Swedish Graduation Ceremony

Nic Taylor June 15th 2014

While visiting my wife’s family in a small town called Nödinge near Göteborg (Gothenburg), Sweden I was lucky enough to attend her cousin’s high school graduation ceremony at the opera house.

Graduating from high school is a huge thing in Sweden. For each student the day starts with a champagne breakfast at 6.30am followed by a meet up with the teachers and all the other classes at school. From here they have food with the teachers, give speeches and sing songs. After, they make their way to the boats which tour Göteborg’s river ending up at the opera house in front of thousands of family members and friends. While here they dance in front of the opera house and then board floats (trucks) which also then tour the main streets of Göteborg playing music and spraying champagne. After all of this, it’s traditional for each student to have a party with family members.

For a bystander taking photos it was an amazing event with electric atmosphere at the opera house. I can only imagine what it must be like to be a student graduating with such fantastic traditions.

Check out some of my photos from that day and leave a comment below :)

Head Shot

Nic Taylor May 7th 2014

I had some free time today so decided to experiment with a shot...

I took this selfie with my Sony A77, Carl Zeiss 24-70mm lens mounted on a tripod and triggered with my remote while I stood in the bath (so I had a tiled background).

Next came the editing. I always shoot RAW so that it gives me more control when it comes to editing. For this I mainly use Lightroom and for a few tweaks (in this case a lot) I use Photoshop. First off I adjusted the contrast, exposure, clarity and tones of the image in Lightroom then exported to Photoshop where I added a layer to make the tiles seem grubby, a layer for the blood that appears splashed along the tiles and finally a layer of out of focus blood to make it seem as though it had splattered on the camera lens.

I’m happy with the finished image. What do you think? Comment below...

Shots at Sunset
Nic Taylor April 10th 2014

For a while I've been meaning to get some decent shots of the sun setting after a beautiful

sunny day with some interesting subjects in the foreground. Earlier this week my wife and I

took a trip to Crosby beach to see Antony Gormley's Another Place art installation during a

colourful dusk. 

Check out some of my shots. 

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Sony 30mm f2.8 Macro Lens

Nic Taylor March 18th 2014

So I've finally given back the 30mm f2.8 Sony macro lens I borrowed from a mate around 2 months ago. I had originally only intended to trial the lens for a week and give it straight back.

My initial thoughts were that it was a very slow focusing lens with a very loud motor. These concerns were only short lived though as I quickly started to see some great results from the photos I was taking. It has a mainly plastic build to it making this a relatively cheap lens to buy.

Check out some of my shots using the lens and you'll be able to see why I was reluctant to give it back.

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