Behind the scenes, pregnancy lighting.

Fuji XT1 f5.6 1/30 ISO 800

Morning,
I hope that you have enjoyed this week of pregnancy images that i have posted.
Today i thought id share some behind the scenes images and some thoughts with the lighting used.

As you can see from the above image, these were taken in my cramped dinning room. Even without a large space, using a little imagination and being creative with your space, you can create some nice images.

Nikon D800 f5.6 1/200 ISO 100

The important part i find is to light your subject how your like. Once lit well, then you can play with the background and try different things.

The above images are straight out of the camera. RAW files converted to JPGS.

Image on the left - the background was lit with a strobe covered with a red gell. Personally i didn't like this too much and so didn't process this.

The middle image - is obvious. I turned off the background light and so it rendered to black.

Image on the right - i turned the background light around and it shone on to the subject, bouncing back to illuminate the background.

The black background and the grey one, were processed to make the image have a little more interest. If you would like me to show in a future post how i did that, then please let me know.

Nikon D800 f1.6 1/80 ISO 100

 The above images were not shown in the week, but thought id share them for a little fun.
They were lit, with a simple over head projector. The sort that were used in schools.
I printed on clear plastic an image of blossom i found on a stock image site.
No fancy photoshop here, just an image using a projector.

Here is the lighting set up used for the bellow image. The bellow image is unprocessed. A converted RAW file again to JPG.

To create the lines on the background i used a venetian blind that i purchased from B@Q a while ago.
(It was defective and on sale for a fiver, result!)

The lights.

A - Nikon sb900 flashed through the blind to create the background. It was flagged to prevent spill onto the subject.
B- Nikon sb900 through a honey comb grid. To illuminate the bump.
C - Elinchrom Quadra through a snoot to add a touch of light on the face.
D - Elinchrom Ranger through another grid, to add some light on to the hair.

Nikon D800 f5.6 1/200 ISO 100

This was a fairly extensive lighting set up. It took a bit of time to set up, one light at a time.
When setting up lights like this, the subject has very little room to move. And so the set up takes patients from both parties. If your subject moves it can throw everything out.

Once the lights are set, relax. Make your subject relax and enjoy what you create!

I hope that you have enjoyed this week, viewing some work quite different from my norm.

Many thanks.

Lee.

Helvellyn composite images.

Hi, i thought id share the images that i used to create the image bellow.
The top left image was me putting my idea down as a drawing.
The Helvellyn page was created in photoshop with taking some information from Wiki.
Also i used a wood effect background which was warped and pulled about to make it fit into the scene.

Are you new to Blogging?

Hello -If you are new to blogging, thinking of starting a blog or maybe feel that your traffic has gone stale, then this is maybe for you.  

I know that there are a million "Tips" and "How to" out there on social media for bloggers, 
this is not one of them.... but the ramblings, on what I have personally noticed to the traffic on this blog.

The Past -  I have deleted my Facebook and Twitter accounts. I was sick of the negative content filling my day, people moaning and complaining about insignificant things.... 

Two months on, and it has been amazing, I feel more focused and surprised how much extra time i have acquired. To spend with people that actually mater.  

Social media - is a black hole of time, we are creative people when we get the time. 
Turn off the social media for a day and see how much more you get done. 
Turn it off for a week (you will carry on living trust me) your life will be improved. 
I am phoning people more, and when working away - emailing. 
Not as personal as hand written a letter, but an email these days feels much more of a personal way of communicating with someone rather than a "like" on Facebook, or a quick comment on a photo they post. 

Back to the blogging - Since leaving these two social media giants I have been testing ways in which traffic will now be directed to my blog as previously the main traffic was via Facebook and Twitter. 

When blogging the main point which can not be stressed enough is - CONTENT IS KING! 
Post relevant interesting content. Then people will return and view your work. 

Far too many post on subjects that they do not understand or are even interested in.
Listen to your audience, i regularly post answering questions from readers. 

Be yourself - stop posting trying to be someone else. People see right through this and it will only act negatively in long run.

Key wording - this is a vital tool for your images and posts to be seen from search engines. 
You have written an article on late 17th century poetry, performed in the medium of dance. 
If you have the relevant wording in the post then others who share your views will be able to find this from say google searches. 
This also hugely effects your posted images - Google "image01.jpg" and you will be surprised how many images are uploaded. 

You have worked hard on taking the image, taken the time editing it, 
now take a minute to square away a bit of house keeping. 
So rather then the camera generated number, name the file some thing like "yourname,location,subject,date,genre,etc.jpg"  
Now when people type into Google words that match any of these, your post and images will pop up. 

A note on key wording. Keep it relevant. This is a point which really annoys me, and morally is the lowest way to keyword. 
It is to include the Subject Masters in your key words. 
So unexpecting viewers looking for an article on a subject/ person, are now viewing your blog with irrelevant content...

I have in the past seen, HDR images of cats in front of the fire with selective colouring and wording saying that this is no "Henry Cartior-Breson".... You know what you are doing - STOP IT! 

(Disclaimer - yes I realise the above name is spelt incorrectly- it would be very hypocritical of me to include his name on a post of this nature now..)

The test - My most visited blog page to date is one of a workshop I attended, ran by a Photoshop legend.

This guy has a huge following (and well deserved) but by posting my experiences of the course, un-expectingly directs many to my blog from Google searching their name.

To confirm this, last week an American photo legend posted on their blog. images of the Shard building in London. Saying that their images from inside were unusable due to the reflections on the glass.
I commented ( in a non spam way) a blog post that I wrote, on the techniques and equipment that i used to take away the reflections. I included a link to my blog showing the post and my image from inside the Shard. Not so to help this photographer as they are awesome and would know this, but help others who follow. - And in one day I got over 1000 page hits.

I am certainly not one to spam, but find this interesting. 

It is all good getting the numbers but are the viewers relevant to your work?

More recently I've been testing Google+ I have found huge communities of people with the potential to view your content. But are the 400,000 people in a HDR community worth viewing your posts? 

Me Personally - I post for me, and I regularly go to the beginning of my blog and see how I've improved and it spurs me on to create new work and improve, 
this blog is a living time line of my images and i enjoy slowly watching them grow over the years. 
This blog is not compiled to generate business. I use other tools for that.  

Businesses -For those of you trying to direct potential customers, it is finding that right community / audience. 
Facebook has its place, but i find you do not have to be present, that is an excuse. 
If the content that you create is great, people will still share this. Finding the niche in your postings is the tricky part. Look at what you create and try and think like a customer, where would they be looking. 

Posting too much - I think that there is a fine line with over posting.
If the noise that you are creating is too often, people will grow tired of it quickly.
Quench the need to post everyday, cut back your posting and spend the extra time to produce higher quality content. ( I know that this goes against most top tip how to blog sites)

Utilising your blog's schedule function is a handy tool. You have some rare free time, and want to catch up with some blogging. Rather then throw out 20 posts in one hit, schedule them to be published over time. This will give you a clearer conscious that you have content coming out over the next few weeks, and helping you to have more time to spend on other things.

Also on this subject, when posting images i wouldn't post every single image taken on the shoot. Show just your best work rather than 900 images of the same subject. People lose interest and will click off and head else where.

Where ever you decide to post and cast the net, please be unique.
I know that the automated sites out there are time saving, but when for example you are viewing tweets blatantly created by software, with a hyper link to your post. It is highly off-putting and less people will follow the trail.

Monitor - Most blog these days utilise some sort of analytics in the back ground, this blog site for example is ran through Blogger (owned by google) and so i can see how many people view a post, where were they directed from, what country, what browser used etc. This helps in working out trends.
For this site i have seen that the G+ community traffic by far out weights that of the Facebook and Twitter views. And what content is most popular.

This post was created from my own personal views, there are no one size fits all with this, and it is taking the time to work out what is best for you.
My first post was over 5 years ago, which is frightening to think where the time has gone.
I will find it interesting to re-read this post in another 5 years time and look back on how things have changed.

Thanks for reading - ill go now and enjoy some of my newly acquired free time

Lee. 

Composite with a snow machine in the garden.

   f10 1/125th ISO 100

Good morning, hope that you had a good weekend.

The above is an image that i wanted to play with for a little while now, i have been commissioned to take a portrait of someone advertising a snow jacket.
Where possible i like to do a run of the shoot before the client, to iron out anything the comes up, plus gives their design department a good idea of the finished product and we can tweak it to their taste and needs.

  f10 1/125th ISO 100

This was the set up, pretty straight forward really. Two light sources, both camera left. The elinchrom ranger in a large octa positioned in front of myself, so the light was feathered and soft.
with a bare elinchrom quadra behind back lighting the snow.
With a snow machine you can see on the left of the image.
The image was shot with grey paper background intentionally to aid in the photoshop work afterwards.

Image set up and execution around 45 mins, and all photoshop work an hour and half.
Some times these images can take a lot more, but having the final goal in your mind and through experience you can achieve that goal much quicker and have a nicer final product.

  f10 1/125th ISO 100

Volvo V50 - play with a car rig.

 f10 - 1/30th - ISO 800 (multiple flash exposure)

I know that we are all guilty of this, i purchased some camera kit, and it has just sat there for months unused... (this is just me? - yeah right)

And so it was time to have a play. I purchased some car rig - mounting equipment. For making the movement shots you see in magazines.

f5 - 1/13th - ISO 800

Here is a final shot, with using a slower shutter speed to give the sense of movement, i would of been blurred in the shot, and so inside the car is a strobe light, set to rear curtain sync to give a pop of light to freeze me, and make me sharper. 

I triggered the camera and flash using pocket wizard 3's. I find these work a treat. I have one in my hand, and when i press the button the camera fires, and the flash. 

 f3.2 - 1/15th - ISO 400

A Shot of the mounting system attached to the bonnet. 

f5 - 1/13th - ISO 800

Added another pole to extend the reach of the camera. I felt the camera was too heavy for this though, as the poles were worryingly bending, and so only a very slow speed was used when driving.

Here is a short Video of the top image, being taken and processed. 

if the imbedded video does not play here is a LINK to the youTube version.

Thanks

Lee

Whilst making the Christmas image.

While i was trying the create the Christmas image, i really wanted to show some movement, and so i tried using continuous light and a slow shutter speed, while a strobe on rear curtain sync pops to freeze some motion.

Here is the image, i thought that it would work with, but proved to be a nightmare to select the movement and remove from this image. Next time i try this technique i feel a studio and back drop will be required to play with.

 Me playing with painting with light. This image i have a continuous light on as well as the strobe to create two of me in the single shot. Used the torch app on the iPhone to paint with.

 Here i turned off the continuous light and only used a strobe on rear curtain sync to illuminate me at the end of the letter, rather then the start. 

 

Playing about.

 Playing with colour as well as two light sources.

This is a single image rather then a photoshop creation.

 

My new little photo editor is a hard one to please :)

The "ryan brenizer" Method.

Thought id explain a little into a new technique that i have tried out.
This was my first attempt and so go easy on me :0)

For you out there that have not yet came across the "Ryan Brenizer method" here is a link to his work.

This image was made up of 50 images.
To create the DOF, you need to be to fairly close to your subject, using a focal length of around 85mm+ and with  the highest aperture you can go,
this was shot at f1.4.

Take the shot of your subject, keeping your feet still, pan around overlapping the shots by around 50%

Below you can see the images used. click on the image to see them larger. 

To create the f1.4 i used a neutral density filter and as you can see used an Elinchrom Quadra to light the subject.

I have found Autopano Giga much better at stitching then photoshop.

Here is the final stitched image in Photoshop. 

You can see the light stand and parts missing to the image, 

this was my mistake, i did not overlap the images enough when shooting them, and so the software struggled to identify the gaps. 

A little re-touching, deleted the light stand, added some warmth i arrived at the final image. 

*Few tips - that i have learnt and will be putting in place next time. 

Ill be shooting in jpeg rather then RAW, 

using the D800 the raw file sizes are immense, and kept filling up the buffer, really slowing down the process. If i shoot correctly colour balanced jpegs the post processing will be much quick too. 

Overlap much more each image to give the software a fighting chance.

Oh and not use a moving subject like balloons, boy that didn't half make the Photoshop work a head ache... worth it in the end though. 

Well thats enough of my ramblings on, hope that you enjoy the rest of your weekend. 

As always any questions or comments feel free to contact, 

either on here or through the contact page on my website. 

Thanks 

Lee

A subtle technique, but goes a long way..

Hi all,

Here is a little tip which i have recently picked up and thought id share as it makes such a lovely difference.

When working on images of buildings here is how i now add contrast.

Rather then use contrast adjustment layer, i created two levels layers, one darker and one lighter - both with black layer masks.

Now take your time, and paint in, where the face of a building is lighter, make it lighter and the dark side darker. It takes a little time, but certainly gives your image much more depth and a 3D feel to them.

Please feel free to click on the images below to enlarge them to see what i mean more clearly.

 Please Click on the image to Enlarge.

This image has the effect turned off. 

The extra layer you can see is a contrast adjustment layer to the lighter layer.

Please Click on the image to Enlarge. 

Here is the final image with the contrast technique added. 

Subtle but certainly makes a lot of difference to the image.

Fun Photography?

With some long exposure work coming up, thought I'd brush up on camera exposure shutter speeds in stop values. 

Who said photography isn't fun... 

Polarising Filter.

 Hi,
Today is just a quick post, but wanted to try and show the importance of using a circular polarising filter. Here you can see from a shot of London from the View at the Shard i had to shoot through a window.

This image you can see the reflections in the glass from inside of the building. 

By using a polarising filter, it is not perfect, but seriously cuts out the reflections and so saves you much more time having to edit less :0)

At the moment I'm using a cheap circular screw on filter, but will be soon ordering a square shaped, circular filter by LEE filters as the quality will be much greater. I look forward to post when i have images to show.

Like always if you have any questions please feel free to post in the comments. 

Hope that you enjoy the rest of your Sunday... 

Lee

The view from the Shard London HDR image break down.

Hi, hope your keeping well and have had a good weekend. 

Here are some images from the previous London landscape image that i have posted. 

I wanted to show the images used to create the final image. 

I clamped the camera down to the handrail using the Manfrotto Magic arm and using a cable release i rattled a few bracketed frames. 

I have included the metadata on each image, but other then converting to jpg, they are straight from the camera and in the order the camera took them and i added to Nik softwares HDR efex pro 2.

Here is the first base image. In face i quite like this exposure but i personally prefer having the extra range to play with. 

The View at The Shard London.

Hi, how are you? 

I hope that you are well, while I'm stuck out at work on the rig for a month....

Last week for the Mrs's birthday we took a trip to the new viewing platform in the Shard building- London.
72 floors high you get an incredible view of London.
You have to book in advance, and pick your time slot, i was particular in that i wanted sunset to dark.
After googling the timings i was happy that we would catch the setting sun, but just had to have our fingers crossed for the weather :0)

Carcassonne Castle edit.

Happy Sunday... 

Here i wanted to show how i got to this final image of Carcassonne. 

This is made up of 3 different exposure images. 

It is technically a HDR image, but it has not been tone mapped, i used the exposures as different layers and masked them in. 

Here is the base image as it was out of the camera, 

Adding Leaves to an image...

Happy New Year!

I wanted to show a subtle part of the above image.
I felt when looking at this scene, the background just behind Myself and the Mrs, was to similar to our clothing and wanted to break it up abit.
With large piles of fallen leaves on the ground,  it would be good fun to add some of these.

Here is the in camera image,
Lots of distractions, sign posts and rubbish on the ground.
Where our dark tops are, they blend in with the background around us.

With the camera set on a trip pod, i got the Mrs to throw some leaves in the air.

Another shot of some leaves.
As the camera is on a tripod, it makes editing much easier.

As im now using the Nikon D800 camera, the file sizes are crazy large, and so instead of importing every image as layers into the one file, I simply made selections of just the leaves that i wanted and moved them onto the final image.

As always, if you have any comments or questions, id love to hear from you.

Thanks

Lee

The Edit of the Tash image.

Following this image, i thought i would post on how i got to this final image from the out of camera shot below. I have included many screen grabs to try and explain how i got to the finished image. 

Here is the original image, taken in my front room. You can see the TV on the left, but knowing that i wanted to do a cut out, i placed a piece of white card behind me to make life easier later on in photoshop. 

Hotel room Lighting.

Hi all, 

I wanted to try and show how i think when setting up multiple lights in a scene. 

The image above is lit with 3 SB900 flash guns. Including the stand lamp :0)

I wanted to see if any of the lights in the room are effecting the scene. Here is a shot with my flashes turned off. At F6.3 1/125sec iso 200 there are no external lights influencing the shot.

Now shooting in Manual, you keep the settings locked in and just change the lighting. All these shots have the same aperture, shutter speed and iso settings.
Here i have a strobe placed in the lamp shade. I turned it to a power where it will not blow out and so some detail will remain.

Here i have one light one, in a soft box lighting in the direction of the arrow. Its set to lift some of the shadows that are created.

Lastly i used a strobe high up with a grid on the front to create some directional light.

To set each light you have to add them one at a time. Even when happy with a light, turn it off so that you can see how the next light will effect the shot. Once happy turn on and have some fun ;0)

Thanks

Reflections.

Hi all,

Here is a quick post to show you some of my thinking.
The above image i really like, it was taken in the cafe in the Tate Modern Museum London.

I am a big fan of reflections and symmetry in images. I really like how you view the image and if it wasn't for the chairs in the foreground and the table of guys in the background you would probably think that i Photoshopped this image. But it was genuinely taken.

Here you can see my thinking behind the first image.

I was sat at the table drinking my coffee and was viewing the scene in front of me.
I found the guy working was distracting and "in the way" personally,
plus my camera bag was in shot - school boy error.

So moving the bag off the chair in the foreground and waiting for the scene to make itself. I was very happy with the final image.

Not always will things work out for you but it is great and very enjoyable to see something in front of you, and you have to wait for the parts to all come together.