Smartphone Photography Tips For Beginners Mastering the Settings: Tips for Configuring Your Smartphone Camera Knowing your way around the settings menu on your smartphone camera can make a world of difference. By fine-tuning certain settings, you can take far more professional-looking shots without needing to carry around extra equipment. Here, we focus on two …
The Ultimate Guide to Camera Lens Filters: Raise Your Photography Game Summary: If you’ve ever wondered how to take your photography to the next level, this comprehensive guide to camera lens filters is for you. From polarising filters to neutral density filters, we’ll delve into the nitty-gritty of what each filter does and how to …
Photography Filters: The Ultimate Guide to Camera Lens Filters Read More »
The Ultimate Guide to Buying Your Next Camera Lens: Things to Consider for Your Next Lens Purchase Summary:Right, so you’ve got a camera, and you’re itching to take your photography up a notch. The lens you choose can make a world of difference. This guide is your one-stop shop for everything you need to know …
Best Camera for Beginners 2023: A Guide to Entry-Level Cameras So, you’ve decided to dip your toes into the world of photography this year, eh? Good on you! But wait, where do you start when it comes to picking your first camera? Not to worry—this comprehensive guide is here to point you in the right …
Photography, while often pursued as a hobby, holds the potential to evolve into a career or source of side income. It did for me 🙂 The advent of digital technology, social media, and changing market dynamics has broadened the scope of opportunities available for photographers. Whether it’s selling prints, licensing images, or taking up professional …
Why do Photography? 12 Potential for a Career or Side Income Read More »
Who needs a diary…? Photography, often viewed as a medium to document the world around us, can also serve as a powerful tool for recording our personal journey. The camera becomes a diary, capturing not only the moments and scenes we encounter but also our growth and transformation over time. When we first begin our …
Why do Photography? 11 Documentation of Personal Growth Read More »
More than just clicking a button Ever thought about how photography is more than just snapping pretty pictures? It’s like a journey into yourself, a way to boost your self-confidence. Let’s chat about how that happens. Learn the basics first When you first start out with photography, it can feel like you’re climbing a mountain. …
Ever feel like the world’s moving too fast? Like everything’s all about the ‘now, now, now’? Well, here’s the thing – photography is like a chill pill for our high-speed lives. It’s all about taking a step back, slowing down, and really soaking in the moment. And guess what? This slow-mo approach isn’t just good …
Why do Photography? 8 Increased Patience and Perseverance Read More »
Photography is like a superpower that changes how we see the world. It’s like a workout for our eyes, making us notice all the little details and patterns that we’d usually miss. As photographers, we become super aware of everything around us. We’re always on the lookout for the perfect light, the right colour contrasts, …
Why do Photography? 7 Boosting Observation Skills Read More »
Make New Photography Friends Photography, at its core, is about capturing moments, telling stories, and expressing perspectives. But beneath these fundamental aspects lies another equally significant facet of this art form – its ability to connect us with others. The world of photography can open doors to friendships, shared experiences, and communities, both in the …
Photography is an art form that evolves with time, as do the skills and perspectives of the person behind the camera. Far from being a static hobby, photography presents an unending journey of learning and growth, offering a rich tapestry of skills to master, styles to explore, and concepts to grasp. The initial plunge into …
Are you tired of relying on automatic settings on your camera? Ready to take control and unleash your creativity? Mastering manual mode is the key to unlocking the full potential of your photography. In this step-by-step tutorial, we’ll guide you through the process of understanding and confidently using manual mode. Let’s dive in! Why Master …
Mastering Manual Mode: A Step-by-Step Tutorial for New Photographers Read More »
Building a well-equipped photography kit is essential for capturing stunning images. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced photographer, having the right equipment can make a significant difference in the quality of your photographs. In this article, we’ll explore 10 must-have photography equipment items and discuss why they are crucial for every photographer. Let’s dive …
10 Must-Have Accessories for Your Photography Kit Read More »
Wensleydale, located in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, is a picturesque valley filled with stunning landscapes and natural wonders. One of the most captivating features of this region is the numerous waterfalls that cascade down its rocky terrain. For photographers looking to capture the beauty and power of these waterfalls, Wensleydale provides …
The Yorkshire Coast is a stunningly beautiful destination for photographers, with a rich history and a diverse range of landscapes to capture. Starting from Robinhoods Bay and travelling northwards towards Saltburn, there are plenty of opportunities to take some truly breathtaking shots. Robinhoods Bay Robinhoods Bay is a picturesque village with narrow winding streets and …
Top photography locations on the Yorkshire Coast Read More »
The main difference between a constant aperture lens like an f/2.8 zoom and a variable aperture lens like an f/3.5-5.6 zoom is how the aperture changes as you zoom in and out. A constant aperture lens maintains the same aperture throughout its zoom range, meaning that regardless of the focal length you set, the aperture …
While zoom lenses are indeed more flexible and convenient than prime lenses, there are still several reasons why photographers might prefer to use prime lenses in certain situations: Overall, while zoom lenses are more versatile and convenient, prime lenses can offer superior image quality, wider apertures, and specialized uses that make them an important part …
Why would I buy a PRIME lens when I have a ZOOM already? Read More »
When it comes to choosing the right lens for a specific type of photography, there are several factors to consider, such as the type of camera you have, your budget, and the specific subject you’ll be photographing. I get asked it all the time on workshops – which next? There isn’t a correct answer of …
Long exposure photography is a popular technique used by photographers to create stunning images that capture the beauty and essence of natural and urban landscapes – I love revisiting old places I’ve shot many times before to capture it through a different technique. The technique involves using strong neutral density (ND) filters to slow down …
Is Miserable Telly Dragging You Down? The relentless negativity of broadcast media I don’t know if you’ve found this, but in the last few years, broadcast TV is filled with relentless negativity, pessimism, doom and gloom and general misery. Take channels like the BBC. I’ve long been a massive fan and advocate of theirs, watching …
Surely professionals only shoot in MANUAL? I’ve never been a big fan of using anything other than manual mode for exposing photos. Especially when you are doing professional work, where you want complete control. However, occasionally you have to shoot in a room where the light is massively different from one side to the other, and …
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 …
The York Walls and Street Photography Experience Read More »
Humber Bridge, Bridlington and Flamborough Head We had a great day for our 2022 trip over to the east coast, with bright sunshine for pretty much the whole day. Humber Bridge As usual, we met at the bridge that goes from Hessle to Barton over the River Humber. It’s a massive suspension bridge with a …
Part 2 – Composition The portrait class of 2022 met at Leeds university this time to learn about composition and portraits. We had some exercises in finding:- Lines textures shapes colours angles These are all things to look out for when composing any photograph, can you use a line in the road or a colour …
Absolute Beginners Workshop After a 3-year break it was fantastic to get back to to be showing people her to do location portrait photography. We had our friends Andi, Andy and Michele, and a new model called Rachel, to play with around the exchange area of Leeds. The main focus of the workshop was settings …
The 12 Month Test Have you ever looked back to things you did 10 years ago? You should see some huge progress and changes, based on everything you’ve learnt, new tools or technologies and just growing as a person. But have you ever looked back just one year and revisited something? Like a “Remix” in music …
Anybody who photographs “normal people” will hear this question – every single shoot! It’s our “question everyone asks”. People want to look their best and they put their trust in you, also a great Icebreaker. The answer is “Yes of course”, we always do “something” to the photograph, just how far and how long we …
Sometimes you only get a fleeting second of light and you’ll have to grab what you can with the camera you having your hands. The story behind this photo is that we were walking to a limestone pavement to capture photos of trees growing out of rocks when one of the clouds opened and let …
I recently bought the “MOD048 | 60cm Folding Beauty Dish Silver Mk.2” as a small, portable light modifier. These are available (or will be when stock arrives) on their website (https://www.lencarta.com/all-products/light-shapers/studio-beauty-dishes) or if you’re in West Yorkshire, you can order on line and pick it up in Bradford, which is what I did. Couple of …
Who on earth uses a tilt shift lens for portraits? A nurse by day, a fashion model by – well any time he’s not being a nurse really – on this winters day we had a go at using my tilt shift lens for a portrait/fashion shoot… We met up for a walk this sunny …
Tilt shift lens for portraits of Andy Taylor Boocock Read More »
Imagine a world where you could click one thing and your photo would be edited to your personal taste – fast photo editing software is the ultimate productivity booster, is Luminar AI the tool for this? Obviously 1-click editing isn’t really possible because every photograph is different and every situation as different lighting and composition, …
Sometimes you just cannot get everything in Focus in one shot… This happens a lot when you are photographing landscapes with a very close foreground, the background becomes blurry if you focus on the foreground, and vice versa. In this tutorial I show you two photos I took of the exact same scene, all the …
How to get Maximum Sharpness with Focus Stacking Read More »
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 …
After talking with the Yorkshire Garden Designer, Sally Tierney, I learned that business owners occasionally need to do stuff a photo editor or designer would do. Clearly, they would benefit from an affordable photo editing package, which allows you to add text to things like PDF documents and photographs or brighten a dark shot up …
Here’s a quick “video blog” on solving the problem of poor looking websites the easy way… The text is below if you prefer to read or can’t have the sound on right now I read a Pearl of Wisdom on LinkedIn yesterday which was “Business is all about finding a problem then providing a solution …
You can definitely take great phone photos these days. The technology has moved on massively since the early days, and the app software is truly amazing. There are probably dozens of phone photos tips you could give, but realistically these three things will make the biggest difference. 1 – Where is the light This may …
Try these 3 Things RIGHT NOW to improve your phone photos Read More »
Photoshop now comes with lots of “extensions” you can install – either paid or for free – you get to them from this menu item That opens up a web browser – you need to be logged in to your Adobe account if you’re not on Creative Cloud this may not work. …
Finding old photos can be a pain – if someone asks if you’ve got photos of Liverpool (or something like that) in future, how quickly could you locate them in your file system? Or if you’re looking to create a print of Ingleborough, could you find all your photos of the hill and quickly make …
I know – sometimes it’s too dark to shoot and you don’t have any off-camera kit, so you have to use your flash “on camera” But the light you get off a direct flash is horrible – there’s an example in the video below. It serves a purpose, but it creates a passport photo look …
NIGHTSCAPES 2018/2019 Begins! It all started last night in Roundhay Park – our winter of light painting around Roundhay Park saw us using torches and gels to colour the world! New for 2018 is a “Manker MK 35” torch – this claims to have a 1.4Km beam – it does shine a hell of a …
Another series of Photography Workshops drew to an end in Manchester on the 26th September. It seems like ages since we started on our beginners evening in Leeds, which turned out to be the only evening where it rained! 2018 was amazingly dry and hot – it made the whole 10 workshops a joy. So …
Summer Night Photography Workshops – 2018 Review Read More »
When you’ve done a shoot and have hundreds of shots to trawl through, you need a quick way to get the skin tone the right brighness on your subject. It’s not straightforward enough to use Auto Settings – that will take account of the background as well as the foreground and skin – so you …
One of the most common issues we get are people asking to cancel (or come on a different workshop for no extra cost) – it could be work related, or a sick pet or anything life throws up. We have to say no in order to stay in business – hope this explains why! We …
Our second portrait workshop the summer was with Nicola Papperazzo, Chloe Mason and Andy Blue McLaren. We split it into a couple of locations on the west end of Leeds city centre. Starting in the flowery Park Square, where I showed people how to use flowers in the foreground to add blurry texture – like this one …
Our little secret! All photographers and designers know how to do this – and it is REALLY easy to do – and it really can leverage that photography investment to your advantage. We use Adobe LIGHTROOM to do it at McFade, but there is a free tool called “IfranView” which does it as well. Leverage your …
Gone are the old days… Stitching panoramic photos used to be a pain. you’d have to do all kinds of prep on each photo in LIGHTROOM first, then export them as high res files, then create a stack in PHOTOSHOP and merge them…. and it’d probably go wrong at some stage! The panoramic world has …
AMAZING Panoramic Photos Made Easy with LIGHTROOM Read More »
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 …
The bright sky problem… We’ve all done it – had a great scene to shoot but not got the right filters to balance the bright sky and land! We end up with a boring bright sky and really dark foreground – it’s not ideal, but with most camera RAW files you can now fix this …
Age your photos in seconds! I’ve tried using “bought” LIGHTROOM presets many times and they all seem to have one thing in common… This makes perfect sense to any seasoned Photoshopper or Lightroom expert – but I guessed that most photographers don’t know about this. So here’s a video explaining how you do it – a quick “how to” guide so you can start making your own toned presets for free!
Using LIGHTROOM to make a dreamy waterfall Here’s a shot from a recent workshop at Swaldale – it’s Crackpot Force, yes, that’s really a thing! The shot was underexposed, but I liked the shape – so gave it a go in Lightroom anyway. Things we explain:- black and white conversion basic controls like Highlights, Whites, Shadows …
How to make a soft, dreamy, black and white waterfall photograph in LIGHTROOM Read More »
