All of the images are © Dave Ayres

Please don't use them without my prior permission - Thanks

That is it … 2011 is officially over and 2012 lays out before us – very poetic (yea right). Part of New Year’s Eve was spent in the rain in Yorkshire, however I could run back to a warm fire unlike this chap and friends. Then again they are better dressed for the weather.

I had also better come up with a way of organising these blog posts - or delete the older ones - the page is getting rather long.

I hope that 2012 is more than just another revolution around the sun for you ….

The majority of my blog posts are aimed at giving you a diversion from some of the way to serious stuff that clever people write about. This one delves in to the technicalities of photography a bit more than normal and is based on the work I’ve been doing over the past few days.

If you want to get deeper in to the technicalities of Tilt and Shift lenses, which is what I’ve been using then there is a great article written by David Summerhayes on the Luminous Landscape web site. Essentially what a T&S lens does is give you the ability to alter the visual reality so that things look more normal or totally weird.

If you look at just about any modern camera you will see that the lens of the camera is parallel with the back of the camera, where the film once went and now there is a sensor. In the majority of cases this is exactly what we want, even if it does have a few flaws.

Our brain does an amazing job processing the images of the things around us and laying them out so that we can make sense of them. The best example is perhaps that buildings look to be straight and upright when optically they are leaning towards the centre of where we are looking. We know the buildings are actually upright so our brain corrects what we see so that it looks right in our head. That is why Saint Wulfram’s church appears to be leaning backwards in the images lower down on this page. The camera doesn’t normally compensate for this effect and shows us how it actually looks, rather than the brain processed version we are use to.

Enter Theodor Scheimpflug (1865-1911) a rather smart Austrian whose theories have resulted in Tilt and Shift lenses which give the ability to alter angle between the back of the camera and the lens at the front. This allows a photographer to compensate for the natural convergence that our brain tunes out and create a photo that looks the same as we see things.

Now photographers, being an odd collective of folks who go wandering about the place muttering about depth of field, parallax, F stops and alike were never going to just use this reality twisting gizmo for what it was intended. If we can twist reality so that it looks right we can twist it in the opposite direction so that it looks totally odd.

Imagine there is a camera on a tripod, set straight and level. Now imagine a cornflake box (any brand will do) 2 metres in front of the camera. The space inside generic brand of cornflake box represents the picture the camera will take and what will be in focus. Now lean the cornflake box over by 45 degrees the range of what will be in focus has increase (front to back) but only the space contained inside the box will be in focus. We now have an odd angled slice of reality that will be our photo.

So to the pictures … Look at the top of the lens in the first picture and you should see that the writing on the top of the lens is in focus and the writing at the bottom is out of focus. Strangely though the bottom lip of the girl holding the camera is in focus. I put so much tilt in this image that the cornflake box is about 30 degrees from horizontal.

The second photo is High Marnham power station in Lincolnshire. This is what Tilt and Shift lenses were designed for. All of the uprights are upright and the depth of field is greatly enhanced to the point where depth of field blur is also removed completely.

Did you read it all? I commend your perseverance. I promise to be more irrelevant in future. Here’s to 2012 ….

I read somewhere that being a photographer is 50% interaction with people, 40% administration and 10% actually taking photos.

Not sure that is exactly right however after today I think the 40% might be.

Sorting through the gigabytes and gigabytes of images, I came across these from the summer. Saint Wulframs was having an open day - the kids had a go at campanology on their simulator – my oldest got the hang of it so well, they let him have a crack at one of the real bells and while he was ringing out to the whole of Grantham, I had a quick trip around the top of the spire … and they say that Lincolnshire is flat !

The variety of assignments always keeps me fascinated. This week I’ve been everywhere from pots of jam and an online catalogue through to the words of Isaac Newton projected on a wall and an awards dinner.

The awards dinner did look like excellent fun. The people were really getting in to the spirit of the evening. Rather than the traditional “this person sold the most” the company values the real things that make a difference at work - the Receptionists winning the award for customer care for example. Fitting the 5 ladies in the Reception team in to a space setup for 2 perhaps 3 at the most was a challenge. In the end they found a interesting solution.

Product photography needs a real eye for detail. Even the most obsessed person doesn’t perhaps wonder if the spacing on the jars is even, when putting them away – I all but had the tape measure out ... Castle Products by the way – Check them out. Their web site coming soon, I’m told. The mice pies and Christmas pudding were just out of the oven and I was that close to them - however after we had finished with them they ended up in the bin.

First thing off to Lincoln for some Christmas Market photos and met Alan Smith from the Gelder Group who kindly let me photograph Saint Michael on the Mount, a small church at the top of Steep Hill that is now being converted into a hotel for visiting church dignitaries.

After an hour there it was off to the Christmas Market to be met by some officialdom that couldn’t let me in. Did what I could around the outside and with the other stall holders and of course, the Ferris Wheel.

Back in the car to Belton House, hoping all the way that the light will hold. There is a excellent program I use called the Photographer Ephemeris, which tells me when the sun will be in a certain location and at 1pm today it was going to shine directly on the front door of Belton House. Those images you can see by clicking here.

Last on the list today was some head shots. This was one of the test shots. The picture was taken by my daughter. I’ll go make the tea then ….

Tonight, the objective was to capture images of the town hall which is covered in seasonal lighting. However working in between the people hanging around, the taxis, the cars waiting to pick people up and then factor in the breeze blowing the lights around – it just didn’t come together. Another attempt later in the week perhaps.

So as I had my camera and just because I could ... off to Saint Wulframs Church on the other side of the town . It is difficult to blow a 13th Century church around even if it does have a 282 foot spire and getting all of it in to the shot can be an interesting challenge.

The other image from tonight is of one of the adjacent buildings. The exposure is long (took a long time to take) and to light the grave stones I was running in to the shot with a flash gun and then running out again. It is all art - hope you like them.

Spend any time in New Zealand and you will hear someone say “Build a bridge and get over it”. Having lived there for a few years the saying came to mind when I was asked for an image that depicted two differing opinions finding a way to work together.

The idea behind turning the image Black and White was to show the two different sides. It works for me, then again perhaps you had to be there to get the context.

They went for the hand shake over the tea pot – A bit more traditional and I got to drink the tea too.

Officially Belton House near Grantham was closed today which made the job of photographing the deer a little easier. They are still skittish even though the rutting season is now over. Autumn provides some of the most engaging colours for photographing even if it does mean cramming a lot of things in to the 3 or 4 hours of decent daylight that is available – assuming of course it isn’t raining.

Today was, to quote Wallace ... "Cracking". Sunshine, grounds to but to myself, autumn colours and enough deer to give a variety of shots. The Gent in the last shot has the best view, but it has to be a tough job in winter months :-)

The habit of wandering into places because the light is striking something in an eye catching way and asking if I may start taking photos, will one day get me in to trouble. In the meanwhile I get to meet some exciting and passionate people in different walks of life. Earlier this week I wandered in to Unveiled by Leanne, once again I was following the light and this time how it was striking an impressive array of wedding dresses.

Kindly Leanne didn’t throw me out of the shop and allowed me to spend 20 minutes photographing while Leanne and her colleague were working on the Bath Bomb display (I had no idea what a Bath Bomb was until then).

I think this is why still get excited about photography. I find it enthralling what can be done with light - a shadow here - a reflection there …

Introductions are in order. Up top is Lou Hudson from BestofGrantham, an excellent web site that promotes businesses in and around Grantham. Rather than just being a directory, it works on referrals and “best of” recommendations.

Lou needed to update her social media shots and as it was freezing here today, we used the Eden wine bar in the Market Square rather than brave the elements, hence the 3 bottles of red which I should point out we didn’t drink.

The shoes in the middle come from work earlier in the day at Unveiled by Leanne. I’m still working my way through these photographs, however to quote my daughter, “oooh shoes”.

Back to work …

I need to do more yoga (Yea …. Right). Balancing on one leg while holding a flash gun in a softbox on an extension cord in one hand and the camera in the other to get these shots must have made a few people wonder what I was trying to do.

A large thank you to the wonderful folks at The Fabric Warehouse in Grantham for allowing me to photograph in their massive store.

I really didn’t think today was going to happen. It was suppose to be a morning shoot capturing deer in the soft morning light and a little mist would have made that perfect. However dense fog stopped any of that from happening. The afternoon looked better but when I arrived, the difference in temperature between a built up warm town and a sparse cold field was enough to have the mist hanging in the air. Happily the mist acted as a large diffuser and the deer where in a very casual frame of mind.

End result – I managed to get a collection of 12 images that match the brief. Here is one of the ones that didn’t make the final cut – I still like it though.

Wake up, climb out of bed, get your photo taken, look this good. If only ...

Rumour has it, mornings without coffee can make the world appear to be like this. I think I'll give that a miss.

Sir Isaac - very smart cookie - catching a little winter sun as he stands in Grantham. You can visit the famous tree at Woolsthorpe Manor

There is nothing on TV again ... Shall I go and tease the fish ?

Never work with Children and animals or so the advice for actors goes. I think I'll carry on ignoring that advice.

Remembrance Day is a day of mixed emotions. The need for such a day is very sad, however accepting that we do, it is heart warming to see so many people remembering the sacrifice of others.

Ever wondered who is on the end of a twitter account? Me too, so I went to the Newark Job Fair to meet the lady behind Phruit's twitter account (top). Cllr Keith Girling (Newark) and the nice lady from Adecco.

Wear yours with pride!

Birth place of Lady Margaret Thatcher and home to the Kings School, which has Sir Isaac Newton on its list of "old boys" (...and where I live, Grantham that is. Not the school)

The advert read ... Canal Open Day. I was perplexed, how do you close a canal so you can have an "open" day?