We're Alive Again!

Hopefully the worst and wettest Winter since records began is over, and I can start shooting again. I've been out and about for the last few days, and when I get time I'll PP and post.

In the meantime, here's something that won't be alive again, sadly. The other year, in some unexplained nautical catastrophe, all these starfish were washed up on the beach. The shot is notable in that it illustrates how Depth Of Field shots are possible, even with an ultrawide, on 35mm Full frame cameras. Done with the D3 (which was new at the time, so my distress at covering it in sand was palpable) and the 14-24 f2.8 UWA.



Click on the image for a larger version.

Oh, and in unrelated news, Flickr are no longer marking my stuff as unsafe.

Too many Christians, not enough lions, if you ask me.

Not My Style

As part of a project a friend and I dreamed up, I agreed to photograph a day of my life. Not my sort of thing at all - photographs of record bore me utterly. But, as a one off, it was quite interesting, and I though I'd post the results here. You'll note everything looks underexposed. Do you find that pictures shrunk to tiny sizes have that effect? I do...

No Lucy, you are too small to come on a proper hike.



We've reached the mountains after a long blast over the tracks.



Dog and master in perfect harmony.



Spring is coming, finally.



Baby pine cone.



Mature pine cone.



Delphi loves a hike.



Tracks are now dry enough to get the logging trucks in and out.



And the skies are blue again.



River levels are still abnormally high - trail riding can get a bit scary.



Ruined house in the valley. It must have been hard to scratch a living here.



Climbing back out of the valley.



And back to the car. About 20KM round.



Car dropped off, bike picked up, time for a late lunch.



Cheese and ham toastie, jug of wine.



Down to Marinha beach for a bit of shooting. Rocks with fill in flash.






A friend of mine has a bar in Loule, with live music on a Saturday.



Shady locals mix with tourists and expats.



Mine Host.



The view from behind the bar at closing time.

And there you go. Quite fun to do. You try it...

Shooting Bikes

The most worrying thing about this, is that these are all my bikes... Oh well. Bikes and cameras seem to go well together as a hobby - carry the cameras on the bike, if you can't find anything to shoot, shoot the bike.



This is my Harley V-Rod, mildly modified (more has been done since). Parked in a car park, with the rear tyre placed strategically over a skid mark. Waited for dramatic weather.




This is my Daytona 955i. Taken at the docks in Olhao. Dark bike, so high key shooting to show the bike.



This is my KTM 990, looking down and dirty on the West Coast. Shallow DoF to make it stand out from the background.



I actually went to the rouble of riding for this one. Nikon D3, 70-200, tracking autofocus. Eva behind the lens.



This is the KTM being ridden from England to Portugal. I was unable to resist the lure of a snowy background.



The Harley again, this time at dusk, light shining from the low sun. Again shallow DoF to pull it out.

Going To Extremes - 7/1/2010

Well, the weather is looking up, and with luck tomorrow I can do some photography instead of talking about it. Oh, and talking about talking about it, today I want to talk about extreme post processing, having demonstrated gentle post processing to lighten the ground and darken the sky last time. Two shots for you, or two versions of the same shot, one heavily post processed, one not:


Such is the prejudice against post processing, or "Photoshopping" as dim and ignorant people call it, that most shooters will prefer the plain version. Yet I've never seen the plain version anywhere, and the other one has been nicked and put everywhere.

In point of fact everything is post processed. When you take a picture, if you are shooting in JPG, then the JPG engine in your camera will apply what it thinks of as the correct amount of saturation, sharpening, contrast etc. On more expensive cameras you can change these settings. That's effectively post processing. If you shoot RAW, then you can change the settings after you've seen the shot. Post Processing. The colourful shot above was processed in Nikon Capture NX. This is a version of the camera JPG engine in software. If I'd whacked up the saturation on the back of the camera, then the shot would, according to some people, not have been post processed. Because I did it afterwards, on the computer, that's cheating, apparently.

Post Processing, Or, As Idiots Would Have It, Cheating - 4/1/2010

We're looking at ways to manipulate the light so you get closer to what the brain sees rather than what the camera wants to capture. Yesterday I described my preferred method of darkening the sky and lightening the ground, the Graduated Neutral Density Filter. Sometimes you can't use a GND - one common reason in my case is that I'm using a lens too wide to fit one too, such as the Nikkor 14-24 used in these two shots. Then you can do the job in post. In both of these shots the Nikon Capture NX software has been used, but if you have a RAW processor that can't manage this, then process the shot twice, layer the two shots over each other in Photoshop and then use Quick Mask to blend one version into the other.

Graduated Neutral Density Filters - 3/1/2010

Note the witty title today. These aren't really a very witty subject - they are a grey filter darker at the top than the bottom, and they enable you to have a lit ground with a darker sky. They're pretty essential frankly, yet they are seen as esoteric. If you want to take landscape shots where you can see the ground yet the sky isn't blown out, then you need one. This is probably the most useful tip I've given you so far...

On Reflection - 30/12/2009

Still chucking down with rain here, thick fog, blocked drains, horrible. So, on with the photo odyssey from the archives. I was talking about altering the light. Last time I talked about fill in flash. This time let's look at reflectors. You can make your own reflector with a bit of white card, with or without silver foil, but these were done with a LaserLite reflector. Nothing very clever, just have your lovely assistant (hello Eva) aim the reflector to light the subject: