SteelOrchid Photography

Author: artemispurple

  • Fine Art Photography… an art in its own right

    Many photographers choose to specialise in only one area of photography, so it might be surprising to find social and commercial photography hand in hand with fine art on our site. But are they really as different as chalk and cheese? and what exactly is fine art photography? Well, I guess the wikipedia definition is a good starting point…

    “Fine art photography refers to photographs that are created to fulfill the creative vision of the artist. Fine art photography stands in contrast to photojournalism and commercial photography. Photojournalism is to promote an editorial point of view. Commercial photography’s main focus being to sell a product or service. The final creative reason for a fine art photograph is the photograph itself. It is not a means to another end except perhaps to please those besides the photographer who behold it.”

    Commercial Photography is any kind of photography where money changes hands! so commercial can be fine art and fine art can be commercial.  For me, the fine art side of my life is a way of immersing myself in my own imagination, whereas in the wedding and business side of our work, the taste and requirements of the client and type of usage often can dictate the brief.

    Photoshop has become a major tool in the process of creating fine art prints and I have learned and still am learning how to interpret an image in different ways just for the sake of itself and my own creative need. This is a case in point. The photograph below has been enhanced with Photoshop, bringing in a new sky and interpreting the picture as I felt and remembered it, rather than as the camera recorded it.

    Stannage Edge

    The picture below shows what the camera actually recorded. The beautiful light that I saw streaking across the foreground has been almost lost and the sky is bright and featureless. Some dodging and burning of the foreground areas coupled with dropping in a new sky were necessary to interpret the landscape as I had felt it on the day.

    Stannage Edge before

    The good thing about all of this is that there is a spin-off. Learn how to use editing tools to interpret a flower photograph beautifully and you also learn how to interpret other subjects. The processes have so much in common. Looking for beautiful light in landscape photography also helps you to see and appreciate (and create) lighting in all other areas of photography.

    At SteelOrchid, we can also use our photo-editing and interpreting skills to offer beautiful fine art wedding photographs on the best textured or matte finished art papers. A great way to display these is in archival window mounts in portfolio boxes, a welcome alternative to the traditional album.

    Fine Art prints have been prized in the USA for decades, but only recently are they gaining recognition in the UK. Prices are rising at the rate of 7% per year and so buying fine art photos can be an investment as well as buying something that is personal and not mass produced. Ink prints on art papers are now so stable that they can outlast traditional photographs and other types of printing by many decades. We have a growing selection of fine art prints for sale here.

  • Advice for Brides

    Getting married is one of the most important events of your life and you’ll want to have wonderful photographic memories of it for years to come. There is nothing to match the immediacy and spontaneity of a still photograph. It captures a fleeting moment in time, an expression, a detail that you can revisit time and time again. It has been said that all you eventually remember about your wedding is what is in the photographs….as other memories fade, your photos are still there to remind you of that important life-changing day.

    Bride and Groom in Church

    Choosing a photographer that you are comfortable with is the first step. If you have a rapport from the outset, you will be well on the way to achieving the album of your dreams. Make sure that you see more than one example of the photographer’s work and that you see a real album with a real wedding, not just stock photos of model brides…and of course you need to talk about any extra special moments and favourite people that you want to have captured… (more…)

  • Footprints in the Snow

    Just as we thought that winter was relinquishing its icy grip on the North West, it reared its head for perhaps a final time this year with a moderate fall of snow on the Pennines. Waking up on Easter Sunday to four inches of snow outside our house meant that there would be at least six inches a mile or so up the valley at Dovestones. It gave me the perfect excuse to have a quick breakfast, don some warm clothing and hiking boots and dash out with my camera to enjoy something that is becoming increasingly rare – the opportunity to take pictures for myself!!

    Above Dovestones

    I love all kinds of photography and, for me, taking photographs for a living isn’t like real work, but most of our professional work involves photographing people and it certainly isn’t usual for the phone to ring with the request “it’s snowing – can you take some pictures of the landscape for me?” so Sunday allowed me a day to indulge in my first love, photographing the land. I didn’t need to feel guilty – with wedding album orders to fulfil, it’s difficult to indulge in a day off sometimes even at the weekend, but this was Easter weekend and I promised myself I’d work and catch up tomorrow. (more…)

  • Fine Art Printing

    Fine Art photographic printing took a major leap forward in the last few years with the introduction of high quality pigment ink printing. We upgraded to the HPB9180 printer last year and, hey, is it brilliant?! Low metamerism, low bronzing on gloss/lustre papers and bright saturated colour on matte and textured fine art papers make this a very desirable piece of kit. After several months of making prints with this beast, I have come up with a series of papers that work well with it. There’s a growing list of icc profiles available at HP here and it’s a simple process to load them – just follow the instructions in the HP Digital Imaging Monitor.

    All of the following papers produced very good results:

    HP Advanced Photo Paper Glossy
    As you would expect with a paper made for HP pigment inks, this paper gives an excellent result with good detail, low metamerism and only a little gloss differential. It’s a good all round gloss paper and, at 250g/m² it’s a good weight and feels like a wet process photo. Be careful only to choose “advanced” papers from HP and not the more readily available “premium” papers, which are made for dye inks and do not produce as good a result. Unfortunately, in the UK, it’s quite difficult to obtain HP’s own paper in anything above A4 size.

    Epson Premium Semigloss Photo Paper
    This paper gives an excellent result with the HP inks. There is just a little gloss differential (which you can see if you tilt the print so that the light hits it at an angle). It’s best used with the icc profile downloadable from HP, who seem to have realised that people will make prints with other manufacturer’s papers and cater for it. Thanks HP!

    Epson Archival Matte
    A good everyday paper with a smooth white finish which takes the ink well. A minor crit is that the paper is rather thin and so the resulting print doesn’t feel too much like a high quality piece of art. It’s great for sending away to competitions though, where it’s light weight (192gm/sq m) is an advantage and it’s the cheapest of the bunch to buy too. (more…)

  • That ****** flash

    Did it again! I like to talk to my clients…have a laugh…make them feel comfortable…work quickly so they don’t get bored…

    But that ****** flash gets me every time. I’m working in their office …low light, bounced flash…off the ceiling so it doesn’t hurt their eyes…take a quick shot…talk and relax them a bit more…they smile…that’s the moment…quickly squeeze the shutter and the ****** flash fails to fire. I laugh… “it’s a girl thing” I say. They smile again (with pity I think)…but this time it’s recharged and I get the shot. Next time I’ll wear the battery pack even though it does make me look a bit of a terrorist.

  • AFIAP – was it worth it?

    The beginning of February was a landmark for us…after five years of international competition; we were both awarded the distinction of AFIAP – not one to share, but one each! It stands for (at least the English translation from the French) “Artist of the International Federation of Photographic Art”.

    Heroes of the Ice

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