Magic moments

Dare I say it but I think I may just be improving at this photography game. And I'm not basing that on my own opinion although I have had a few moments where I've glanced at a photo and thought "Cor blimey Bird! Nice pic!". I've been flattered and surprised by lovely comments from friends, family, strangers, Flickr and Twitter chums as well as my brother, whose camera I borrowed, all applauding some of the photos I've taken so far in my journey learning more about photography.

However, despite everything I've learnt and achieved sticking to the most essential rules of photography, some of my favourite photographs are actually ones that due to my still amateur status blurred the rules a little.

Like this photo taken on a busy street on the outskirts of China town in Jakarta.It is clearly (very) overexposed but it captured a moment exactly how I wanted to capture it. In other words, my motivation to take the photograph was less to recreate a pretty scene through spot-on settings and composition, it was much more about capturing the complete focus and utter absorption of these men in their chess game. The bright light and blurred traffic that shouldn't surround them but does because my camera settings were off actually ends up focusing attention on the very moment I wanted to capture. It was pure accident, but I'm starting to learn that not very often, but sometimes photography can capture, or create, truly magic moments even by accident.

Another similar example is this photo taken in a Buddhist temple, also in Jakarta, where the movement of the praying worshippers was too quick for my shutter settings, yet the effect of this movement blurred by my slow shutter speed accurately captured the almost ethereal and serene haze inside the temple created by clouds of incense and hundreds of burning candles. I know that I have a long, long way to go yet before I sit back, relax and remove the "amateur" prefix to photographer from my blogger profile, but I wanted to send a big thank you to those who have taken the time to comment with invaluable advice, tips and encouragement. Without any doubt it is the personal experience of others that has been shared with me that I have learnt most from. That and shooting in black and white, funnily enough.In fact, I wrote a guest post on TravMonkey specifically about what I've learnt switching to black and white film so head over there to read it. You can also see one of my sunset photos from Koh Lanta on Travel Dudes website.

As I'm now (fairly) comfortable in Manual settings as opposed to Auto, I'm switching my focus (was that my first photography pun!?) to improving composition and practising shooting with a shallower depth of field so any tips to help with these would be very welcome! However, a beg really wasn't the aim of this post it was to say thank you and to encourage anyone who may be thinking about pursuing photography a little deeper to do so.

Go on, do it! There are some truly magic moments out there to be enjoyed and captured...