Where to crop?

During a visit to Birdoswald Roman Fort near Gilsland in Cumbria, I found this little lamb resting between some remains. This is the extent of the original picture and as you can see there is a lot of space around the lamb as well as the slightly distracting background.

The immediate idea to improve this shot was to crop out the distracting background whilst maintaining enough of the remains as possible to add to the interest of the shot. However, are the stones in the foreground now too distracting? Possibly. I posted the image below on Flickr and the main point of the comments it received were in regards to the crop.

So which is a better crop?

The last crop was suggested by louisahennessyvikinghorns and brings the lamb more into the frame.

Photography is certainly subjective, all three crops above have their merits and if I ran a poll, there'd probably be votes for each one. Of course there are other questions regarding this shot that I'll answer. The shot was taken at 55mm on my 18-55mm lens, so I couldn't have taken a tighter picture. Had I moved in closer, it would have probably got up and legged it and I'd have missed a shot, so I got the best picture I could and this left me with a quandry of how to crop.

The Weather

So my shiny new camera arrived, charged up the battery and the heavens opened :(

I had to wait another day before going out and about and I would like to say it was worth the wait, but the weather again ruined everything, well almost. It was cold and rain was threatining, but the sun managed to poke through the clouds, just! Bamburgh will have to be re-visited when the conditions are kinder.

The image above was taken on my 400D and the colour curve manipulated to bring out the detail in the clouds.

Can't see the sea for the penguins

I put up one of my favourite penguin pictures for critique on the T189 May discussion forum and a few pointers were thrown my way, all of which I had not noticed, least of all the wonky horizon.

This is the original picture and the suggestions were to tone down the brightness and straighten the horizon.

Using Photoshop Elements, I hope I achieved a decent result...

New Camera!

I have just ordered my new camera to replace my EOS 500n. By chance I found Canon Outlet on eBay, who sell refurbished kit - printers, scanners, lenses and cameras with a warranty. I managed to pick up an EOS 400D with the standard 18-55mm lens for £300 inc postage. As soon as I have received and figured it all out, I'll post an image or two here.

Welcome to my blog! Over the next few months I will be taking part in the Open University Digital photography: creating and sharing better images course (T189) and as I go, I will be posting some pictures on here along with some comments.


This picture was taken on the causeway heading to Holy Island at Lindisfarne last Friday. The weather was pretty miserable for sight seeing, but for dramatic photographs, it was spot on. The castle n the background is Bamburgh Castle.