Friday 20 February 2009

Conwy Castle.. at last!!!

I finally got to go for a little photo walk to conway in the evening. Unfortunately it was a little bit later than I would have liked and I was quite restricted by how long I could stay. I did manage however to grab one shot that I liked the look of, granted there are definately elements of the photograph that I would like to change (lampost placement, Dark sky), so a revisit is required. Even so I thought I would share this one with you.

Conwy Swoosh

Sunday 8 February 2009

iPhone blog!!!

A test entry using Iphone software. Is there anthing this phone can't do!!

Tuesday 27 January 2009

Chase Jarvis and the Nikon D3x

Chase Jarvis is currently twittering during a studio shoot using the new Nikon D3x, really interesting to see a shoot as the day unfolds. This is accompanied with various snaps throughout.

To follow this on twitter visit.

http://twitter.com/chasejarvis

Monday 26 January 2009

2nd, Again.....

After a short spell away from the Mold Camera Club (due to baby) I managed to get an entry in for the 4th Club Competition. I entered the following three images, mounted.

Causeway Winter Walk
West Shore's Colourful Ripples
HMS Illustrious' Blue Patch

Whilst the West Shore Image and the HMS Illustrious (Liverpool Waterfront) image bombed. The Causeway Winter Walk was well liked by the judge. Although as he went through the remaining entries it was clear that he liked any with a human involvement.

So second again. For this image:

Causeway Winter Walk

Sunday 25 January 2009

Cliche I know but....

Sorry another Baby photograph, I really couldn't resist setting up the very cliche shot below:

Father Son Moment

Most impressive of all is the fact that my wife took the photograph. I set up the lighting and she took the snap. Great work maybe we should work together more often!!

This was processed using Lightroom 2 to get the desaturated look. The workflow consisted of the following:
  • Adjust Brightness and contrast
  • Correct Exposure
  • Adjust Clarity (down slightly)
  • Reduce Saturation

Tuesday 20 January 2009

Chasing The Light - John Rowell and Marion Waine

Last night at the Mold Camera Club we were given a presentation on AV by John Rowell and Marion Waine (Chasing The Light).

This was excellent, the content and presentation of each video was brilliant and to top things off a majority of the images and subjects were mountains and landscapes (my favourites).

Anyone wanting to see a fine example of exactly what can be done with a visual presentation of images alongside music and voice should look out for John and Marion's next presentation and definitely take a look at some of the images on the website.

It was easily a highlight of the Mold Camera Club for me so far.

Extreme Windburn!! And another lesson learnt

So I finally got to go out again at the weekend and get some use out of my new Manfrotto 055 XDB tripod. The choice was either Llanberis/Snowdonia or New Brighton. On paper there seems no contest however as there were extreme weather warnings I didn't fancy a drive all the way back to Snowdon only to find that the weather was too blustery to do anything. New Brighton was only down the road and for a while I have wanted to go and take a look at Perch Rock Lighthouse.

The new tripod did a great job considering; the wind was pretty relentless but the tripod stayed stable enough (without additional weight) to create sharp images.

No Frills Lighthouse

Windburn Central!!

It wasn't until later in the day that I realised that I would pay a price for being on the beach in these conditions. Throughout the day my face gradually got redder and redder and hotter and hotter!! By the end of the day it looked like I had been on a tropical holiday not a morning trip to New Brighton.

One more lesson learnt - Always protect face with some form of wind barrier before going out in stormy conditions, either that or stay in bed!!!

Thursday 15 January 2009

Two week whirlwind!!!

Two weeks into being a dad, what a great feeling.... I obviously don't want to change the purpose of this blog by turning it into a lifestyle blog. I promise not to flood this blog with hundreds of baby pictures. That being said having a new baby in the house provides ample oppurtunities to practice some portrait photography.

Nannys Hat & Sweet Dreams

I am really pleased with my choice of purchasing the 50mm f1.8 lens as the shallow DOF allows for much simpler images with no background distractions.

In addition to the whirlwind of becoming a dad I was also accepted as a contributor to istockphoto.com. This was following a review of three images and a short test (relating to copyright, model release(s), and image quality).

I am not entirely sure what my intentions are with this but I relish the chance of having some of my photographs used for commercial purposes and possibly earning a few extra quid here and there to help fund what is quickly becoming a very expensive interest.

As things are getting back to normal and I am hoping to get out and about this weekend around the Snowdonia area to grab some lanscape shots whilst it is nice and cold. Unfortunately none of this will be of any interest to istock but it will be nice to get out and about again. Watch this space.....

Saturday 3 January 2009

An Incredible December.....

It has been a while since I update my blog, but then I always knew that this month (December) would be all over the place and I would be very lucky to get any photography done.

December was always going to be an exciting month for me. My wife was due to give birth to out first child. She was due on the 20th but didn't actually give birth until the 29th December. It was well worth the wait! Being a father is a better feeling than I could ever have imagined.

At five days old Jacob Rhys is already getting used to the constant glare of daddy's camera.


Jacob One Day Old

Oh, and as well an becoming a dad I was accepted to provide images to istockphoto.com. I am not entirely sure if this is a viable outlet for the images that I take, but it was nice to know that the images that I submitted are of a high enough quality/standard to be accepeted.

Monday 1 December 2008

50mm Nikkor f1.8

I picked up a Nikkor 50mm f1.8 a few weeks ago and although I haven't really used it much I love the shall DoF it provides and think I am going to enjoy using this lots over the next few months.

Here is just a quick 'messing around' shot I grabbed of my wife the other day.

Lady of leisure

One think I know that I will have to be more conscience of is selecting the point of focus as there is little room for error once you move into the higher apertures.