Author Archive
Lightroom Rescue in under 10 minutes…
Grim Day... Day 1 of the summer series of workshops and we get a winter night.... in may.... It wasn't raining too much when we got to the reservoir, so I showed a couple of new people how to expose using a meter. Here's the shot I got - 4 seconds, histogram told me that the sky had not burned (I'd metered from the sky, so was expecting that!). It was also to show the effect of a polariser on the water and long exposures on the water surface. So you'd usually just throw these things away and return on a better night... but I ...
PR Shoot – Andy Green
Photographer "Directs" the Director Andy Green of "Video Advert" spends his days directing and creating promotional videos for businesses around the UK - so the "directorial boot" was certainly on the other foot for our PR shoot. Used to showing people how to present and perform, Andy now was in front of the camera and, like me, obviously was far more at home behind it! BiY Associates Working Together A fellow BiY Associate, we met at their HQ, Carwood Park and used the atrium and grounds as our backdrop. Starting off with a white ...
Yorkshire Photo Locations – 5 Great Dales
5 Dales - Perfect Yorkshire Photo Locations I'd been in Northumberland for a few days and had nothing major planned for the last day, so journey back to Leeds became a 10 hour epic, taking in 5 great Yorkshire Photo Locations, rather than 2 hours down the A1(M). I'm obsessed with Yorkshire Dales pass roads, the tiny roads which straddle the moors between each of the dales. So when I spotted one linking Teesdale with Arkengarthdale, I struck a path from the A1 at Durham to Barnard Castle in Teesdale. Weardale... kinda Technically I ...
Yorkshire Photo Locations – Cow and Calf
Bah T'at Most people go Bah T'at on Ilkley Moor, subject of this Yorkshire Photo Locations post, these days - except the climbers in their helmets. The Cow and Calf is an outcrop of rock on Ilkley Moor, the Cow being a large rock, the calf being an boulder which stands a few feet away from the Cow. I guess that's the reason for the name! Photographic potential? Well the main things are... Wonderful vista over Wharfdale Intricate rock carvings from upto 150 years ago People shots The rocks are pretty high up so you get a great ...
Yorkshire Photo Locations – West Burton Force
Wensleydale's Easy Access Waterfall Looking for an easy to shoot Yorkshire Photo Location? You can park and look at this waterfall from the car... it's that easy to see! A real gem of a waterfall, like another great Yorkshire Photo Location, High Force, it cascades over a large fault in the rock. It creates this lovely surrounding which is an ideal accompaniment to the cascading water. Look under the bridge There's also a very pretty waterfall under the foot bridge, this is rarely accessible unless you've got wellies on - though when ...
Yorkshire Dales Photo Locations – Swaledale
The Best of the Lot? Well A.Wainwright of Lakeland fame thought Swaldale to be the best, and I'm inclined to agree. It's a narrow, steep sided valley with over 1000 barns, the lovely Ure flowing in the valley bottom and many amazing vista points if you get off the main road and venture higher. The shots in this blog were all taken on 5th May 2013 and show you Swaledale taken with a 70-200 mm lens, far different to the more usual ultra-wide lenses. Long Lens for Sunny Days With the longer lens, you can pick out patterns in the walls, ...
How I did This…. 5 Photoshop Steps
So you can do most things in Lightroom these days. I thought I'd meddle with this shot of the Royal Armouries to show a few things you can't do in Lightroom.... yet! Start point So to get to this point, you could probably have used Lightroom. Its been through these steps... Capture - 1 minute exposure RAW Conversion using ACR in Photoshop Vertical correction using Lens Correction Filter Conversion to black and white using Silver EFEX 2 Selective sharpen - High Pass Filter method, using masks Selective ...
Commercial Photography – Made Easy
Rocket Science? Commercial Photography quotes can often be more complex than quantum mechanics, with so many variables to consider and charges for all kinds of things. We decided to make things a lot easier for clients by creating lots of new "packages" which are clearly defined and priced. Personalise... Our 2013 offering is Personalising Business - transforming your online and print presence from "generic" i-Stock type images, to stunning shots of you, your colleagues, your location, your local area, Yorkshire.... Many of our ...
Trinity Leeds
It's been a few years in the creation - at last the Trinity Leeds centre is open, so here are a few shots of the place for those who've not been yet. It's full of well known brands, so no huge surprises to shoppers, and the architecture of the huge glass roof is remarkable and well worth a look if you're into impressive structures. The name comes from the adjacent Trinity Church, an impressive building around which the shopping centre was built. The tall tower can be seen through the impressive glass roof, creating a huge monolithic ...
McFade Blog in top 100 Photography Blogs
McFade's Photography Blog has been included in the top 100 photography blogs to read in 2013 Here's the list - fantastic to be recognised amongst such great company! An infographic by the team at
5 Tips on “Daytime City” Long Exposures
Get Surreal! Long exposures are common place in landscape photography, where the shots are usually taken in low light at sunrise or sunset. You normally get shots with lots of colour, milky water and foam like seascapes. So I thought I'd try this technique in Leeds - just after mid day on a bright, sunny day... with clouds blowing past. Here are some tips on how to do it... Get an ND Filter It's sunny, to get a long exposure you need to stop the light flooding in so fast. There are lots of "ND" filters around these days, right up ...
CREATIVE Shoot – Dancer Shante Liburd
Location, Lights & Action! Shooting with dancers is as creative as it gets - they spend hours training, perfecting moves and poses you can never get "normal" people to do. Spending the day with fellow lighting obsessive and photography trainer, Jayce Clarke, we took Shante and Daniella to an amazing derelict building to use the graffiti-rich walls as a backdrop. A little like being a kind in a sweet shop really - the perfect backdrop and the perfect models. KIT... Most of it was the basic strobist kit I use daily - 3 manual ...
Manchester Uni Union
We captured the student exec a few weeks ago, it was now the turn of the entire staff of the union! It's always nostalgic going to the Union - I first walked into this building in October 1991, a fresher looking around for beer (which was 85p back then) and glasses... those lecture theatres were huge and I couldn't read anything on the blackboard. So my first "round john lennon style" glasses came from this exact building Anyway - when shooting the exec, we liked the colourful Union logo as a backdrop, so we set up 3 lights, put on "X" ...
PR Shoot – Phil Allum
Telecoms expert, Phil Allum, helps people & business talk through his company TGE Solutions. An urgent need for some new PR profile shots arose, so we got together to shoot at his offices in West Yorkshire. We created a wide variety of looks for all kinds of uses - the obvious shots of Phil using the phones he supplies, and some more generic out door shots along with a few "working at the PC" type images. The opening to the shoot was "I hate having my photo taken!" It's always a challenge to take this attitude and "flip" ...
PR Shoot – Louise Lapish
Louise Lapish runs Gatewood Consulting, training UK-wide in all aspects business from CV writing to sales. We'd met through Yorkshire's most exciting new business support network, BiY. She needed some great new shots for her personal PR, so we went to meet at Regus near Elland Road and used the building around there to capture some new shots. Using small flashes means you can quickly and easily move around the building to get a large variety of looks with minimum of fuss. Louise needed some colour and black and white, so we ...
Muay Thai Boxing Champion
Brad Stanton.... At just 19, Brad has conquered the UK and Commonwealth - just turned 20, he's now headlining stadiums with his amazing Thai Boxing skills. He's based at Leeds premier gym, Edge (www.edgegyms.co.uk), and needed some great shots to help lift his profile - so we did a shoot in the actual gym. To say he's quick is like saying the sun's warm... I asked him to do some jumps and round house kicks - up he went, nearly hitting the cieling, then round he went - so fast I couldn't always hit the shutter in time! So these ...
Bradford From Above
Don't Look Down! When Richard Sara-Gray said that we may be able to get a decent view of Bradford, I never realised I'd be on top of the ice rink, looking down from over 150 feet onto the very heart of the city! So up we went on a cold, windy but occasionally beautiful day - armed with everything from the 17-40 F4 to the 500mm L lens. Here are the shots I created from up there - in a really fulfilling 2 hours of discovery... it's grim up north? Maybe, but it's infinitely fascinating looking at ...
Discover Wensleydale
McFade Training hits Wensleydale Our 2013 Landscape trips have been a cold affair so far - wensleydale was no exception with show and ice in just about every shot. Meeting near Skipton then traversing Wharfdale via Kilnsey Cragg and the waterfalls near Cray, we started at West Burton Force. Its setting is as beautiful as the water itself - a small cliff with jewel like icicles all over it. From here we went to the main attraction - Aysgarth, where we enjoyed the lower falls - from all angles. They are especially beautiful from below the ...
10 Photos of Dubai Marina
High Rise Paradise The Marina area of Dubai is still being built, new tram systems going in and sparking new sky scrapers surround the blue water and white boats. Here are some memories of that 34 degree winters day - a day 34 degrees warmer than back home in
Save Preston Bus Station!
Huge structures do it for me. Visually that is... I first saw Preston's bus station in the 70's, and it was probably the biggest thing I'd seen at that point - Clitheroe doesn't have many huge buildings! Huge! It's the shape and majesty of the thing - the curved edges, the ribbed reinforcement bars, the unchanging pattern along the length of the car park... On seeing the Culture Show's report about proposed the closing and demolition of the building, I decided to pop over and capture some images, just in case I never saw it ...
Sparks @ Kirkstall
Night Program Finale.... at Kirkstall Abbey in Leeds [singlepic id=864 w=600 ] We spent 3 hours playing with torches, lighting the majestic ruins at the Abbey, then at the end, created these amazing sparks with wire wool. How did we do this then? There are lots of Youtube videos online, you just need a 9 volt battery, steel wool, whisk and a dog lead.... it's very easy in theory, though the creativity comes in what you do... where you do it... how fast you spin... and the best way to learn is to do it! [nggallery id=48] Sad to ...
Band Photography – Chicago Blues Brothers – Dubai
Automated Band Photography? The "ALL NEW" Chicago Blues Brothers came to Dubai and rocked the Manidat Theatre for 3 nights. Flying out on a freezing March Tuesday, we landed at Abu Dhabi in the warm Arabian evening, transferring to Dubai by bus. Here are a set of performance shots taken by Ade on the last gig, saturday night. Ade is there on the right playing keyboards..... doing 2 things at once? How we did it..... Here we have a set of shots taken by Ade... but how do you play keyboards, and get ...
HDR Photography in Leeds… Armley
Famous for it's monumental prison and a gyratory, Armley isn't the first Leeds suburb you'd go shooting alone in - let alone on an incredibly dull February day. I took to the canal first first, to see how the graffiti artists are doing - these walls change regularly. Then down to the river Aire and over the footbridge for some more shots. All these are HDR shots - which means "High Dynamic Range", where we take a few photos at different exposures (brightnesses) the blend them into one. We run workshops on this - check out ...
Flash Accessory Test
Flash Bender Accessories - New Toys! Always on the look out for new "light modifiers" of "flash accessories" to advance my off camera flash photography - I'd seen these flash benders around before, so thought I'd take the plunge and get a couple. I took them up to Temple Newsham with trombonist Chris Colbran and had a look at what they can do. What are they? First off, here's Chris altering one - you can see that they strap on to the front of the flash with velcro and have a pretty large white area off which to bend your light. Inside ...
The 2 Poles of Photography
Why McFade Splits Beginners Workshops To total beginners, photography is a new, exciting pastime – but with a learning-curve as steep as Hardknott Pass! Where do you start? You can boil photography down to 2 things:- Finding interesting stuff to photograph Using camera settings to get an interesting shot This is the philosophy behind my Discover Leeds and Take Control workshops. Discover Leeds helps people think about “interesting stuff” Take Control teaches people about camera control To become a competent ...
Claire’s Band Shoot…
Check out the amazing voice.... https://soundcloud.com/clairecolbran Had a fun shoot with Claire Colbran, jazz singer in these 2 bands, backing singer in the Chicago Blues Brothers and rather excellent on trombone too... a Colbran family thing apparently! The Photography Bit So we had 3 lights - 2 behind at 45 degrees, one at the front at about 20 degrees. Rears were un-gelled with shoot through brollies, front was 1/2 CTO on a softbox. Most shots were taken with the Canon 17-40 F4 L & 5D Mark 2 -with the occasional 70-200mm ...
Radio Aire DJ Shoot
Michael Blades broadcasts live from Leeds every Saturday and Sunday night, jetting over to Rock FM in Preston for saturday afternoon... Having found McFade Urban Shoots on Google, he'd spotted the style of images he was after - so we met outside Leeds Town Hall and had a great couple of hours shooting and chatting about life on the radio. He's a keen photographer so showed him a few tips too. Here are a few of the shots we created - using city centre locations, lighting (mainly 2 lights - different coloured gels to add vibrance) and a ...
5 Fairground Photography Tips
Got a fair coming to town? They're brilliant to shoot at night - all those moving lights create amazing patterns; so much for the eye to see. Here are 5 tips for making the most of your night there 1 Long exposures - so take a Tripod! Every night photographer will use a tripod, so best to take it. You can capture so much more with a tripod - this ride was just 2 long stick spinning around - with a long exposure they traced out this circle. 2 Get in Close to Stationary Stuff Kiddies rides get really quiet later on, so you ...
Sam’s Big Band!
[singlepic id=843 w=700 h= mode=web20 float=center] Band leader, arranger and sax supremo (is that bigging you up enough Sam ?? lol) asked for some shots of his big band - so we got everyone into an empty office in Leeds and started creating some shots. Herding cats and musicians is never easy, though it didn't stop us creating some cool shapes with the instruments and body parts! [singlepic id=842 w= h= mode=web20 float=right] The main breif was white background stuff - though being McFade, we had to create some extra odd shots ...
Bradford Cathedral Photographs
Bradford has a bad press. It's one of those places which offers so much, yet never seems to escape that image of desperation. The thing is, there is so much on offer to the Photographer that it's well worth a look. Here are a few gems to enjoy... Bradford City Hall - full of statues of british monarchs City Park - the UK's best urban fountain and light show Little Germany - just off the centre, a collection of beautiful buildings in a confined space. Look up and you'll see them Undercliffe Cemetery - for the ...
Discovering Malham
The cold doesn't stop us. We wrapped up warm and forged our way to Malham in the Yorkshire Dales and created great images anyway. Our group of 5 intrepid explorers on the McFade Training "Discover Malham" workshop visited the full range of highlights the area has on offer - Scalebar Force, Highland Cattle, Janet's Foss, Gordale scar, Malham Tarn and Malham Rakes - with opportunities to shoot the colossal Cove from afar. Flexibility and variety is made possible with a people carrier - courtesy of Suki, who drove us around the slights ...
How To Shoot Ice & Snow – With Flash
A thick Hoar Frost looks amazing. It only happens now and then, so you really need to make the most of it when it happens. One of the downfalls of this frost is that the sky can be very dull on such days, so your usual landscapes can lack impact. So how to add something a little different? Get your strobes out You can create something more interesting with flash - even "on camera" flash can create something slightly different. The shots in this article are all taken with the flash "off camera", triggered with radio ...
5 Light Painting Shots
Since I wrote an 8-page article for Digital SLR User magazine in 2008, I've loved shooting at night. Once the unreliable ambient light has gone, you are in control. Photographers are control freaks.... Also since then, LED torches have massively improved, to the point where for as little as £50 you can buy a Cree torch which can light an abbey - which is how all the images here were created. I bought a CREE with 3 LED "bulbs" and a claimed power of 3800 lumens. Always take this number with a pinch of salt - it's probably never going ...
Malham Sneak Preview….
Yorkshire photography - Wet, cold, miserable, overcast.... Today was all of the above, so time to head to a stream and make the most of the low light conditions. Luckily the river was abnormally high so lots of white water and unusual flow patterns. Ideal for creating a milky, surreal effect. We'll be taking a group to this exact spot on the 20th January 2013, there are still places left, so get your booking in - info@mcfade.co.uk or just paypal £75 us at ade_mcfade@yahoo.com, and we'll show you how it's ...
5 Amazing Lake District Locations
The Lake District is famous for walking and it's stunning views over hill and lakes, perfect for the active person. However, it's possible to get great shots without and enjoy a relaxing, sedate day out - all of these shots were taken within 1/4 mile of the road. 1 - Haweswater The eastern side of the lakes is often over looked, and this reservoir/lake (there is a dam which raised the lake 90 feet) is rarely seen. There's a long road that traverses the full length of the lake, which is, to be fair, uneventful... till ...
5 Great Yorkshire Waterfalls
Yorkshire's never short of water, it rarely stops raining for long, so Yorkshire's Waterfalls are a great subject for anyone into photography. Waterfalls are abound so we thought we'd show you a few of our favourites from across the region. 1 - Scalebar Force, Settle This is the prettiest of the lot in many ways, yet inaccessible to anyone with poor mobility or acrophobia. Cascades of water falling over many levels of rock created a plethora of compositional opportunities which are rarely found. Parking on the side of the road leaves a ...
5 Tips on Cropping Photos
Cropping a shot is a great exercise - you can find completely new images within an existing frame. Here's a shot with lots going on, probably too much to be an effective shot on its own. We have a few rocks in the foreground and lots of lines and circles from the moving foamy water. It was taken on an overcast day, so no interesting light. Crop 1 - Most of the shot... So to start with, I've gone mono and done a little work bringing out detail in a few areas, the bank at the top being the ...
A beginners guide to internet marketing [INFOGRAPHIC]
Found this cool guide to online marketing.... well worth a look.
The Photography “Kit Obsessive”
Photographers fall into many camps, but one that really stands out is the “kit obsessive”. These tend to:- Talk incessantly about kit – above anything else Buy novelty items they rarely use Are never happy with their current kit Motivated by numbers and specifications Can compare and quote reviews of competing kit items More interested in the tools than the photographic results Are first to hear “new kit speculation” blogs and forums Always think "if only I had a...." rather than "what can I do with ...
5D Mark 2 – First impressions
Love the Classic 5D... I’ve been shooting with the classic Canon 5D from 2006 to present, been perfectly happy and only once been short of pixels for a job (it was a colossal print… did a stitch of 9 images in the end). But my main body has now done way over its allotted 150,000 photos and so the time for a new, reliable body came along. I got a canon 5D Mark 2 (note, not 3…. a mark 2) as they are more than fit for my needs, and are more cost effective than the Mark 3. So the first task was to check out the new features – ...
Return to the Land – Yorkshire Landscapes…
Landscape Photography - Yorkshire's Perfect! Landscape is many photographers' first subject - accessible, healthy, gregarious and unpredictable. That was the attraction - a weekend diversion to new and interesting places. A whole world of dales and lakes to discover. From Teesdale in the north to the Peak district in the south, Leeds is just a couple of hours from the lot. Much of the noughties was spent in these idyllic locations - capturing them in bright sunshine, dull clouds and frozen snow. For me, the challenge of ...
Wintery Leeds
Facebook was awash with "god it's cold" comments yesterday - so a great day for some blue wintery sky shots. Parking around Granary Wharf, taking a walk up through town, down past the market and back along the canal, these images were created. Was indeed nice light. They are all HDR - that's what I do! The idea is to get great looking buildings with great looking skies and HDR is the best way I've found of doing this. The alternative maybe to sit around wairing for the light levels to balance so the sky and ground are the same ...
5 Post Shoot Tips
After a shoot:- Get your photos off your card straight away - do not leave over many shoots! Cards corrupt... you may loose ALL YOUR WORK! Create a folder structure which is easily searchable - maybe with keywords and dates in the folder name Make a backup on a second hard drive Import the photos into Lightroom - apply appropriate keywords to them at this stage (including meta data about you, your copyright etc) Go through each shot quickly and rate them out of 5 - easy in Lightoom (caps lock on - library mode - hit numbers to go ...
Sports Photography at Leeds Varsity
The biggest Varsity showdown after Oxbridge is held annually in Leeds. I was commissioned by Leeds University to capture 10 hours of action at many different venue throughout the Uni and Met campuses. The breif was to capture as many events as possible - so took the huge list of sports, planned the day and set off to capture the events. First off was Badminton at Edge - a lot faster than you think and the lighting was pretty low, so we're talking serioulsy high ISO settings and wide apertures to capture the action - here's one where ...
Urban Photoshoot – Gateshead
Never posed before? Never had your photo taken before? Nervous in front of the camera? These 2 Cramlington girls answered yes to all of these - but that didn't stop us having a great shoot with some cool results. We'd got a location in mind with a bit of graffiti and in a reasonably quiet area, so all met up there and started to shoot. Alex and Kerry were both completely stuck for what to do, where to look, what expression to make... we're used to this, unless you've got a model or someone with PR experience, it's always the ...
Photos from Durham
After a week shooting Scotland and Northumberland, a trip into Durham was just a quick detour on the way home. The cathedral and castle are on top of a huge rocky crag, around which curves the river Wear. One of the UK's most spectacular combinations of nature and man made beauty. The weather wasn't great - over cast yet not raining. This is good for autumn colours as the rich warm tones really stand out from the duller surroundings. The set here is a quick loop around the river, view from a bridge and then up to the ...
Newcastle Revisited
[singlepic id=763 float=] The Return to Toon! Newcastle was home before Leeds - 16 months doing an MSc in computing science, then looking for a job. Always love going back and always seems to be really cold and over cast.... just how I remember it! Parked up at Eldon Gardens and had a walk around the top end of town - taking in the UNI, St. James park and Stowell St. Even saw Professor Green parked up in his black Merecedes SLS - didn't get a shot, just smiled and thought... who the hell is he... looks familiar ;-) 2 hours later I got ...
BMX Madness
BMX Star Luke Gareth Gamble jumping over Ade on a wet day in Yeadon... . We'll be putting on a workshop to show you how this is done... .look out for it in 2013, when it's a bit warmer... And now here's a gallery to enjoy [nggallery
View from the M62 – Light Trails
Night time means long exposures, things moving through your images, high contrast scenes, a new world of creativity with you camera, a change for your imagination to run wild. To most, the M62 is a car park they traverse every morning and evening, a place of wasted time and torture. To a photographer, it's a scene packed with potential - from this vantage point there are around 10 lanes of traffic. Add in the occasional blue light from an emergency vehicle, or the flashing yellow lights of the constructions vehicles on the hard ...
Austria Workshop 2012 – Bavarian Town
20 minutes before Minuch Airport is this little town - the name evades me sadly. We called in to capture the last shots of our weekend away. It's got a delightful centre, lovely square, colourful houses and shops, stream and lots of sculptures. Also lots of shops for those last minute gifts... [singlepic id=720 float=] It's another location to build variety into the images you take away from our workshop - a mix of both old and modern architecture, perfect for long and wide lenses. We were shooting both HDR and single shots, ...
