A Prize Every Time...

Salisbury's Charter Fair is back, for its usual three days in October, in the Market Square.

I timed my visit with the local camera club's annual practical session, where I meet up with members that I know and in the pub afterwards, ones I don't.

Unfortunately, I only saw two proper photographers, adorned with tripods and expensive looking cameras, neither which I knew. I went to the pub where we have met up in the past but it was as dead as a dodo, so I have returned home disappointed, a bit angry and somewhat feeling empty inside.

Never mind - I'm going to be blipping the Fair for the time it's running as it is such a great source of colourful vibrant picture possibilities.

I no longer use a tripod there - this is handheld (1/3rd of a second and not a vibration reducing lens), as it is so busy with moving bustling people that a tripod is a real nuisance and frankly not fair to the majority of punters wanting to enjoy themselves. I was constantly being bumped into, which got quite annoying, imagine if that were a tripod leg!

One of the tripod users had his set up on the flanks of one of the rides - if he had put his foot on it too, he would have found out just how much that it vibrates - he's probably wondering now how his couple of grand box of tricks could possibly take such unsharp photos...

For such shots, always set the camera to M, manual. Find your exposure and stick to it. Where a controlled amount of movement is required, set the shutter speed accordingly and alter the aperture and iso to change the brightness/darkness. Flashing and moving lights will play havoc with your light meter and you almost always get a variable and wrong exposure if you leave it on any form of automatic.

This may look like a Merry-Go-Round but it in fact just a kiddy's ride - it's a double decker bus in the foreground. Try to fill all areas of the frame with colour but always have some of it sharp, unless you are going for something expressive and arty.

As I left, I put the lens cap back on, only to find that I had been shooting with a polariser - and not even noticed! Doh!! That cuts two stops of light...

Look LARGE, via the 'L' key.

I have been doing the final decorating touches, reaching high above my head, whilst on stepladders, to the top of the stairway. The Big Edit for the Music Awards has also been going on most of the day - once again, I tired beyond comfort and may have to cut back on commenting on journals this evening.

Lens is Nikkor 10-24mm.

Day 1 of last year's Fair

I was nicely surprised how popular the simple portrait of my friend Jonny, of yesterday, was - it reached quite high in the Spotlights. He will be pleased too - he is one of my Blip fans.