More Landscape Photos

I don't think of myself as a landscape photographer. However, as I live in the countryside it's sometimes too hard to leave the camera behind, especially in the kind of weather we have seen recently. So here's a few photos that I took last week when the frost was still sharp.

A day with Adam Duckworth

You'll all be pleased to know that despite the subzero temperatures that froze my screen-wash dispensers I managed to make it to Birmingham and back in one piece. It felt a bit like driving through cotton-wool in the fog, and it took way longer than it should have done, but it was all worth it, for I followed a day long lighting seminar with photographer Adam Duckworth. Adam is a very keen 'strobist', and as I like to call myself a strobist as well, I thought I could do worse than get a few tips from him. A 'strobist', for the few people out there who might wonder, is a photographer who uses off-camera flash to create interesting lighting effects. A number of photos on my website use this technique, particularly the fashion ones, and for those who are interested in learning more about it, here's the reference website: http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/
We started by spending quite a bit of time in the studio, as it is a good knowledge base to then transpose on location. We worked on various lighting effects, using a mix of soft and hard light sources. It was a pleasure to work with professional model Katie, who really knew how to work with the light. We then went outside and used a portable Quadra lighting kit. Here's some of the photos I took. They are direct from the camera and haven't been worked on in Photoshop.

How to keep warm and save money

Here's where I relocated my workspace today:

And here's a nice link to today's pictures by Magnum photos: http://todayspictures.slate.com/20101206/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TodaysPictures+%28Today%27s+Pictures%29&utm_content=Twitter

Does anybody actually like HDR?

I just don't get HDR imaging. If you ask me, it stands for Horribly Denatured Rendering. For those who do not know what I am talking about, here's some samples on this site: http://www.online-photoshoptutorials.com/2008/10/17-of-the-most-visually-beautiful-hdr-images.html
I know you can get normal-looking images using HDR. One of my photography teachers who was also a photography wizard used to do it very effectively, but I still prefer the old-fashioned Photoshop way. The principle for this sort of images is that you take two or three shots of the same scene with different exposures, one exposed correctly, one underexposed, and one overexposed, and then blend them together. I haven't got a proper HDR software, so I just tried it with the Photoshop 'merge to HDR' button. Here is what I got:

It's probably hard to see at such a low resolution, but the sun area looks very pixelated and burned out.
Now here's my own version using layers:

I know it's quite subtle, but I find the result much more satisfactory. And it allows more freedom to play around. I did this by using my underexposed image as background. It was pretty much all black apart from the sky and the sun. Any other exposure would have burned out the colours in the sky, so this is the only way of taking an early morning shot like this. I then added my normally exposed shot on top, deleted the sky part of the photo using the gradient tool, and set it to luminosity. I then added a very gentle curve to boost up the contrast slightly, and there we go. Here is another one on the same principle:

Setting the second layer to 'luminosity' mode gives the image a slightly surreal look that I like, but you also lose some of the colours. Here is what happens if you leave it to 'normal':

But at the end of the day (or at the beginning rather!) good landscape photography comes from good lighting, and that is really about being at the right place on the right day. This image was taken a few minutes after those first ones, when the sun was a bit higher. It has hardly any Photoshop adjustment:

That's all for today! If anybody wants to ask me questions about techniques, please feel free to email.

My favourite place on Earth?

If you had been walking around Avebury last Sunday afternoon you would have been able to witness a strange sight. You would have seen a demented French woman running frantically from stone to stone with a camera, trying to catch every second of the most extraordinary sunset. There is something very magical about Avebury, and every time I go there I experience something strange and beautiful. This time was no different.
I didn't just take my camera this time though, I also set out with my flash kit and colour gels, with which I had meant to experiment for a long time. The results are mixed, and I still don't know what to make of it. Some pictures turned out quite well, but others look more like the Chritmas show at Disneyland! But as the light started going down I abandoned the gels and tried to make the most of the natural light, which was more surreal at that moment than any artificial lighting. The sky looked as if it had caught fire, and the fields opposite were glowing red. My friends and I forgot all about the cold, we were just looking around with a smirk on our faces.
I ended up with nearly 200 photos, which is very unusual for me as I am not one to shoot willy-nilly. It took me a little while to edit them, but they're finally ready and I'm putting a sample on the blog. No HDR was used, just basic adjustments on Photoshop.