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AGFA £1 film (poundland)

Olympus OM-10

Defying my Photography OCD

A thought...

There is so much competition between photographers in capturing the most perfect composed & technically correct image that theres oppotunities missed.

I've learnt a lot during my short time studying photography and whilst composing my images , that I know what technically makes a great image but sometimes when you see something so beautiful whether it be a stunning landscape or what you may think has the potential to be a perfect portrait but you might be unable to flawlessly get it right in the camera because somebody else might be in the shot (accidental photobomb) or maybe theres one leaf too many in the autumnal picture you want , you should press the shutter anyway!

''Sometimes I arrive just when God's ready to have somone click the shutter.” 

- Ansel Adams

what inspired this little rant you ask? 

 They did :)

Because , I am so in love with the colours in both of the photographs. These were taken with film , no photoshop has been used to enhance the colours at all. One of my favourite things ever is sunsets and sunrises. I have such an adoration for them and I was so excited seeing these two prints from processing. However they are not perfect , not technicially at all. The crop isn't wonderful , there are tree's where I wouldn't particularly want in the shot if I were to reshoot but I'm actually happy that I ignored my photography OCD (believe me that's a thing) and I snapped away anyway.

 When I got my OM-10 I found this on pinterest , the '10 golden rules' and number #6 is one of my favouties which relates to what I'm trying to say. Sometimes , just stop thinking and take the photo.

-Ella-

Found Film

Finally found my lost film roll! which was actually the second roll of film that I shot using my Olympus om-10 , it's an expired Tesco roll (tesco branded). These are my favourite shots. I'm constantly improving my photography and I think even from my second to third roll I can see improvement. 

Camera: Olympus OM-10

Film: Expired Tesco Colour 400

Trending ...slowly...but surely

First I'll start by saying , I publish my photographs everywhere as you guys have surely noticed. I have accounts on over 5 various websites where I publish my work in which I always upload consistently. Why? because I am super determined I can't emphasise just how determined I am. There are so many 'photographers' out there and more and more keep cropping up which means there is always a lot of 'competition'. I do not want to spend my life being a wedding photographer. I just don't. I have higher goals than that, I want my work exhibited in galleries. It doesn't bother me that it might take a lifetime to achieve that goal , I'm all up for putting the work in because I adore what I do. 

Okay so I get the fact I'll never be the next David Bailey but there's no reason why I can't push myself as much as I can and always always always shoot.

Where can you find my work online?

Instagram

500px

Flickr

Pinterest

Tumblr

Lomography.com

The past few weeks my work has started to get more 'likes' 'reblogs' 'favourites' 're-pins' and '+1's' which is so exciting to see! I mentioned not long ago that one of my expired film shots reached 11,580 views and over 150 favourites which is the most I've ever reached!

Today I've been spending time uploading to Lomography and within the hour one of my photo's was second on the trending section of the site!

I want to thank everyone over the past 2/3 years who have said such kind and encouraging words about my work and to those who take the time to read my blog posts , like & share everything because it means so much.

-Ella-

Darkroom Day

Today I spent approximately 5 hours in the Darkroom . 5 hours. Of course if you've never worked in a darkroom before then that probably wouldn't seem like a long time. Even longer if you aren't the only person in there. There is nothing more stressful to a photography student (working traditionally) than being in a darkroom with other people who aren't being considerate or just simply have no idea what they are doing...

1. please please please LOWER THE BRIGHTNESS of your enlarger light if you are going to remove the negative carrier! (doing so stops other peoples paper being unintentionally exposed and reduces risk of blindness ha)

2. when you remove your print from the developing tray please be considerate and recognise the fact there may be someone stood behind you so don't flick it everywhere because that launches drops of developer which permanently stains clothes. just stop.

3. My goodness. If you place a print the size of Asia into the developing tray when other people also have prints in their please for the love of elephants don't let it float all over other peoples prints, this will ruin other people prints & possibly yours.

Think that's about it where my ranting is concerned...so here's my favourite's from today.

-Ella-

New York Postcard

NEW YORK CITY POSTCARD TWO

-Ella-

New York Postcard

NEW YORK CITY POSTCARD

I love going back on my NYC photographs and re editing them in different ways with new techniques I learn, such as photo montage and as photo montage is a technique I've started to use for one of my college projects I thought I'd give a practice go on some older photo's so I used one of my street documentary style shots with a scanned image from a page from my NYC sketchbook. It's a little different but that's what I like! :) thoughts & opinions are always welcome.

-Ella-


(Blogger seems to of altered the quality of this image on here so for a higher quality version click here)

Polaroid 1

Here is a photograph of mine that I took last year featuring my friend Mary. I had spent the weekend at her house and had received my instax wide in the mail just before going so I took it with me in preparation to take my first 'polaroid'. I took over 40 'polaroid' photographs for a college project which will soon be shown on here but first I thought I'd post this. The polaroid Mary is holding is the first one I took from my series. 

Follow my blog Here on bloglovin' to keep up with blog posts.

-Ella-

Dad's film camera , OM1

Spending some time going over my older digital photographs and playing around editing them as I've recently been focusing on taking photo's using my OM10. Here's a photograph I took of my dad's film camera in 2013.

-Ella-

In the trees

Olympus om10

AGFA expired film (200)

Negative Landscape

Olympus om10

AGFA 200 (expired)

Landscape

Olympus om10

AGFA 200 (expired film)

Bitterness in the arts

''It's the person behind the camera that makes the photograph, the camera is just an extension of the photographers ego''

This is a quote I came across on Facebook recently and it really made me think about photography and also the people behind the camera. There can be such a bitter competition between people where their art is concerned whether that's because of the equipment used or just because and it's completely unnecessary. Art is something that is generated from you. From your thoughts, your passions, your feelings, it should be unique to you. Even if you have the most expensive paintbrush in the world , does not mean your painting will be any more magnificent than a painting created with tied up straw. 

In addition

Just because you use the same medium as them does not mean you are in competition. Everybody is entitled to have their own quirks and to flaunt that within their work, it doesn't make you any better because your equipment is more expensive than theirs. It doesn't make you any better or any worse. 

what I'm trying to say is...

Encourage others , encourage their work, admire it and they will often return the favour. 

Also, just because you have more advantages does NOT mean you are better so don't discourage people just to enhance your ego.

-Ella- 

Orlando, Roll 1

My first roll shooting with Orlando

In my last post I talked briefly about my new camera, the Olympus om10 and I finished my first roll about a week ago and just today got it processed and I'm unbelievably excited with the results considering my first roll was getting used to the camera also I wasn't sure how the photo's would turn out because I was using expired film. It's safe to say I'm definitely using expired film again, I'm obsessed already!

Here's some of my shots! Keep checking out my blog for more photo's :)

Only basic editing used i.e. cropping & adding watermark.

-Ella-

Tumblr & Watermarking.

So I've decided to create a tumblr blog for my photography where I'll be posting my images as often as possible. obviously it's a bit bare looking at the moment as I only decided to create one this morning so I'll post a link up soon once I've uploaded more content So if your interested in solely looking through my images rather than reading through the blog posts then you can check it out soon.

 Also I've been thinking for a while now about having my own watermark for my images to protect them that little bit further so I spent some time on making one this morning which you will start to see in my images. I looked around on Etsy as people have businesses of creating watermarks however I thought surely there's a simple and easy free way to do it and to have it exactly how I want, so I searched on google and found this page here: Create your free watermark

Which tells you step by step on how to make your own which was really fun to do because you can experiment with it in any way you'd like.

As I was looking through some of my older photographs I stumbled across this :

On my flickr account and thought I'd upload it here and talk about it a little.

I took this with my Canon 600D whilst I was sat in the back of the car on a journey to see a relative. It was raining and at the time I was really intrigued with images taken in this kind of situation (shooting whilst in a moving vehicle). So I was playing around with my manual settings on my camera and took this , once I had taken it I went into settings on the camera and put a black & white grain filter on it and voila!

What I was really pleased with about this photo is the eerie atmosphere it has. It looks very ghost like and mysterious and it can also be thought provoking. I love that this kind of work is so opinionated too so...

What do you think?

-Ella-

Changing & Improving

My photography is constantly changing, I'm always working on new techniques and shooting in different ways, focusing on different genres and it's great, I love it. I love that one day I'll be working on portraits and the next I'll be working on still life or nature shots. The best way to figure out what you are good at is by trying different things so don't be afraid to reach out of your comfort zone!.

Also , I have recently created an account on 500px as I have started using Flickr less, so check it out here;

500px.com/ellamcquoid

-Ella-

New York State Of Mind

I've been so busy recently with projects in college and trying to meet deadlines that I've been neglecting my blog so I apologise !

Recently I've been experimenting more with double exposure images and I've also re discovered my love for black and white images. So you'll probably notice more and more black & white photograph's as I write & shoot more.

''When you photograph people in colour, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in Black and white, you photograph their souls''- Ted Grant

One of my favourite photo related quotes.

Photograph of Danny layered with another one of my images, from New York City.

-Ella-

Pressed Light

ƒ/4.5

1/60

ISO:125

Here's another one of my images for a current project of mine called 'Light & Time'. There was a perfect glimpse of light shining through my window so I decided to make the most of it by placing different objects , that to me represent time (& possibly light) , directly underneath. I decided to put down a pressed flower of mine which has aged because to me it symbolises time and how time ages & changes things in different ways. 

I leaned the rose against the book spine to elevate it slightly to create the shadows underneath the flower to create more depth.

-Ella-

Alistair Grimley Photography

Alistair is an A-Level student currently studying photography, He is really talented at what he does and I suggest you check his work out. I follow his work on his blog and also on flickr and I have been amazed at the quality of each photograph. 

His work is documentary style with each image telling a story. As a photographer myself it's always great looking at other peoples work , it's great seeing so many different variety's of photography and seeing something in a way in which they see it. So I encourage you to check out his work. 

So here's the link to his blog: alistairgrimleyphotography.blogspot.co.uk 

One of Alistair Grimley's images.

-Ella-

Light & Time

Light & Time , what a perfectly titled project now that it's Autumn!.

 My favourite thing about this time of the year is the light (especially when it's highlighting all of the beautiful coloured leaves that quickly surround us). It's my favourite time of year to photograph so here are some of my image's from this exciting new project.

ƒ/5.0

1/60

ISO:100

ƒ/5.0

1/60

ISO:100

                              

ƒ/4.5

1/60

ISO:125

You might be thinking that these photograph's are all a bit 'mismatched' and you'd be right in thinking so. My first shoot for this project I decided to photograph various things that relate to both or either Light & Time and that may be the only link between the different photographs but that's the only link they really need. 

Photograph 1:

An image of my hand with a stroke of light. In this image my hand represents the element of time. With time my hand will age.

Photograph 2: 

Time being Autumn in this case, the leaf has fallen because its that 'time' of the year. Taken on the window shelf directly facing the light.

Photograph 3:

An image of an instant photograph capturing a moment of light 'in an instant'.

-Ella-