Cheltenham

Spent 24th and 25th October at a studio in Cheltenham partaking in an RPS organised studio fashion/portrait/nude workshop.  We worked with four professional models, all very experienced and such a help to us novices, adopting a different pose each time we clicked the camera and the flash worked.

This was not a venture into collecting competition winning images (although none of us would say "no" to high praise from judges - or Salon acceptances in the future!)

John Burton.  Contact - potonpots@hotmail.com

John Burton

John Burton

John Burton

No: this was more of a learning experience.  We worked with two to three studio flashes, and various light modifiers, starting off gently with one male model, two lights and a reflector when needed.  The lighting was "low key" - ie.: moody!  The intention was to create an end result in monochrome, with strong side light which would create drama.  More suitable for a male with strong features - which John certainly had!  He was a joy to work with and I am very pleased with the images we created.

Aretmis.  Contact - purpleport.com/portfolio/artemis

Artemis

Next, we progressed to high key lighting and a lovely little model called Artemis.  This session was all about shapes and delicacy.  The lighting gave a bright, white end result - which worked really nicely with some back lighting against a pseudo window with net "curtain"  Artemis created some lovely shapes with her youthful body!

Artemis

Artemis

The first day finished with Artemis, doing some nude modelling.  This again was all about shapes being created by the body - and the honeycomb-gridded light, above her head, threw a soft pool of light down onto her.  The end result was intended to be monochromatic and "sculptural".  Thank you very much, Artemis for some wonderful shots.

Day Two was devoted more to Fashion photography and some portraiture.

Brodie Lock. Contact  at Model Mayhem and Purple Port.

Brodie Lock

Brodie Lock

Brodie Lock

Two different female models were provided for us to work with, and they hardly needed any direction.  However, as the day progressed into the afternoon, we were expected more and more to dictate how the shoot went - moving the light to best position, and directing the models.

Leah Axl. Contact www.leahaxlmodel.co.uk

Leah Axl

Leah Axl

Leah Axl

Once more, Brodie and Leah proved to be very co-operative and understood how nervous and unsure some of us were at times!  A big 'thank you' girls!

Just a small selection of images shown.  Hope to post more on Flickr soon. www.flickr.com/photos/snaphappyann/.

Grateful thanks to Simon and his team for a variety filled two days.  If you fancy a similar training session, I can't recommend www.FilmPhotoAcademy.com at Cheltenham highly enough.

Isle of Wight - 5th - 8th October 2012

Back from our jaunt to the Isle of Wight - Mike to listen to his Blues music - me to indulge a bit of photography.

Each evening, I photographed the bands which were playing as Mike is writing reports on all this for Blues Matters, and wanted some images to accompany his article.  Some sample images appended.

FIRST NIGHT

'The Guy Tortora Band' kicked the weekend off.

. . . followed by 'Nicky Moore's Blues Corporation'.

SECOND NIGHT

 'Bad Influence' started the second night . . .

. . .  followed by 'Stomp and Holler'.

The whole ensemble.

. . . and their drummer.

THIRD NIGHT

The final night saw 'Split Whiskers' 

and the 'The Nimmo Brothers' giving their all!

One of the 'Nimmo Brothers'

DURING THE DAY

Saturday and Sunday were good days for photography.  I nipped off loaded with all the gear, and spent several hours happily indulging myself!

Sunrise at Totland Bay

Same location as above - used an 8-stop ND filter to "mush" the water!

Under the Pier at Sandown.  Tide was out, fortunately!

As above - slightly different viewpoint - and turned to mono.

Groynes at Sandown

Paddling by the Pier

Lamp post reflection at Ryde

Hovercraft at Ryde

A Few Days Away

Mike and I are off to the Isle of Wight on Friday.  It's Mike's annual pilgrimage here to attend a Blues weekend with like-minded friends.  Lots of loud music and some rather odd carryings on!  But all good fun!

I cadge a lift but spend the days happily wandering around the Island with my camera.  Over the last three years, I have made a friend of a lady photographer over at Bembridge.  We're down to have a luncheon date on Saturday!   I still haven't managed to "shoot" any Red Squirrels yet!  But I will persevere!

Evening are spent "enjoying" the music and general atmosphere!

This year will be especially good as a couple of close friends are also going along - so I will have some nice company while Mike enjoys the dancing and general frolicking around!  As you've guessed - he's made a remarkable recovery from his broken leg!

Will try to post some IoW images next week - if I get anything worthwhile, of course!

First Gold Of The Olympics!

I should have posted this much earlier - but frankly, I have been a bit dazed!

Back in July, I won a Gold medal for an image I created.  I started entering Salons last November (for the uninitiated, these are International Competitions, run by different countries around the world ) Great fun - but a little costly!  There are up to 5000 competitors entering each Salon - so competition is tough, and just getting an acceptance is cause for great excitement!

I really hadn't expected to get any acceptances, let alone an AWARD!

Anyway - this was the winning image!

The Banjo Busker

The picture is a composite: that is - two images put together.  The graffiti was in a tunnel in southern Ireland and I had to press myself hard against the opposite tunnel wall and use my widest angle lens to capture it.  Even then I had to "patch" in some detail along the lower edge to finish it off - and then flipped it left to right.

The busker was in the street playing his banjo - but was very shy, and wouldn't look up.  As it turned out, I think that was for the best.  I had to cut the busker out, and then place him in the scene, with the graffiti-man apparently having been woken up by the "noise"!

I loved the end result - and fortunately, so did the judges in Slovakia!

Textured Overlays

On 23rd September, I did a lecture at the Royal Photographic Society's Western Region Digital Imaging Group.
Texture layers over images is a technique I had long promised myself I would learn.  Call it laziness? Call it taking on too much? Call it what you will - but the end result was that I had not got around to doing anything about learning this new skill!
So - what did muggins do?  Stuck my hand up last March and volunteered to "teach" about three dozen doyens of the RPS how do do this!!
No fool like an old fool - and how right they are!  But I can certainly recommend "volunteering" to do things like this as a wonderful way to hone your skills and learn new things!
Everyone was kind enough on the day to say they enjoyed it all - and even learned something!  True to say, there were some at the meeting who knew more than I did and were very generous with their hints and suggestions!

Here are a few of my favourite images from that day!

A Rose by Any Name

Apple Blossom

Magnolia Bloom

One Green Bottle

The eyes Have "It"

Venice Carnival Figure

The Writing Is On The Petals

Feeling Trapped!

It's now eight weeks since he broke his leg - and the lad is feeling more than a little trapped!  The plaster came off last Tuesday - and he now sports a big Cyber Boot!  Very sexy!  This has to be worn for another four weeks - and it's fair to say, he is feeling VERY TRAPPED!!!

Must try harder!

Just spent a very hard working week in Yorkshire on a workshop with Guy Edwardes, Sheila and Gareth.  The weather was fairly kind to us - with only one morning when it rained, and then we "played" with out computers.  More images from the week will follow when I have time to process them.

In the meantime, I realised I don't use my camera enough.  The controls aren't instinctive.  So - to try to address this problem, I hope to go out every day and take photos, if only to reinforce what we learned this last week.

To start with - here are some bluebell shots I took yesterday, and processed today.  

The first in this series.  Taken at about 8.00pm on the last night of the workshop.  The exercise was to maximise depth of field.  The idea is to have everything sharp, from front to back.  Now to try to do this myself, without help!!

The above two pictures were taken at the same location on the same evening.  No help to get the depth of field right!
The bottom image was taken at about 9.00pm - which explains the darker tones.

Taken back in Devon on Sunday.  Not a world-shattering image - but trying the hyperfocal technique I learned, and putting it into practice before I forgot how to do it!!

Something different!  Tried my hand at focus stacking.  Using my macro lens, I hunted around for a good bluebell flower, then proceeded to focus on different parts of the flower heads.  Back at home, I then processed seven images, gradually building a final image with front-to-back sharp focus on all the flowers.

Assuming you're sick and tired of bluebell snaps - here's something different!  Thanks to Gareth, on the workshop, who inspired us to have a go at this!  Wide angle lens, and looking up at the trees in the bluebell woods!  We had great fun for quite some time!!

Thursday

A late finish to last evening (midnight) then up again at 3.00am - quick bit of breakfast, then we were on the road by 3.30am.  Reason?  Weather forecast for this part of the world was not good at all - but over in the Lakes, bright sun was predicted - so Guy felt there was a good chance of some misty sunrise shots.

Arrived in the Lakes at 5.00am - and had to dash down to the lake and do some very fast shutter work to catch the rising sun - and mist!

Ashness Bridge - photographed to death = but you have to do it when you're there!!

Then it was off for reflection-type shots.  Finally - we stopped for a "proper" breakfast in Ambleside, at a lovely Restaurant called The Glassworks.  Replenished, we then started to slowly wend our way back towards the Yorkshire Dales.  Stopped enroute once again to snap some lovely back-lit trees in a field of sheep, then we "did" the classic boathouse shot on Ullswater. 

'That' boathouse on Ullswater!

This gave Guy a chance to have a half hour catnap (he is doing all the driving location finding - and Grouse spotting!)

Finally, arrived back near our base and had another go at Grouse shooting (with the cameras, of course!)  Some of the birds were very shy - but others were more tolerant.

Thought you'd like to see a Lapwing instead of yet another grouse!

Guy stalking a golden plover.

Tea and crumpets at 7.00pm.  Totally exhausted - but what a good day!