Cliche I know but....

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



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

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.



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.....

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.



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.

First 'Solo' Studio Session

After much deliberation I finally plucked up the courage to hire a studio for the day. I had the motivation of only having a few weeks until my first born is due to drive me on. I wanted an image that my wife and I could look at in years to come and cherish. The easy choice would have been to go to somewhere such as 'Venture' and pay through the nose for what would probably be a lovely photograph. The more difficult option but ultimately more rewarding would be to try and create my own photograph.

I hired the studio in Calumet Photographic (Manchester) due to the very reasonable cost of £50.00 per day for the studio & £25.00 per day for lighting (All prices do not include VAT). Not having seen the studio beforehand I didn't know what to expect. On arrival I have to admit I was disappointed. I was shown to a lecture room with studio rigging to one side but the room was cold and untidy. Ten minutes later I was greeted by the rental staff who were very apologetic and immediately offered to discount the cost of hire and get the place tidied immediately. There are a couple of pictures below showing the setup.

http://flickr.com/photos/7358451@N03/3077691333/
http://flickr.com/photos/7358451@N03/3078522622/

I had made it clear when I booked the studio that I wanted to be left to my own devices as much as possible. After a short run through of the two Bowens strobes and the smaller one providing hair light the staff left me to it.

600+ shots later (five hours in total) and I came away a happy man. After much trial and error I came away with a short list of about 40 photographs with about 6 that I would have bought had we have gone to a pro studio.

I went in with the intention of getting lots of Hi-Key images, and although we did do these I think the ones with the grey background (no back light) and the Lo-Key images (black material draped over paper stand) work better.

All in all I walked away from the day having thoroughly enjoyed the experience and with a new found career in mind!!!! Let me know what you think of some of the images below. This represents just a small selection of the images taken.