Autumn is here, and the leaves are turning. Some leaves, though, are red all the time. Specifically, the Copper Beech in my garden. I noticed today, as the sun sat low in the Autumnal morning sky, that the light shining through the bright red of the leaves caused interesting shadows and shapes to form between them. Shooting at maximum zoom (15x, or 480mm equiv) I shot directly into the sun, completely blowing out the sky and everything behind. Little tweak of the curves to bring out the red and remove some annoying purple fringing, and we have today's picture of the day.
Street lights at night can be very pretty. For someone who lives close to the centre of a large city, skirting round the edge of the town centre can provide a host of beautiful views at night. One advantage to using a wide open lens when taking these pictures is the capture of bokeh, or creative blur. An extreme example is shown to your right; a mass of coloured circles that roughly represent the city they are part of. A more subtle example, of course, is in the picture of the day at the top of this post. The lights cluster around the top of the leaves like fireflies, obviously part of a cityscape but at the same time abstract. The extreme out of focus image is a blurred version of the picture on the left. A view over Sheffield from Pitsmoor, looking up Netherthorpe Road and up to the university. Even when the buildings are focussed (roughly; I'm still practicing) the lights take on the shape of the lens's aperture. I try to incorporate some foreground focus wh...

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