Wedding Photographer, Wakefield, West Yorkshire
commercial photography
Abstract Photographic Art: Parabolas
Sep 21st
ISO200, 16mm, f/2.8, 48 seconds
Hey folks, saw this abstract art technique recently and thought I’d put it out there if you didn’t know about it. Light trails can make some great images, all you need is a tripod and a small light (and a camera, obviously). It relies on opening the shutter for several seconds and drawing something with a little pen light. This technique is pretty similar. You need to be in a really dark room and have a shutter release cable attached as some exposures can run into minutes.
ISO100, 16mm, f/11 172 Seconds
All you do is hang a small pen light from the ceiling, I just used a bit of duck tape to hold the string and torch up. Lie the camera flat on the floor directly below the light and try and get the focus locked on to the light and then set it to manual focus. Set the camera to Bulb mode (B) or manual (M, manual mode will only allow 30 seconds maximum so if you have a cable release, use bulb), ISO at 100 and aperture may vary depending on the brightness of the torch. In the photos here I used f/2.8 as the first torch was very dim then when I swapped torches I had to use f/11, if you do a few test shots first you’ll get an idea of the aperture needed. Once everything is set to go, turn off the lights and set the light swinging, open the shutter for say 1-2 minutes and see what you get. I used a wide angle here so I could use a long piece of string but it depends on what you have available.
ISO100, 16mm, f/11 159 Seconds
The result is and abstract parabolic swirl. You can use lightroom to adjust any colours either with white balance or split toning and maybe increase the blacks to make sure no light has spilled onto any surrounding furniture. Good luck if you try it folks, varying the starting direction will massively alter the end result.
Yamaha XVS 1300 Cruiser Motorbike
Jul 14th
A couple of the Yamaha XVS1300 from yesterday, I like to think of it as an automotive work of art that no picture can ever do justice to. Not sure if we got the location right looking back, perhaps an abandoned warehouse would have been better, giving a more gritty feel. Same setup as the previous post with the same problems of no light stands! I’ll have to get some moving shots soon, could be a little tricky as I might have to ride backwards as a pillion passenger snapping as I go!Suzuki Bandit 1250 Streetfighter
Jul 13th
I was out on the bike with a friend today and we decided to stop get a few shots of his new bike. It’s a 1250 Suzuki Bandit for any bike buffs out there, a special edition I’m also informed. We pretty much lit the bike with 2 speedlights on full tilt and I also had a polariser on, this was more to try and reduce the ambient exposure so I could fire at under 1/200 without stopping the aperture down too much. Unfortunately I didn’t take any light stands or modifiers so it was a bit pot luck with the lighting but I think we managed, it although I had to put my VAL (voice activated light stand) ie, my mate, to good use. I processed them in Lightroom and Photoshop with a bit of dodging and burning to bring out the clouds a little.
Architecture in Leeds
Sep 27th
I was on a shoot in Leeds last week that called for some architectural shots so I headed for the townhall with a view of doing something with the columns. I wanted to concentrate on the transition of light to shadow on the circular pillars and the shadows they were casting, as I had a feeling I would be doing a mono conversion. I was using my 70-200 lens as I wanted to isolate certain details, I knew if I had my wide angle on I was bound to get some bystander as it was quite busy and I didn’t want to spend hours cloning out afternoon shoppers. I took quite a few shots like this but I stuck with this one as I liked the leading line element to the black door, I was lucky with the shadow of the lamp above it too. This was taken at 70mm, f/4 @ 1/400 ISO100.Off Camera Portraits
Sep 21st
I’ve recently bought a couple more pocket wizards that allow me to use more lights off camera, this was from a few quick shots we got in the garden. It was a two light setup with an umbrella to camera right and a bare light behind the subject to camera left providing a little separation light from the background. I’m going to use another light behind the subjects to the camera right. This was taken on full manual, both lights and camera, the exif was f/11, 1/200 sec. ISO400 at about 150mm. Sorry for the quick post but will do a more detailed version when I get a better shot.Pre Wedding Portraits
Sep 12th
I had a pre wedding meeting yesterday with a couple we are covering in a few weeks and I thought I might use some off camera flash, I’ve been reading a lot of strobist, if you haven’t been it’s worth a look for techniques and inspiration. Anyway as the sun had pretty much dipped over the horizon I wanted to do something with the sunset, but not have the couple as silhouettes, so in full manual I metered for the sky and got f5.6 at 1/160 sec (ISO100) I had a flash to the left through an umbrella and it was just a case of changing the flash power (I ended up at about 1/4 power with an old SB28, I know, a Nikon!) I could have darkened the sky by simply adjusting the shutter speed. I tweaked the shot in lightroom, I originally added a textured layer in photoshop but decided it made the photo look like it was on a backdrop so I binned it. I was going to do a mono conversion but decided it wasn’t necessary Chester Zoo
Sep 3rd
I went to Chester Zoo at the weekend, I wasn’t expecting to get too much but I was quite surprised with some of the ones I came away with. I had to pump up the ISO on some of the shots and was thankful of the image stabilizer on my 70-200 lens. I’ve processed them all in mono because I quite liked the effect and did a little doging and burning in photoshop, the gallery with the 12 I processed can be seen here.
Crazy Stunts
Sep 1st
We went to the Llangollen Balloon festival at the weekend, didn’t see a great deal of balloons as the weather was pretty poor but the stunt bikes were pretty amazing, the lads did a victory lap at the end and they all looked about 12! 
Anyway this is a little different from the stuff I normally shoot so it was a nice change. I was shooting on Shutter priority as I needed to freeze the action more than anything, so that was set to 1/800, ISO 200 using a 70-200 focal range, the appertures were usually about f9, AF mode was set to Al Servo. Last Macro
Aug 24th
I’m putting this one up because it’ll probably be the last shot I take with my sigma 50mm macro lense as I’m selling it, I’ll probably be tempted to buy another at some point but the proceeds will go towards it’s bigger (heavier) brother. Anyway this was just a quick shot of an echinacea plant (I think) Taken at f2.8 50mm, ISO800 1/30, I was surprised there was no camera shake, especially as I was in an odd shooting position. I processed it with niksoftwares silver efex pro. If anyone is thinking about getting this lense my advice would be to go for it, you won’t be disappointed, although the longer variants (105/150/180mm) are probably better for insects.More War
Jun 14th
Another one from my forthcoming war collection which I’m tinkering with as releasing as limited ed prints (bit pretentious I know). I’m going to do a total of 25 images with a run of 25 on each image. I’ve brought in a few props, in this one we can see the famous Sherman tank bearing down on the Germans. Anyway the partially complete gallery of these shots can be seen here. Take a look if you have a spare few minutes.