Site New Look

I decided to do some Spring cleaning, and ended up doing a new website to make things a bit easier to navigate, and some nice ways to show off shoots that I've been doing recently.
So I hope you like the new look and please feel free to share with others, as its much appreciated.
AndyD

March Update 2015

It’s been a busy few months, what with one thing and another, so what’s new?

Well I've been investing in some new lenses and now the proud owner of Tamron SP 70-200mm f/2.8 Di VC USD and Tamron 24-70mm f2/8 VC USD lens, these are the real workhorses in photography when doing portrait etc.

I'm in my second year of my FDA degree in Professional Photography and still enjoying the course and learning more and more and getting to know new students that have joined the course.

I spent sometime in the Brecon Beacon’s in Wales and got some great landscape images that you can see in the gallery. I hope to pay another visit in the coming months to get a different look to how it was in February.

I've been working with a local male model; PJ Paul Walker who is a great guy and a lot of fun to work with and is extremely photogenic and if your reading this, you can find him on Facebook in the group page ‘Bristol Models’.

Its time for me to move up a gear and so I've been looking at charities to offer my services and please to announce that I'm now going to be doing work for Penny Brohn Cancer Care. Its amazing work they do and one of the largest charities in the South of England that offer help and care not just the victims of the dreaded disease but family members as well. I hope to heighten the attention of the organisation through images that are created with them and their events.

I also have other work in this area and waiting to meet other organisations shortly.

We’re coming into the warm weather and looking for anyone that’s wanting to commission me for some work. Working freelance means just that, in that I don’t just work in one area and willing to look at all sorts of work that’s with in my reach of being able to do. So if you or someone you know is looking for images to be taken, I would be pleased if you decided to put my name forward and give them my details.

So as soon as I have more to talk about, I will update the blog, so until then have a great day! J

A New Year Begins

It's a new year and loads to see and do.

Winter in the UK is somewhat an unknown entity, as you don't know when or if it will snow. Living in the South of Bristol, I can see the hills of Dundry, which is on the outskirts of Bristol and see if snow has laid or not.

The great thing of living in Bristol, is that your not far from Wales, South Coast or the countryside of the Cotswolds. So as the weather had dropped and the weather report for a few days was snow, I decided to venture over the Severn Bridge and head up into the Brecon Beacons, which is only an hour and half from Bristol. There wasn't any snow really on the roads and as I entered the A roads towards the Brecon's, the mist started to form and you could just make out the snow caps of some of the mountains.

I was heading for a particular place where there was a large reservoir called the Talybont reservoir, as you headed into the area the weather had changed to a beautiful mist covering the hills of the large forrest's that are in the area. When I got to the reservoir, you just had to sit and take it all in, mo cars, no people and no sounds of birds. For someone that spends most of their time in city, you don't notice so much the sounds that are all around, but when you end up in s place like this and turn off the car engine, and there's nothing, it seems so surreal.

I grabbed what I needed and headed along a small lane along side the top end of the reservoir and as I got to the centre, the lake went on for ever and there was hillsides opposite each other with lush green forrest up the sides.

I hit a bit of a snag in that the wall was quite high and had to set up the tripod so the camera could see over the wall, so I was dependent on the LCD screen to show me the image, after a few attempts the images were coming together. But the quietness didn't last long as a couple drove slowly along the lane towards me and stopped. When your in these opens areas, people actually stop and say good morning or afternoon, something that you just don't get living in a big city, it's like it's a whole other world and there is a certain decorum, if that makes sense. 

They had been out with their camera but at the other end of the reservoir taking photos, we had the normal chitchat as to what gear I was using and what he was using, it must be a photographer thing. 

Anyway they moved on their merry way and left me to it. I must of spent about an hour in the one spot, because the mist changes as it comes down the hillsides. I was glad I had taken my winter coat and hat as it was print fresh and when I got back to the car, I sat there for some time with a cup of coffee from my flask.  

The misty hillsides of the Brecon Beacon's
(click to see image full size)

I then spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the area by traveling along lanes that I had no idea where they would lead me. For me this is whats exciting about doing this kind of location work, because you don’t know what gem could be round the next bend. You don’t have to travel for miles to find something, even down a lane that you've travelled along in the past, but you have to look from the perspective as a photographer trying to find an image thats interesting.

Film Grain Look

I enjoy being behind the camera and working as well as exploring techniques by using myself as the model. Photoshop is and has always been a massive piece of software that allows you to work in ways that the commercial world needs to have images that have impact and sells something, and allow the photographer to be creative in bending the original image in a way that looks so different from the original.

Some may say that’s a bad thing and doesn’t make you a very good photographer, because you need software to create for your final image. Lighting, locations, and a studio can give you so much, and if you were working in film, then it would be down to the darkroom and chemicals, light, shadow and the tick toc of the clock that will allow you to make the image look as you want. So either way a photographer uses some form of editing to come up with the final image and I think both are just as time consuming as each other.

The original image was done in my studio with the help of a backdrop and lighting, the lighting is the important part of the process of the studio as it depends on the tools that you use with the light, like a softbox or beauty dish for example. You may use more than on light to get the look your looking for and moving the light forward or backwards and up and down will cast shadows in different ways.

Working in a studio gives you an idea of what lighting can give so you can put what you learn into practice when it comes to working with a client or model. For instance with this image, my main thing was to not have light reflection in my glasses, this is so difficult to get right, but by working with the lighting, you get the right look.

Today this is such a small part of what makes the final image as its ends up on the computer to be worked upon to give so many different variations of what is decided to be the final image.

So this is one variation of the original image that has that film and grainy look that’s done on purpose to give an effect that makes the face pop out of the background, and that strong look of the hand clasped so tight that the knuckles look almost white by the strain.

I am middle aged and yes I could of made my skin look smooth and vibrant, but that’s not the look that I was going for, I think it wouldn’t suit my personal look and would look tacky.

There’s no point in going through each layer that I produced to the image as this write-up isn’t about that and there are plenty of YouTube videos that can explain it better than me. What I can tell you is that yes I did remove blemishes that stood out that I removed, but the rest of the work is based on adding adjustments to contrast, exposure, adding what is called cures that adds either light or shadow to different point in the image. Brightening the eyes is a point that’s worked on to show a central point to the image. Then playing with the colouring and adding graining to the image is what gives that very different look the whole view of the image.

In total there are twenty-four layers to the image and there is two stages to the image.

Stage 1.

Original image.

Stage 2.

Removing blemishes, working with curves, levels and vibrancy.

Stage 3.

Working with curves, vibrancy, selective colour and graining is the final stage to the image.  (see image at top of page).

The thing I love about this kind of work is that you can do one style on an image and then come back to a few weeks later or even months, and then come up with a whole new style to the same image.

This took just over and afternoon to complete with a few brakes in between, as you need to come away from the screen for a while to look at something else before going back, its then that you may decide that something you’ve done just doesn’t look right and can go backwards to a point that you can begin work again.

Post editing is styling an image, and when you’re doing it for yourself then you’re the only critic till you share it with others. Some will love it, while some will hate it, but that’s photography for you and you have to take others critique on board as it’s a way of learning.

 

24HRS in Bristol Competition 2014

This year I signed up for the competition thats about photographing Bristol over 24hrs, each photographer gets a set hour to photograph within that hour.

This is the image that I took and entered, I called it ‘holding onto our heritage’.

There were over 900 images taken during the 24hrs and four judges had the job of choosing three images from each hour to go through to the final. The final included having your image as part of an exhibition to be held at the end of the event.

For me the idea of making it through to the final and having my photo on display was what its all about, even though there was some great prizes. My image was part of 72 images that made the exhibition and a great achievement that I'm so delighted about that I wanted to share this on my blog.

Summer break is over :(

Summer break is over L

For those that read my blog will know I'm doing a foundation degree in professional photography.

It’s kind of funny in that when you’re doing the school run with the kids and then they have their summer holidays; it seems to go on for ever! But when it’s you, time seems to have whizzed pass and you’re into a new year and you have to get your head into that mode once again.

It’s been a nice break, but at first I felt I should be doing something like research or my head buried in a book somewhere. But I’ve kept myself busy and done a few paid shoots and then there was my own little project on photographing myself and taking part in Bristol’s 2hrs in Bristol Competition which was a marathon. I did a fair bit of studio work as I know the beginning of the new year there will be a lot of that, and what with a new camera I had to get some new equipment to be able to get the camera to work with studio lights. I also invested in a beauty dish and some reflectors and tried them out in the studio; the beauty dish does give some really good lighting on a person. I read somewhere that to use a grid for a man and white diffuser for a woman; to me they both had their advantages depending on the image.

Buying gear is really down to how deep your pockets are and whether you look around for a good deal. I've looked at some video and images taken with well-known brands and the cheaper end seems to do just as good a job as them. Of course a lot of the work is done in the post editing and that’s something else that I've been working on what with composites and skin texture.

I think the summer break has given me the chance to digest what I've learnt and to put that into practice, when looking through the viewfinder I don’t just concentrate on the main part of the image but look at the sides and try different angles on what I'm seeing. Getting critical with your work has got to be a good thing, right?

One of the last things that I've invested in was the X-rite Colorchecker passport. I've read a lot on the subject and many professional photographers look at it like a bible, it does help get the right white balance and colouring, it also now works as a plug-in with Lightroom and saves a heap of time getting those batch of images right. I've had my monitor calibration software for some time now so everything works in sync.

The very last thing to mention is tethering my Sony A99 through Lightroom. I did download the Sony software but you really have to go round the houses in getting the dam thing to recognise the folder you want it to use, it can take me 15 minutes before I have it right, which is not good with a client sitting and waiting. So I was looking round the web and came across DSLRSoftware.com who boasts about their piece of software that works direct with Lightroom as a plug-in which is called DNA capture support. It’s about £18 but they do allow you to do is download a free version to try out, this has their watermark come up all over your images. But it’s brilliant, you start the tethering after connecting the camera to the laptop or PC and you just name the file and away you go your connected and taking images. Displaying images on a larger monitor than what’s on the back of your camera or through the view finder, gives you the full view of what you’re doing and gives you the chance to make changes on the fly that maybe you wouldn’t of done if you just went with the small view on the LCD screen or trying to enlarge the image on there. Sometimes it’s the small things that make that job just a bit easier to do and can be a real time saver.

So am I ready for the new semester, well I think so. I'm for ever creating ideas in my head for an image with a certain look to it, and maybe I will be able to put those together now with what we’ll be asked to do in the workshops. So into my second year of a great course that I totally recommend to anyone thinking of doing something similar and to catching up with friends I've made at college and to new ones that are just starting out in their first year.

Thanks for reading, AndyD

The Photographers Ephemeris (TPE) App

The Photographers Ephemeris (TPE)

Today, not many of us DON’T walk around with a mobile phone that does more than just be a phone. We can read emails, shop online, play games, play music, make videos, and of course take photos or selfies.

This list can go on and on, but finding an App that actually does something for photographers that use an external camera, is something that is getting better.

The Sun and Moon

Here's the thing, you find this great location that over looks a city or landscape that you think would make a great image for a sunrise or sunset, or maybe you would like to capture the full-moon on the horizon. But how do you know what time on a certain day the sun or moon will be there and will it be in the right location?

You could take pot luck and drive back on and evening or get up before dawn to find out, but what then if its all been in vain and you've struck out and it won't happen at that point of reference, your not going to be happy at wasting time and effort.

TPE

This is one of the very best apps you could possibly buy for your phone, the Photographers Ephemeris. You don't even have to go to the location as you can look over the map or do a search on the road or point that your interested in and just drop a pin. Straight away it will show you the sunrise, sunset, moonrise and moonset. And even have realtime of which direction the sun or moon currently is. It comes with a compass to show your direction in comparison to where the sun or moon will fall at a certain time of day or evening. You can go to a date in the month to see not just what time sunrise or sunset will be but the positioning will reflect the change of date.

You can save locations, so you can go back at a later date or time of year, you can view the area in so many map types as there are many to choose from. Its all there in one app for where ever you are in the world or looking to go to.

Desktop Version

Screenshot of desktop version

This version is just as useful and is free to use as its web based. you get the same info and you can bookmark references from your search.

There are so many times when your photographing a landscape, you think the location might have a great sunset or sunrise. So with the phone app, you have all the info at your finger tips, no more trying to predict where and when.

If there was one thing that I wished it did, would be to sync with my iPad or laptop, maybe this is something for the future releases.

Thanks for reading, AndyD