Winter’s a great time for architecture photography – the sun is low in the sky and sets around 5PM, so you’re not out waiting for ages in the evening. On the 7th February, I decided to capture the sunset in Leeds city centre – sadly the sky didn’t really go bright red, but we did get some clouds and a little texture to play with. All of these photos are taken with the :- 5D Mark 4 Canon 24mm TS-e F3.5 L lens Cokin Z-Pro polariser Manfrotto 055 tripod and…
Category: Leeds
Granary Wharf and Wellington Street in Leeds Just a quick post with some shots from the train station/canal area of Leeds. Again these were all taken in the early days of testing the Tilt Shift lens we invested in for the architecture photography business. There is so much you can do with these lenses, it’s a game changer. The main thing with this set is that it’s the first time we’ve shot these things perfectly vertically. Usually, it can’t be done easily with a normal lens. So there they are….…
What is Tilt Shift? If you don’t know what a Tilt Shift lens is, this chap explains it well. So take a look at this first if you’re interested. South Leeds Architecture There are some interesting new buildings in the south of Leeds these days – this first one is the Leeds College of buildings, created by Fuse Architects. For this shot I went to the middle of the road island ans use the 17mm tillt shift lens. I took 3 photos – one with the lens shifted up, one in the…
Learn Spot Colour in Seconds Using Adobe Lightroom Spot Colouring is where you make a black and white photo but leave a part of it coloured. You may see it in wedding photography, and most famously in the film, Schindler’s List – a girl in a red coat dominates one scene. The technique used to involve masks and photoshop – and a certain level of understanding for it to work. However, with a few seconds tweaking, you can create the same effect without opening Photoshop or learning about layers and…
McFade Summer Nights Workshops 2016 A look back over 12 fantastic evenings – but first some background Where did the idea of Summer Nights Workshops come from? Ever since I took Photography seriously I’ve regularly gone out for smaller outings – usually with 1 or 2 friends. We’d find places to go, new things to try out and gradually get loads of ideas and locations to return to. I found that it broke the weekend up and gave us something to look forward to. Gets you out of the “office mindset”…
10 Stop Filters – All the Rage! I’ve got one, have you? Well no landscape or architecture photographer worth their salt goes out without one these days do they ? 😉 It is the current fad – that surreal sky, those misty sea shores… you simply have to use them… They are genuinely interesting to use, and I have on occasion used one commercially to make “people disappear” from photos. So looking back at this photo of Clarence Dock, which it was called then, I wondered what it would have…
Who’d Want to do Photography in Leeds ? I’ve heard this said many times – along with classics such as… you’ve not got many great buildings, you’ve not got any sky scrapers costs a fortune to park and they charge you at night its really rough and you’ll get mugged. Ok… Parking is Terrible… Well the one I agree with is the parking issue. It’s a pain to park in the city – it has to be said. Hugely over priced car parks, and hour of on-street parking costs more…
Clarence Dock or New Dock Leeds? I’ve always referred to it as Clarence Dock, but the area was rebranded “New Dock Leeds” in 2012 according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Dock_(Leeds)). Either way, the blend of architecture and water makes for a great place to photograph – even on dull days, dusk photos look great once the lights come on. New Dock Leeds through a Sigma 12-24mm Lens The purpose of this shoot was to try out a Sigma 12-14mm lens – I’ve shot with the Canon 17-40 dozens of times, would the…
Leeds Shopping – Knightsbridge of the North? Leeds does seem to have its fair share of shops. Posh shops. Harvey Nichols. Designer stuff. I like the shop in the Victoria Quarter with Panerai watches best – often found lusting after the PAM 372, a huge watch which looks just about perfect on my wrist… shame it’s £6000. 20mm HDR So trialling my trusty new 20mm prime lens, I took the tripod around Briggate and the shopping area – weird light meant HDR, just to eek out a bit more detail…
7 HDR Photos of Leeds – Swinegate & Calls In Leeds, where the canal and Aire merge, there’s The Calls and Swinegate. Streets on the inner ring road with some fantastic brick buildings to photograph, especially great for HDR as you can pull lots of detail out of those walls. Maybe not the obvious place to go shooting! Along with the Brick, there are some new buildings going up down there – nice to see cranes back in Leeds, recession finally over ? A fantastic sign – both for the economy…