You Spin Me, Right Round… Like A Record, Right Round

Abstract – yes they are supposed to be like this., originally uploaded by http://andrewskelton.net.

I haven’t had to do that in a long while, such a long while in fact that I’d forgotten what a laborious task removing dust specs from a photo can be; most of the current batch of dSLRs have a mechanism in front of the camera’s sensor which is vibrated as the camera is switched on or off to dislodge any dust particles that have found into the camera. Dust is an inherent problem with any dSLR, finding its way in whilst lenses are being changed, and having had dSLRs for many years now I’ve got quite adept at changing lenses – I have also got quite blase about the process as well. I know the recommendation is to switch the camera off, ensure you’re in a dust free environment or sheltered if that isn’t possible, have the camera face down so dust doesn’t fall in – and whilst I do practise most of these most of the times, I’m not always that careful which was apparent when reviewing the images I uploaded to flickr.

During our visit to Focus-on-imaging we purchased Adobe Lightroom software, a great product for manipulating photos, and I used a relatively new function to the program to swiftly and simply remove those troublesome dust particles from the photos though I still had to go to each dot in question to remove it. Perhaps one day there’ll be an extra level of intelligence in the software that can read my mind and made the changes at a click of a button.. mind you, where would the fun in that be?

Apart from removing the spots from the images, I’ve not done anything else to the photos to create these images – so what are they of exactly, and how were they create I hear you think (the software might not have it, Dear Reader, but I can read your thoughts you see! Scared now?) I took these photos last year over the road in the local park; having gone there with friends and their family I decided to take my old 5D with 50mm lens attached with me to take photos of the kids as they played. Having taken numerous of them I spotted an unoccupied roundabout and wondered if I could apply my abstract technique in a more Newtonian* way. Sitting at the very middle of the roundabout, I got my boy to push the ride fairly quickly whilst I held the camera firmly and with a long exposure – all the colours merged into one producing those coloured streaks. Simple when you know how (and now you know can you explain it to me so I can understand as well please?).

* Amongst the myriad of laws Newton produced, the ones that stick in my mind are his Laws of Rotation… my mind does remember odd things, but ask me where I’ve left my car keys and I haven’t a clue.

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