How exciting.  I've just been contacted by Schmap Amsterdam to advise me that one of my Amsterdam photos has been shortlisted for inclusion in the Amsterdam 2009 map.

The photo in question is one that I took for a blog entry on La Place.  I am well aware that I am no great shakes as a photographer and that many other people must be receiving similar e-mails but still.... Its given me a little buzz for the day.

Assignment 6: Blur on Purpose

I read the assignment notes for this on Flickr before the notes went up on the Souvenir Foto website; and I had a little panic.

Blur on purpose? It was like a return to the dark days of childhood photography. Handshake, cutting off people's heads - not good. How on earth would I blur on purpose without it looking like I gave the camera to a small child?

So I hit the internet, ah google, my old friend.

What I discovered was that there is a whole movement of photography dedicated to blurring on purpose. While the photographs I found were stunning, details on technique were not very forthcoming.

I did discover that it was all to do with playing around with shutter speed and aperture. Which meant I had to learn about shutter speed and aperture. Which meant that, three months after getting the camera I was finally going to have to break out the instruction manual.

Dammit.

The instruction manual was informative. It certainly told me how to set shutter speed and apperture but I still didn't understand what I was doing.

Next stop, the Digital Photography School . I read up on Shutter Speed and Appertures. Then moved on to Aperture and Shutter Priority Modes.

Now we were getting somewhere.

I had been particularly taken with a Blur on Purpose photo I had seen during my research, (now regretably lost in the internet) a black and white shot taken in Japan which showed blurred movement on a crisp background. I knew I wanted to do something like that, which would mean playing with the shutter priority mode, which blurs movement.

I took myself into the centre of Amsterdam and positioned myself on a busy cross roads. Then I just started clicking. I aimed for dense crowds and bikes. I shot at eye level and from the hip to see which came out best. I varied my shuttter speed until I found one that let in just enough light while still giving a good blur of movement, 1/20 on a very bright day.

In post-processing the black and white wasn't quite working for me though. It looked good but the bike wasn't quite right. When I had looked at the photo, the bike had seemed ethereal, almost ghostly and I wanted to play that up. So I cropped it down and layed the holga-ish effect from Picnik over the top. And it worked.

I am particularly pleased with the crispness of the shadow on the ground against the blur of the people above.

The original of the photo is in my photostream.

I missed Souvenir Foto Friday last week - shocking. Luckily I got my assignment in on time - I just didn't have enough hours in the day to post it up here.

So, without further ado I give you Assignment 5 for Souvenir Foto.

Following on from last week's assignment to shoot a letter. This week we had to shoot a word. The more advanced in the group will be doing this as a diptych, and if I had more time last week I would have tried it but I just couldn't get my head around stitching two images together. Nor was I able to find a scene with a word and an appropriate image which I could shoot as is.

For my word I chose a local grafitti artist, Laser 3.14. In a city which is best described as graffiti tolerant Laser 3.14's work is prolific throughout Amsterdam. Snappy one or two lines of what has variously been called, poetry or prophecy sprayed on temporary structures all over the City. People have taken to "collecting" shots of these phrases, cataloguing the ones they spot on the website.

This particular word comes from the phrase "Elvis versus the disdained" which is sprayed on a Salvation Army charity clothes bin near our house. I cropped it and added a boost effect from picnik to pull out the bright contrast in the colours and the variation in paint density from the spray can.

A photo of the full phrase is in my photostream.

Because X is a dichotomy of a letter. It has many meanings and interpretations. It is a spy letter, sneaking round corners, hidden in disguises.

It is a soft slide of the tongue to the teeth, Xylophone
It is religion and symbolism, Xmas, Christ on a cross
It is treasure, marking the spot, X
It is a promise, X, drawn over the heart. I cross my heart…
It is a declaration; mark an X next to the candidate of your choice
It is a negation, X, you got it wrong.
It is direction, X, North, East, South and West
It is affection, X, I kiss you, X, I miss you
It is the tipping point of a decision, X, a crossroads, which road will you take?
It is a gasp and the catch at the back of the throat, seX

This is my submission for Assignment 4 of Souvenir Foto. Simply to shoot a letter. This X was taken from directly above as I stood on the tram tracks, hoping that a tram wouldn't suddenly zip round the corner and squash me flat. Mission accomplished.