Tuesday 17 March 2015

10 Minute Topic - Using my camera phone to get back into enjoying photography again

Well, I appear to have done my usual thing of starting strong, and then just not followed through. My idea of a 10 minute topic post every week is now missing quite a few weeks. But I'm not going to get annoyed with myself, or just throw things up in the air in resignation. I'm just going to carry on.

Now, what to write about...

I have not shown my photo blog any love for quite some time now. I think the two main reasons are that I have been slack with blogging all round. Also, I have not been seeking photo opportunities as the only digital camera I had was the one on my HTC One M7, which was deteriorating with each picture (possibly due to the number of times I dropped the poor thing!).

London Winter Skyline as Seen Through My HTC One M7

I have recently upgraded my phone to the HTC One M8. And I have to say, I am starting to enjoy photography again. The ultrapixel camera doesn't have the highest number of megapixies in its class. Despite that, it reviewed well, and I have been pleased with some of the pictures I have taken so far.

The more pictures I take with the M8, the more I think I should learn to take better quality pictures with my phone. It is, after all, the camera that I take with me everywhere nowadays. One way to take more pictures is to have a project. Having moved to a new build estate in St. Neots recently, I thought I would take a photo-a-day type thing covering the houses that are going up down the road from me. They are going up so fast, so there should interesting changes every day. Through taking more photos and looking at them I hope to improve my composition, subject matter, and even dabble in some post processing.
 Pic # 001: The Building Site in St. Neots Near My House

Here is the first picture. The trained eye will see loads wrong with it, but one has to start somewhere.
The composition of the picture is uninspiring, the colours are a bit drab, and there isn't anything in it to grab the viewer's attention. As I get more into this project, I will hopefully take some much, much better pictures.

For now, I am at the end of my 10 minutes and so need to wind up the post. All that is left now is editing, adding the pictures I've referenced in the post, and publishing.