I have recently discovered that taking the same subject in varying conditions can result in some very interesting effects and many different views. Two images in different conditions can result in a very different message, even if the subject is identical.

I once heard of a person who regularly took pictures of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, every morning on their way to work. Over the year they build up a feel of the building in all seasons. Its almost like time lapse photography.

I have been starting to take regular pictures around my local village, particularly down by the river as it offers lots of opportunities for reflections (another favourite subject of mine). I am starting to gather pictures that have many different moods, changing lighting, changing weather and can sometimes look totally different.

Pictures across the changing seasons can also be interesting, possibly to be used for a calendar (watch this space!). This is another reason for always keeping your camera with you, places that you visit regularly can be wonderful for building up a portfolio, on the way to work, school or just around where you live. If it’s close to home it all gives you a chance to plan the sort of shot that you want to achieve and then get there when the weather is just right.

Here are some photographs that I have taken locally, the same shot, but looking totally different.

Whether or not to take in RAW is something that seems to draw lots of debate, or at least has in the past. A good place to start would be an explaination of what “taking in RAW” is.

RAW is a format that saves all the information recorded by the camera sensor, before any processing takes place. It can be thought of as similar to a negative in film photography. Using this file type allows you to go back afterwards and change the white balance or any other camera setting (except the aperture, ISO, shutter speed and focus, obviously) afterwards to create the effect that you want.

Not all cameras are able to take in RAW, most compacts cannot, but most DSLRs should be able to.The main disadvantage is the file size of a typical picture is many times larger than a JPEG (the file normally saved in), and you have to post process the images using special software before you can look at your pictures. So in some cases it can slow down your workload, and in cases where you don’t generally like to change your images artificially it may not be worth using RAW. However other photographers swear by the extra flexibility.

Further to my post on Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO, I thought I would cover how aperture relates to the depth of field in a photograph.

The “depth of field” in this sense relates to the part of the photograph that is in focus, foreground, mid ground, background or a combination of all of these. Physics makes it impossible to have everything in focus at the same time. But different lenses and apertures allow you to have different amounts in focus.

As a rule a large aperture (small F-number) has a small depth of field, i.e. only a small part of the picture will be in focus at a time and the rest will be out of focus. This can be a very useful effect if you are trying to focus attention on a particular part of the photograph and the background is distracting. I have been trying this a lot recently, as shown in the selection of pictures below.

A small aperture (large F-number) will have a larger depth of field meaning that you can keep more in focus, this can be very useful when taking large landscape shots.

Having said what the effects of aperture is on the depth of field you then have to remember what I said in the previous post about how it relates to exposure. A small aperture to keep everything in focus will let less light in and require a long exposure time, and you have to be careful about blurring. Just remember it’s all a very careful balancing act! Keep adjusting settings until you get what you want. And remember you can also use filters to compensate for some things too.

”Light trails” is my way of describing a photographic technique that is a form of night photography. Using a long exposure time traffic can be made to leave trails of light in its place, giving a spectacular effect!

First find a place that has a reasonable amount of traffic when it is dark; this technique would work well in winter when it is already dark during rush-hour. Places where the traffic goes in lots of different directions, like a roundabout or junction would work well.

Set up with a tripod and compose the shot so that lots of traffic moves through the frame. Trying to avoid getting lots of white headlights facing directly at you is also a good idea as they can take over the shot if they are in one place for too long.

Select a small aperture to limit the amount of light so you can extend the shutter time, you can also use an ND Filter as I have mentioned before, but when I tried this it was dark enough without. From then on you just need to experiment with different exposure times, seeing what effects you can get, you will probably want to try a shutter speed of above 10 second so that the traffic all disappears and leaves only the light trails. As a final tip using the self timer is also a plus as it will prevent any shaking of the camera which may cause blur in the image.

Some of my first attempts are shown in the gallery below, I shall be experimenting more soon! My favourite is the one with the bus in as it has light on many levels.