We have all the time in the world… That’s what Louis Armstrong sang at the end of a famous James Bond film or two, and if you have some time to spare then get yourself a 15-stop or 10-stop neutral density filter and have a go at long exposure photography. That’s just what I did […]

Littondale… then the weather changed! I don’t have a crystal ball so you never quite know what the weather is going to be like in 6-months when you are scheduling workshops in the Dales.  This was to be a day in the beautiful littondale, a steep-sided Valley that branches off upper Wharfedale. The sides of

Tilt Shift and 15 Stops… I always thought 10 stops was more than enough to create surreal exposures, but discovered the Nisi 15 stop filter (which multiplies your exposure time by 32000) and found a whole new world of experimentation. To test the filter on front of the 24mm tilt Shift lens and went for

Manchester – Street and Architecture Having cancelled the first Manchester workshop due to Hurricane winds and monsoon rains, we were all delighted to finally meet and spend the day capturing both the people and architecture in this amazing city.  We started with a coffee on Portland Street, headed into Chinatown, Peter’s Square, are down to

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

  In advance of our Manchester workshop, where I was going to show the delegates how to shoot extra long exposures, using 10 stop (or even 15 stop) neutral density filters, I popped down to the beautiful world heritage site at Saltaire.    If you’ve not been, this is the site of a Victorian Mill,

Have you been a walk this winter and photographed dead plants, twigs or leaves on branches, got home and been uninspired by them – they don’t really jump off the screen?  Well previously in Lightroom, to make these “pop” out of your monitor, you would have to work quite hard to make your subject really

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

Lightroom just changed its selective editing tools into one new mega-powerful suite, called “masking”. It’s hard to sum up how powerful this change will be for editing in future, so instead I’ve created a short video showing you to colour a specific area of a photo using two of the controls. Sounds easy? Well, it

For years I’ve read about this mythical software called DxO and its magical ability to create superbly detailed, best-in-class photos from your camera raw files. Like most people I know, I’m a happy Lightroom user and love its workflow, and have an intimate knowledge of what every slider does, so was never looking for something

If you set up a camera tripod and flashes outside an operational power station, it wouldn’t be long before security along asking you to move on, I know because it’s happened to me a few times. If you ask them whether terrorists often turn up with a model, 3 tripods and flashes, they are not

6 Tips for Photographing Industrial Processes Direct answer: Good industrial process photography starts with knowing what you need to show, who needs to see it, and why it matters. Wide shots, close-ups, team images, lighting, careful editing, and a sensible sharing plan all help turn complex manufacturing work into photographs that explain your business quickly

Fitness Photography in the Pennines We helped an amazing local brand who create sustainable, limited edition fitness clothing with their lifestyle photography – the owners, Clare and Rick, started Stretch and Burn in the lockdown. Sustainability is at the heart of what we do, limited edition pieces designed for real people, not mass produced and

How do you get started in this industry? I’m sure you’ve seen some of the amazing photos gracing magazine covers and advertisements. You might even have a few friends who’ve modelled for various modelling sites and agencies. But what do you really need to know about getting started? Before diving into the world of modeling,

The yorkshire dales are pretty stunning – rolling green hills with limestone edges and pavements, waterfalls and woodlands, sheep and cattle and of course, lots of lovely walls making patterns throughout the landscape. Here we have 5 360-degree pano tours linked in Klapty, they are:- Arncliffe Taking in the lovely littondale and the road which

Saltaire Bradford – A World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site in Bradford, Saltaire is is the creation of of a Victorian entrepreneur sir Titus Salt. It’s a small village built to house and serve the people who worked in his gigantic Mill on the Leeds Liverpool canal. He built facilities in Saltaire like the

An Accidental Find So I was looking for a way to host and view 360-degree photos taken with my DJI mini 2 drone found this virtual tours software which allows you to upload many 360-degree photographs and then navigate around from photo to photo. How it’s done The way I created this was to let

Aarsleff’s Project in Chesterfield Ground engineering specialists, Aarsleff, have created this huge retaining wall for a new build in Chesterfield – it’s included lots of piling, steelwork and concrete, and we were invited along at the start and end of the project to capture some images and movie drone footage for them. 360 Degree Views

I am a huge fan of experimentation when learning something and photography is the perfect subject to get out into the field and just try things to see what happens. Most of us end up taking the same photograph over and over again… This is great in the field, but very boring when you get

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

Like many people I have used HDR or purely ambient light for property photography for years, when time permitted I would use a a flash or 2 to add some light to the rooms but the results were always a little bit garish, bright and weird shadows would get in the way. This relatively novel

How do you know whether you are progressing at photography?  Well, There are many ways to look at this, it could be  how successful you are with competitions in your local camera club or whether you get more likes and praise on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram or Flickr  or more sales and new clients But that’s

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

You’ll never get an opportunity to photograph on Greek Street in Leeds like we did this January. The UK was in lockdown and this end of Leeds had virtually nobody there. We had the place to ourselves. Greek Street is one of the busiest bar areas of the city centre, bustling with people eating and

I’m a fine art photographer from Yorkshire in the North of England, I started photography in January 2017 after being disappointed by the quality of images from my compact camera, from a once in a lifetime trip to Iceland (once in a lifetime because of the unpaid motor tickets I left behind). As soon as

How can you create new images and social media content, safely, whilst we are still operating under bizarre lockdown circumstances? The good news… Luckily, the government guidance states that people should work from home unless they “absolutely cannot do so” – which most photographers can’t. So this means we can still travel to create images

Leeds always had a thriving hospitality sector packed with innovative bars, traditional boozers and amazing restaurants. I’ve been part of the scene by probably drinking a little bit too much in many of these places, and also photographing quite a lot of food and drinks for bars, restaurants and hotels over the years. I even

<!– SEO CHANGE LOG 1. Added keyword "tilt-shift lens" to the H1. 2. Added keyword "tilt-shift lens" to the intro body copy. 3. Added keywords "tilt", "shift", and "tilt-shift lens" to the early explainer paragraph. 4. Changed H2 "Why bother using a tilt-shift lens for portraits?" to "Why use a tilt-shift lens for portraits?" to

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

 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

How to Add Text to a PDF Using Affinity Photo Direct answer: You can use Affinity Photo to open a PDF, add text layers, and export the updated file in common formats. It’s a one-off purchase alternative to Adobe Photoshop or InDesign, making it a practical choice for business owners who occasionally need to edit

Fundamentals First Fundamentals First an IT company based in Leeds,  formed by software experts Phil, Hamish, Chris and another Phil.  The purpose of this photoshoot was to create images for the personal Brand, marketing, PR and new website.  CLICK TO SEE THEIR WEBSITE For this project we follow our usual process of:- Discover This included

I learn more through audio than text…. I don’t know about you but I definitely take more information in through my ears than through reading! Which is kind of ironic, because I’m writing this using words which you will be reading…. Anyway, having searched for the most realistic, affordable text to voice converter on the

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

Back in Action with the Godox AD600: A Post-Lockdown Location Portrait Photography Session It’s been donkey’s years, but I finally got back behind the lens with my long-time collaborator and model, Andy Taylor Boocock. Picking a spot in Leeds was like choosing your favourite biscuit—difficult, but ultimately rewarding. So, I packed my Godox AD600 and

A new name for Holbeck Here is a video version, with the words spoken… or carry on to see the photos and read it for yourself.  The area south of Leeds station has been rebranded “Temple Leeds”,  probably because of “Temple works”, an iconic Mill building in the style of an Egyptian temple.  Previously this

The Lightroom Brush Tool Stand out with Selective Editing Some images really stand out when you see them on Instagram or Facebook, parts of the shot just look so much better than you could ever achieve using normal Lightroom techniques. The secret to creating these kinds of images is to get selective using the Lightroom Brush

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.   

Having I watched the most amazing spring from my garden during lockdown it seems a little bit unfair that the weather in June is dreadful for photography….  But one day last week the sky look like it was about to erupt at any second so I took the gamble of going into Leeds to see

If you’re planning a trip to photograph Leeds, you might be wondering which locations offer the best photography opportunities. With a city as vibrant and historic as Leeds, there’s no shortage of captivating spots. The city offers a mixture of modern architecture and heritage sites, providing a wealth of visual diversity for any photographer. While

9 weeks into lockdown and I finally decided to take my daily allocated exercise by walking around the city centre of Leeds. I had been putting it off because I didn’t really want to upset and overstretched police force or get a fine! I expected in the early lock-down weeks, it’d be desolate, 9 weeks

Like many businesses, we deal directly with clients in person, so have taken quite a hit with this lockdown. We can’t really leave the house to do any new work – and if we could, we can’t get close to people so it’d be awkward. Here are a few things you can do remotely, and