Category: Uncategorised

  • Warehouse and Offices

    A request to photograph a local warehouse and offices provided an interesting and challenging few hours, from architectural shots to production line, each setup requiring a different lighting and photographic technique.

    Below are a few of the images that we supplied for their catalogue.

     

  • Greetings cards

    Today we took delivery of our first greetings cards, printed for us by Advantage Digital Print in Dorchester. Subjects range from landscape and seascape to flowers amd all are left blank inside for your special message. We’ll have them available for purchase as soon as we can on our fine art section.

    Here is just a taster….

    greetings cards

  • Welcome to 2010

    Welcome to the new year. The naughties have gone (did anyone ever really use that name?) and hopefully the worst of the recession with it.
    Personally the last few months have been some of the busiest I have known (so apologies for the dearth of postings) but we have still found time to think about how we can help those who are still feeling the pinch, without compromising on our high standards. We believe we have found some alternative wedding photography pricing formats that you may find interesting.
    We have not forgotten those who are not contemplating the leap into marital bliss. We are re-arranging our portrait services, bringing them right-up-to-date by focussing on a Lifestyle approach.
    We have some new products under development and others we have refined enough to offer to our commercial clients.
    I’m looking forward to 2010 and it promises to be an exciting year.
    The website will be updated as we roll out these innovations.

    Have a great New Year everyone.

    Hope to see you soon.

    Mike

  • High Dynamic Range

    It’s too long since I added to this blog, but the summer and autumn seem to have gone by in a whirl and suddenly it’s winter again. Our first fall of snow on the Pennines came on Tuesday…by Wednesday the sun was out and the snow was thawing…so I made a quick decision to take some time off and dash out with my camera to capture the snow before it disappeared completely.

    When I arrived at The Manns, the light under the cloudless blue sky was very strong and contrast range very high. The danger, in these conditions, is that either the highlights will blow out or shadows will block up, so I decided to try some HDR shots.

    The principle is simple….take at least 3 shots, one an average for the scene, one a stop over exposed and one a stop under. (In retrospect, I might have tried 5 shots and bracketed even more.) The files are then downloaded and openend in PhotoMatix Pro…a clever little bit of software which merges the differently exposed photographs into one image with increased dynamic range; stage two of the process, tone mapping, reveals detail in both highlight and shadow areas.

    Here is an example: The three original exposures,1 stop under, “average metered” and one stop over, with the blended tone mapped composite below.

    The merged and tone-mapped result.



    Shadow and highlight detail are improved…the tone mapping has revealed much more depth of colour in the sky and the colour of the grasses and trees is much richer.On the whole I think it is an improvement on the original, though it certainly doesn’t have a “natural” feel to it.

    My second example is from Dovestone Reservoir.

    The merged and tone-mapped result:



    Here, the HDR software has done a good job, creating a more richly coloured image and handling the moving birds very well, without ghosting effects.

  • Wartime Weekend Washout

    It was a great shame that Saddleworth Wartime Weekend was such a washout this year. It has grown into a major event in the village and, with new organisers, extra attractions had been added for families with children to enjoy. But torrential rain showers on both Saturday and Sunday turned Churchill playing fields into a mud bath and the battle re-enactment that had been planned for Sunday afternoon had to be cancelled by the safety marshalls.

    I donned hiking boots and waterproof (even a camouflage waterproof jacket for my camera and lens) and we set off between the heavy showers. The event has blossomed from the Yanks event of the last few years and this year there seemed to be even more vehicles in the parade than ever. The convoy was led off by veterans and the British Legion Pipe Band and was applauded by crowds of visitors.

    See more photos in our client galleries…

    When we arrived at the campsite/battleground (Churchill Fields) the extent of the rain damage became obvious. Children waded through puddles and Pearl Harbor nurses picked their way gingerly across the muddy grass in their high heeled shoes. The military vehicles negotiated the soft ground easily, but one saloon car had become totally bogged down in the mud.

    A gallery of pictures from the event is in our client gallery section.