Ben
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Do not adjust your monitors, no need to panic, this photo is, in fact, green!

It's green, but it's still abstract. I thought the mix of green and yellow and blue in this shot was very appealing. I like how the out of focus parts of the metal still have their lines. I took this with my Canon 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro again, which won't really be a surprise to anyone!

I'm a bit later posting my PaD than usual because I slept in today, oops! And I had things to do before I spooted my camera and remembered to do PaD! It was easy when I was at home but now I'm away at Uni I can see it being much more difficult to get done!
-Ben
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Most of my PaDs so far have had minimal editing, but I thought I would try some experiments with layering and "graphic-designy" type edits.

I took this photo of a spring, and applied the cut out filter in Photoshop a number of times on different layers. I then varied the opacities and blending modes on each layer.

The result is a photo made entirely of curves, transformed into one with areas of colour separated by hard lines. I then added a border in the same style. It's not my normal "thing" but I still quite like the effect. PaD is meant to be about experimentation anyway, otherwise it would be boring!

Oh... and it's blue :P
-Ben
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Hehe, you'll never guess this one! I think you've all noticed my blue theme now, but it could be coming to an end. I go back to university later today, and in the big city of Bristol there are lots more opportunities for photos than the small town where I live now, so I might try and add a bit more variety to my PaD shots. On the other hand, I might not, so you'll just have to keep checking back! :P

Taken with my Canon 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro lens, this shot is a study in shape and light. As you can see, there is hardly anything in focus, just the single line, which is the only straight line in the photo, which is just to add a focal point.

Okay I'd better go and start packing. I'm not sure if Hello will work over the Uni proxy, or if my internet will be set up at all, so if I don't post in the next few days, don't worry, I'm still working on my PaD, but I'll just get them all online at some other time :)
-Ben
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I was a bit rushed for time today, so this obviously isn't the best PaD I've done, but I still quite like it. I took it later than I usually do so I had to bump up the ISO since there wasn't as much ambiant light, and the light from my monitor just wasn't enough, so there's quite a bit of noise.

Same technique as usual, just a different subject this time. It's obviously a drop of water on a tin of food, but see if you can guess what is inside the tin! Hehe, you'll probably never get it but hey! :P

Yesterday's object seemed to stump you too! It was actually the packaging from a box of chocolates, you know, the vacuum formed plastic bit that they all sit in? It was lit from behind, which gave all sorts of cool translucent effects. I really liked it :) Have a good weekend everyone!
-Ben
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Looks like I made it too hard yesterday! I think the closest was JP when he said a decorative blob at the edge of a plate - it was actually a decorative blob underneath a drinking glass! Well, maybe today will be a bit easier? See if you can guess this one! :)

My "Kill The Crazy Frog" contest was won by Emily with her photo of loads of sleeping pills! This is a good idea because even if they don't kill it, they'll knock it out long enough for me to execute (see the pun there?) suemack's idea of getting it sucked into a jet engine! Messy... I like it! Hehe :)

I don't think I need to bother telling you what lens I used to take this shot, I'm sure you've spotted the pattern by now! The lighting technique won't surprise you either! Backlit from my computer monitor, ooo, original! Well, hope you enjoy today's addition to my PaD, it's blue! :)
-Ben
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Back to my abstracts today! It won't surprise you to learn that I used my Canon 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro lens for this shot either! I thought I'd stick to the blue theme as well, but add some hints of purple and red, just to shot that my camera can actually detect other colours too :)

Well, let's see who can guess today's object! I think it's the hardest one yet! But maybe you'll all surprise me again! I hope some of you are still thinking up ways to kill the frog in yesterday's photo, and it would be great to see some photos of your chosen methods!

At the end of the month I am going to choose some of my best PaD shots to put onto DPCPrints.com to see if anyone will buy them! Might as well try and get a little bit of cash for my efforts :) Anyway, hope you all have a good day today! Don't worry those of you at work, it's almost the weekend! Yay!
-Ben
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Bading ding ding ding diiiiiing!

Anyone from the UK will recognise this little fella! It's the Crazy Frog! The most annoying sound/ringtone/pop song ever conceived! I didn't want to resort to taking photos of toys so soon in my PaD carreer, but it belongs to my Nan, and she's going home later today, so this was my only chance!

So, not an abstract today, but still blue all the same :) Instead of trying to guess what it is, your challenge for today is to come up with the best way you can to kill, that's right, KILL, the Crazy Frog. You can then use your chosen method for your theme for your PaD tomorrow if you like! The best photo, or best idea if there are no photos entered, wins a special mention in my PaD for Friday, along with God-like status in the UK for killing the damn thing :) You don't have to include the frog in your photo, as that would be spreading his smug little face even further over the internet, just the method of death :) Be creative and be extreme, and don't be shy using PhotoShop! :)

This photo was taken with my Canon 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro lens yet again, against a blue background using natural light. I thought the background looked a bit rubbish though, so I cut him out and placed him on a cloud background which I took for my PaD last year. Maybe cheating? But I don't care, it's my PaD and I'll do what I want, hehe :)

Anyway, I hope posting a Crazy Frog photo doesn't make you want to kill me. Please? :P
-Ben
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Since the blog and PaD thing can also be used for documenting events, I thought I would go with that kind of idea for today's shot. Now now, don't worry, it's still blue(ish) and abstract(ish), but a bit more minimalistic today :)

For todays challenge, you have to guess both the object, and the story behind it. I'll give you a clue - I wasn't a happy bunny! Grrr! Oh well, at least it gave me something to photograph! :P

I took this shot using natural light on an overcast day (what else in England?) to avoid harsh shadows. I used my trusty Canon 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro lens yet again, to hide the details that might give the object away.

I really do like the soft lines and gradients in this shot, and I hope you do too! Until tomorrow, au revoir, as they say in France! (Not a clue, sorry!)
-Ben
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Yesterday's photo seemed to be a success, thanks everyone for your comments! I thought I would go along the same sort of lines for todays photo too. Why mess with a winning formula? :) So I present to you another blue abstract!

It might be harder to guess today! It is actually 6 photos that I merged into one to make it more interesting. In each exposure, I focussed on a slightly different place on the object, from a slightly different angle, just for a bit of variety. I wonder if anyone knows what it is?

In Photoshop, I just placed all the exposures on different layers, and set them all to "Lighten" blending mode. Since they all had a black background, only the subject of the photo comes through, so it saves me having to cut each one out on its own! It also feathers the darker bits automatically which is what I wanted in this photo :)

Everyone's made a great start to this year's Photo a Day project, so let's hope we can all continue!
-Ben
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Happy new year everyone! I thought I would start my 2006 Photo a Day project with a nice blue abstract shot, one of my favourite types of photo. I know it may not be to everyone's taste but I really like it. Can you guess what it is yet?

I used my Canon 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro lens to take the shot, with my computor monitor for lighting. It's a technique I seem to be using quite a lot lately because I really am a fan of vibrant colours and shapes.

You might have been expecting some kind of fireworks photo, or a photo of alcohol etc from last night/this morning, but I didn't take my camera to the party in the pub I went to, because I've only just got it fixed and I'm scared of it breaking again!!

If you still haven't guessed what it is, well, it doesn't really matter, because that's the point in an abstract! It's not about the object, but about the shapes and colours. If you really want to know, ask me using one of the contact methods listed on the right of this page. Anyway, hope you all have a fantastic new year, and good luck keeping all those New Year Resolutions!
-Ben
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