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 up to this year – this is Feb 2018. The group really enjoyed Light Graffiti – that’s drawing things with torches if you keep moving your body doesn’t appear in the photo, just the trace…
Category: Fun
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 to do? Flat HDR First off I did a HDR blend and flattened the image out a bit… Way too much detail in this and it looks a bit bland. But a start point to…
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”…
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 took the camera too 😉 I’ll not go into what each said, you’ll just have to go see them when they next talk – all great. I did take the camera to get some shots…
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 deprived of. The number formats I watch diminishes over time… here are 3 main ones. Master Chef Just can’t bare the fake tension, over the top commentary and Greg Greengrocer wants gagging. They say “at this…
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 saw us calling a halt on proceedings before cameras broke and people got hypothermia! A few weeks later we returned, and wow – the results were magical! Perfectly dark – no moon! To see the…
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 a little brush and the gift of Static Electricity to remove dust from your sensor. The first time you do it is scary – but it gets easier… and saves you £50 on a professional…
The Problem… [message type=”info”]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? [/message] 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 Open your satnav – download “WAZE” if you don’t have one Type in the destination address Let it work out the route It gives you an arrival time… Just keep an eye on…
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 odd concession… [notice]Well your HDR is ok because it looks natural[/notice] I know why people say they don’t like HDR – you can very quickly find thousands of images which make my mental pictures of Grimm Brothers…
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 a Photography Format… based on the tried and tested formats above. Overview So we start with a new format, which we will of course send to the americans, with the word “American” tagged on the…