Fun | McFade News and Blog

Best Gifts for Photographers in 2023 – Top Camera Accessories for Every Photographer

Blog, Discussion, Equipment and Kit, Fun, Musings, Photography, Tips / By McFade

Best Gifts for Photographers in 2023 – Affordable Camera Accessories for Every Photographer Are you on the hunt for the perfect gift for the photographer in your life? Whether they’re a budding smartphone snapper or a seasoned pro, this guide’s packed with the best photography gifts of 2023. From nifty lenses to must-have gadgets, we’ve …

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The Yorkshire Dales

Discussion, Fun, Landscapes, Musings, Photography, Yorkshire Dales / By McFade

A list of the main Yorkshire Dales – with the river which runs through them and the highest hill on their edges. Interesting how many dales each of the large mountains touch

The York Walls and Street Photography Experience

Architecture, Blog, Fun, Musings, People, Photography, Tips, Training, Workshop, Yorkshire / By McFade

Street Photography Experience It’s great to take people with strong landscape photography skills around the city and challenge of them and to capture people and architecture as it happens. That’s Street photography for you. Some of the most memorable photos you will have seen are street photography. Often you sit around waiting for things to …

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Blending Light Painting Photos in Photoshop

Fun, Landscapes, Training, Video Tutorials / By McFade

Usually when doing light painting workshops, I have several people with torches all lighting the scene at the same time so we catch everything in one frame which you can view there and then on the night. But when you are alone, or in small groups, often it isn’t possible because you just cannot get …

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Night Photography at Kirkstall Abbey, Leeds

Fun, Photography, Training, Workshop, Yorkshire / By McFade

Night Photography at Kirkstall Abbey, Leeds Ok, we’re really lucky to have a ruined abbey right on the edge of our city – and it’s got lots of free parking! So each year I take a new group of photographers down there to light it up with powerful torches and sparks. Here’s what we got …

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Same Photo Cooked Many Ways

Austria, Fun, Landscapes, Lightroom, Musings, Photography / By McFade

Sunset at Gross Glockner – Tirol – Austria Do you ever take a shot and never manage to settle on a final edited look? Well this happened with this shot – it’s one of 3 brackets taken at sunset with a 17mm TSe lens… so nice and sharp, oodles of data to play with…. but what …

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Summer Nights Workshop – 2016 Review

Automobiles, Blog, Business, Fun, Landscapes, Leeds, Lightroom, Manchester, People, Photography, Workshop, Yorkshire, Yorkshire Dales / By McFade

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 …

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Social Media, Marketing and Business Show – Sheffield 2016

Blog, Business, Fun / By McFade

Learning from the experts I went down to see support and learn loads from Andy Firth, Gary King and Rachel Hatfield, who each did a talk on their specialist subjects:- Andy – making money online – http://www.ascensor.co.uk/ Gary – business planning and strategy for growth – http://www.tendo-uk.com/ Rachel – social media, specifically Twitter – http://shoosocialmedia.co.uk/ Ok – I …

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Why Chefs are on TV and Photographers Aren’t

Blog, Discussion, Fun, Musings, Photography / By McFade

I can’t taste or smell the food I see on telly, yet I still watch cooking shows… I’ve never really got why food is such a compelling viewing pleasure, despite the 2 main senses food excites (taste and smell) are not yet available. We can’t feel the texture either… so that’s a third sense we’re …

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The Amazing Milky Way at Brimham Rocks

Fun, Landscapes, Photography, Tips, Training, Yorkshire, Yorkshire Dales / By McFade

Shooting the Milky Way – If at first you don’t succeed… Pack up your bags and go back another night! That’s what happened with our legendary Brimham Rocks workshop this year – the first run was a wash-out no sign of a star, never mind the milky way. Horizontal rain, cold, and no shelter anywhere …

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How (not) To Clean Your Camera Sensor…?

Fun, Musings, Photography, Video Tutorials / By McFade

Do NOT Try This at Home! I’ve got huge dust problems with my 5D2, so was excited to find a Youtube clip which shows you how to get rid properly… I really don’t think this is the right way… see what you think! I actually use a little device called an Arctic Butterfly, which uses …

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Get Me to the Shoot On Time!

Commercial, Fun / By McFade

If you have a meeting at 11, say, at a place 15 miles away – what time should you set off to get there on time? Hard to say isn’t it – what are the roads like, is there traffic? Anything else? The “Geeky” Solution… Here’s what I started doing… Get your phone out …

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HDR Photography isn’t Bad – People Are!

Blog, Discussion, Fun, HDR, Photography / By McFade

The Perennial HDR Photography Debate As someone who’s used HDR Photography to make a living and been a fan since 2006, I often get involved HDR debates. Sigh… The usual comments would be around [notice]I don’t like HDR, it looks a bit weird[/notice] or maybe [notice]I like HDR when it’s done properly[/notice] and sometimes you get the …

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“Britain’s got Photographers” – A new TV Format

Fun, Musings, Photography / By McFade

If TV Did “Popular” Photography In the wake of the deluge of “talent” shows, which has seen “talented” people battle, week in week out, to survive to the next round – including riveting subjects as:- Baking Cakes Cooking Food Modelling Being a Drag Queen Growing Vegetables oh – and singing… Here’s an idea for …

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Austria Workshop – Day 1

Austria, Blog, Fun, Photography, Training / By McFade

Waking to see rain was never what we wanted, but you just have to go with what you get… and what we started with was a hearty “Austrian farm” breakfast of yoghurt, meats, cheese, bread, butter, jam, orange juie and lots of coffee. Huge thanks to our hosts Keith and Manu for this each day …

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The Photography “Kit Obsessive”

Blog, Discussion, Fun, Musings, People, Photography / By McFade

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 …

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Urban Photoshoot – Gateshead

Business, Fun, People, Photography, Slider, Strobist, Tips / By McFade

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 …

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View from the M62 – Light Trails

Automobiles, Composition, Fun, Musings, Photography, Slider, Training / By McFade

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 …

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What does McFade do anyway????

Business, Discussion, Fun, Musings / By McFade

What this Leeds Photographer does… Medding with smart phones takes you to some strange places…. ON this occasion I found an app which did little “mind map” type diagrams, which I thought would be fun for the website… I was white flag waving after 5 minutes of meddling on a little phone screen, so hit …

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Relax…. and escape faster!

Business, Fun, Musings, People / By McFade

Thought for the day…. The people who hate their photo being taken invariably have to stand in front of the camera for far longer than others…. (because they’re tense, look scared and take ages to get a half decent shot as a result) If you’re one of these, just relax, have fun and don’t get …

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Ilkley Moor – Photographed in HDR

Blog, Fun, Landscapes, Lightroom, Musings, Photography / By McFade

On Ilkley Moor Bah Tat A bright mid-morning trip up to the Cow and Calf is a lovely way to start a bank holiday Monday. Light breeze, nice patterned clouds and nice shadows were what we were greeted with. The ND Grad Problem Thing is, using ND Grad filters to keep detail in the sky would blacken …

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Fake that sunset in Lightroom 4

Blog, Fun, Industrial, Landscapes, Lightroom, Photography, Slider, Tips, Training / By McFade

So many landscapes have these amazing sunsets, nuclear red skies with amazing orange hues…. Do you think they “really” looked like that when the photographer was there? Here’s a demo of how easy they are to fake in Lightroom 4…. Original Look Tone and Saturation changes Tidy up dust and lift the dark areas Lens …

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Rocco in the Woods

Blog, Composition, Fun, People, Photography, Strobist, Tips, Training / By McFade

Leeds Model in Leeds Woods We’re always on the look out for new locations for both training and shoots with models, families and business people. So on this rekke shoot Rocco and I took to some woods in Leeds, armed with 2 flashes and a mix of lenses – and got some shots using the …

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Free “Street Photography” Action

Blog, Fun, Leeds, Musings, People, Photography, Training / By McFade

It’s true, here’s a FREE Street Photography Action… Here’s what it does Transforms a street candid from this… To this with one click… “Street” is photography in one of the purest forms. We capture the environment as-is; people going about their business is the subject, rather than moody hills, the relentless sea, colourful birds or …

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Past Power To the People…

Blog, Composition, Fun, Industrial, Musings, Photography / By McFade

I’m not sure where my fascination with cooling towers came from – maybe the few around Padiham when I was a kid caught my eye? They’re just so incredibly huge and un-natural looking that I’m quite drawn to them. So when I got to Leeds and started discovering the county of West Yorkshire (andy …

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Leeds Band Photography on the Bridge

Blog, Business, Commercial, Fun, Leeds, People, Strobist / By McFade

Leeds Band Photography by McFade Photography! As well as photographing everything and anything, I also play piano and keyboards in 2 bands – one being the Blues Brother’s tribute band “Sweet Home Chicago”. The Band got a fantastic brass section comprising of Greg, Sam and Chris, and they seem to be in about 1000 bands between …

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Wow – You must have a great camera!!

Blog, Fun, Musings, Photography / By McFade

There are some quite amusing things that people say to photographers from time to time, often when you show them their image on the back of the camera, or present a few prints or a recent book, or even just see the shots on the web. Things like :- “Wow – that camera’s awesome” or …

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Mooooo!

Blog, Fun / By McFade

I used to work on dairy farms, so am pretty used to cows and their general demeanour – inquisitive, curious and usually pretty friendly. Just move slowly and they’ll hang around you for a while – feed them a bit of grass and you’ll get a nice tongue photo like this! Here’s a few shots …

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Everyone hates having their portrait taken…… at first

Blog, Composition, Fun, People, Photography, Strobist / By McFade

Out of your comfort zone Unless you are a model, you are completely out of your comfort zone. No one has a camera pointing at them, like a sniper, in normal life. You will be uncomfortable. So the photographers adds in all the lights flashing, other unfamiliar gizmos like reflectors, snoots and softboxes, and then puts you in …

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