Blog Redesign

I'm currently redesigning my blog site that will hopefully be up soon, it's here if anyone wants a peek but please remember it's not fully up and running yet

Friday night...in a corn field

Went out this evening as the sky looked like it was going to light up the modest amount of cloud cover and I ended up, as I do more times than I'd like to admit, in a field with absolutely no foreground interest. I pulled out the 10 stop filter, to try and do something with the movement of the clouds and the corn, I thought the hill and the trees to the bottom right almost had a Tuscan feel, well, about as Tuscan as you can get in Northern England.Anyway I didn't spend too long editing it, mainly removing the magenta cast from the long exposure filter by adjusting the white balance in lightroom. The exif data was 20mm, f/11 cooked for 30 seconds at ISO400, 400 I know, and it was still slightly underexposed, I get a little nervous above ISO400, I don't know why because the 5D handles noise really well.

I was lacking in inspiration with my wide angle but saw Emely moor mast in the distance looked like it was about to get swallowed up by the storm so I swapped to the 70-200 and zoomed to 200 to eliminate any distractions. I could have done with the clouds being a little more side lighted by the low sun but there you go. This was taken at f/8, 1/40 ISO200. I was ok going to 1/40 at 200m as I was on the tripod but as a rule you should always have the shutter no slower than the focal length to avoid any camera movement. ie 400mm should ideally be taken at 1/400 or faster, 16mm you can get down to 1/16 (actually 1/15) but that is about the limit of hand holding for shots I find.I've also cropped to a 2:1 ratio for these shots, I quite like this widescreen, panoramic look and it works well with these as there wasn't much going on at the top and bottom of the frame.

Have a good weekend folks.

Yamaha XVS 1300 Cruiser Motorbike

A couple of the Yamaha XVS1300 from yesterday, I like to think of it as an automotive work of art that no picture can ever do justice to. Not sure if we got the location right looking back, perhaps an abandoned warehouse would have been better, giving a more gritty feel. Same setup as the previous post with the same problems of no light stands! I'll have to get some moving shots soon, could be a little tricky as I might have to ride backwards as a pillion passenger snapping as I go!

Suzuki Bandit 1250 Streetfighter

I was out on the bike with a friend today and we decided to stop get a few shots of his new bike. It's a 1250 Suzuki Bandit for any bike buffs out there, a special edition I'm also informed. We pretty much lit the bike with 2 speedlights on full tilt and I also had a polariser on, this was more to try and reduce the ambient exposure so I could fire at under 1/200 without stopping the aperture down too much. Unfortunately I didn't take any light stands or modifiers so it was a bit pot luck with the lighting but I think we managed, it although I had to put my VAL (voice activated light stand) ie, my mate, to good use. I processed them in Lightroom and Photoshop with a bit of dodging and burning to bring out the clouds a little.

Marketing Material

Hey folks, not posted for a while, it's pretty quiet at the moment although I have been accepted to an exhibition in Skipton called art in the pen. It's an art exhibition in a livestock pen, I think it's pretty trendy, it was started in 2006 and has been growing pretty steadily, you never know it could be my cavern club! It's here if you want a look. I've done a bit of business type stuff recently that I don't usually go into on my blog but I am doing today as I haven't been out with the camera recently. These are the layout for my trifolios, they are cards that fold in on themselves so they can stand freely and just give people a chance to see some of my work. They are easy enough to design if you know your way around photoshop. I get them printed by my pro lab called Loxley Colour. Just got to drop them in at some local shops now.