Family, Photography and other misc news
Many people comment on the quality of my landscapes.
My Post Processing general is limited to either HDR or a bit of Negative Clarity from Adobe’s Photoshop Lightroom.
Recently looking at some of the people shots taken by Frank Doorhof and some of the sports shots by Scott Kelby, I have been very impressed. There a certain dynamic feel to the shoots, that comes from the post processing.
It’s given me a number of ideas to try.
We are now getting really into the autumnal feel of the season.
Riding into work today the low sun shining though the red leaves of the trees gave me a number of ideas for some photographs.
It was also quite a windy day so I hope the leaves will last long enough for me to get the shots that are currently in my head.
Always tricky riding a bike in high wind, even more for a motorcycling photographer. There is only so much I can squeeze into the tank bag and top box. That really limits what you can take, makes you think what is really necessary.
Last Saturday was the World Photowalk, and today I have been finishing my editing, these are a couple of shots that came close but no cigar.
Have to admit, I do have a soft spot for the stone column which is illuminated in coloured light from the ancient stain glass windows.
If you have the chance to visit Lincoln Cathedral and please try as its one of the finest Gothic Cathedral’s in the world. Some of the more impressing and colourful stain glass is actually Victorian, as during the civil war, those damn Puritans shot out some of the more impressive windows. Far to ungodly and Catholic for them. Luckily the Victorians restored a number of them.
A sad day today.
One of the driving figures of modern computing has left us, but his influence will remain with us for a long time.
The vision to take ideas and develop them, from Xerox’s initial ideas of a GUI which he developed into the modern Bit Mapped Screen driven by Mouse, to produce the Macintosh.
Creating Next Computers, a computer that was instrumental in the development of the world wide web and the Next Operating system which became OS X.
Taking Pixar to the pinnacle of modern animated film making.
Making MP3 players simple to use and popular throughout the world.
Creating a Smart Phone that could be used by Grandmothers as well as geeks.
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/10/05/steve-jobs-has-passed-away/
Pentax Q:
How many of you remember Pentax’s film 110 interchange lens camera system. Fun, but the quality was never there with 110 film.
Now we have the Pentax Q, a interchangeable lens compact with a small compact sensor. With a selection of nice prime lens including a fish eye, and some zooms this looks like one fun camera.
Saturday was the Lincoln World PhotoWalk.
We were also very lucky in that it was Lincolnshire Day. That was good news for Photographers. The Cathedral, Castle and a number of other great sites were all free to enter.
I’ll post a few pictures later in the week but until then here is a quick snap I took of an event that was going on in the Cathedral.
Nikon D200 SLR
Nikor 12-24mm F/4
24mm, 1/350 Sec at f/8, ISO100 (HDR Bracketed +-2)
Processed in Adobe Lightroom V3.5
On a Mac MacBook Pro, OS-X 10.7.1
Well to make my challenge harder (if it was not hard enough already) I am visiting the same area again each day.
Yesterday I used a Macro Lens, today I used a wild angle. Again we were blessed with good weather. Lots of bracketing, shooting into the sun and generally challenging myself to come with fresh ideas.
Today things started to gel and I managed to get a number of good shots. I now feel I have my picture of the month, which I will post tomorrow.
Until then enjoy these few that I took over the last few days.
Well Monday was a bit of a bust, I will not bore you with the results but lets just say they were bad.
Today I went for a lunch time walk around the Brayford Pool in Lincoln. The sun was shining warm and pleasant, no stunning photographs but nothing to awful.
The wildlife is always an option, and I took a few snaps of the swans. Shooting from one direction I had to dial in +2/3 of a stop exposure compensation, from the other -2/3 of a stop. The sun reflecting on the water can be tricky.
The bicycle was a opportunistic shot that I spotted, and the rest were just details and features in the area. The wall and the flag being the most interesting.
I have kept a couple of shots to myself, I am going to try a few HDR and LAB colour techniques on them tonight and feel one of them may be the picture of the month. With the bright colours and blue sky I bracketed on a number of shots to use later for HDR.
I’ll try and get out in my lunch breaks for the rest of the week and see what I can come up with.
I do have some portrait sessions this week, but they are all for corporate clients so not eligible for Photo of the Month. Maybe I should change my own rules!
I am sure many of you are aware, many photographers take part in a 365 project.
The idea is you produce and publish a photograph every day.
I had a go last year at a mini version of this. I tried to take a picture a day for a month. This lasted about two weeks before the sameness and lack of originality in my shots made me give up.
Well as the month of September draws to a close I had a look back at the personal photography I had taken for prospective picture of the months.
Much to my surprise I found I had nothing. It’s not like I had not taken lots of photographs, but there were all for clients, portraits, corporate events, etc. Nothing for myself.
So this week a challenge is set. With the five days left to this month, produce five reasonable pictures.
Let’s hope I can come up with something.
Yes a coffee not an award wining photo I think.