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Dunstanburgh castle in Northumberland

I was up at Dunstanburgh Castle in Northumbria on a bit of a motorbike/photography trip with a friend recently when I got this photo. Unfortunately there wasn’t much of a sunset and there was even less of a sunrise but we did the best with the light we had. Dunstanburgh castle is a very photogenic location, with waves rolling in over the large round boulders as foreground interest and the ruined castle on the hill top it gives the landscape photographer numerous opportunities to create a great image. A great sky would really set the image off but as the clouds weren’t really dancing I made sure the sky wasn’t really the focal point, one of the ways this was done was by positioning the horizon on the top third as opposed to the bottom. I wanted the motion of the waves to appear misty, this was done by having the camera on bulb mode and keeping the shutter open for 90 seconds (a very opaque neutral density filter such as a 10-stop is pretty essential for long exposures).

Dunstanburgh castle in Northumberland (Colour Version)

Composition was a little tricky on the beach but I knew I didn’t want a single rock dominating the middle of the foreground so tried to make sure the rocks were fairly evenly scattered. I also had to wait for a bunch of pretty large waves as it is the white choppy water that gives the mist effect on long exposures, gentle waves wouldn’t have worked. It’s worth noting that the tripod was in about a foot of water here (as was I occasionally) and any wave splashes or rain on the filters had to be cleaned straight off, a tedious task to say the least. I used a 10 stop ND filter and a 3 stop grad to retail detail in the sky, as I wanted the cloud movement as well.

Dunstanburgh Castle with a Pink Sky

Processing was done in lightroom and the black and white conversion was done using nik software’s silver efex pro. The shot was taken at f/8, 16mm, ISO250 for 90 seconds. I’ve added a couple of colour versions of Dunstanburgh Castle as well, sometimes it’s difficult to choose!

Fine Art Banana

The main reason I’m posting today is I have just received my wireless flash transmitter, the ST-E2 and I was having a quick play round with it. I have had a bunch of pocket wizards for some time now so I’ve done quite a bit of off camera flash stuff but I find they aren’t the quickest things to set up which isn’t ideal for things like wedding photography. The good thing about the ST-E2 is you an just pop it on the camera and set your flashes as slaves and away you go. You don’t have the sort of range you get with the pocket wizards but if you are just taking photos in a room (eg a bride getting ready) these seem to work great. If you have a couple of flashes you can also change the lighting ratios remotely which is pretty cool.

A good understanding of how to use flash both in automatic mode and manual are very important and after a bit of reading around the best way to develop this to just get out your flash(es) and practice. Still life photography is a great way to practice, if you can light something a little bit differently you can make something as plain as a bit of fruit look quite interesting. That’s pretty much all I have done with this shot of a banana from earlier today. I had 2 flashes either side of the banana triggered with the ST-E2, one was direct and one bounced off a nearby wall. My camera was in manual mode but the flashes were in ETTL, one of the main advantages the ST-E2 has over pocket wizards is it’s ability to talk to the camera with the complex infrared bursts just before an exposure. I processed it in black and white with siver efex pro to add a bit of film grain just to give a bit of a fine art feel to the end photograph. So far I am happy with the ST-E2 and hopefully it will give me a few more options when wedding season rolls round.

Sunrise in the Snow

I was up early this morning and could see we would be in for a decent sunrise so I donned just about all the clothes I own to keep warm and set off to a nearby field. I got there in good time but the shot I originally planned wasn’t going to work, it was more of a sun set location so I went over a small bank so the land would be lit up as soon as the sun peaked over the hills. As a side note, I also found quite a substantial bee farm, about 20 hives, luckily with it being -10 degrees there were none about. I used the tracks and the fence/hedge for foreground intrest and as leading lines towards the dramatic sunrise. I had my 3 stop ND grad on to balance the exposure and thats about it. I had underexposed the shot slightly to get the saturated colours, generally you should overexpose snow scenes to get the snow white as opposed to grey but in this case the sky was the main subject and I knew I could bring up the land a little with the graduated filter in Lightroom. This shot was taken at ISO100, f/16, 1/3 sec at 16mm.

Danbo Walks the Line

I’ve got a bit of a side project at the moment taking photos of these crazy little Japanese toys called Danbo (Japanese for cardboard, I think). They are off a cartoon as far as I can gather and they make great photo subjects. There are quite a few of these types of photos out there on the web so I thought I’d add a couple more. Macrophotography is great for cold, rainy days, as I’ve said before, if the light isn’t great outside or you just can’t really be bothered braving the cold, a cool indoor subject works really well, better than shots of the dog/cat next to the fire anyway. If you have a few flashes and some off camera triggers (either a flash cord, sky ports or pocket wizards) it opens up loads of options and helps you get to grips using small flashes without the stress of having a model, wondering why you keep taking a photo and then scratching your head as you look at the LCD screen. In this shot the Danbo was lit from camera right and the guitar neck was lit from above, I wanted the rest of the room to be dark, as it was a bit messy and I wasn’t in the mood to tidy up! This was taken with a 50mm f1.4 at f/2 ISO100 1/160 with both flashes on about 1/32 power.

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Hi Pete,

Sorry for our delay in reply. We have literally just got back from our honeymoon – less than an hour ago – and the first thing we did was head to the computer to see if you had emailed us some photos… and as reliable as ever, you had.

So, what can we say…?

WOW! …AMAZING! …STUNNING! …BREATH-TAKING! …etc…etc…etc!!!

(We don’t really know how to put into words what we are feeling, but we’ll give it a go!)

From the very start we had such high hopes invested in you and we knew that you wouldn’t disappoint us or let us down …and you really haven’t! We’re blown away by all of the photos, there isn’t a single image we don’t like – in fact we couldn’t pick a favourite if we tried! (I mean, how many hours is too many to sit and watch them over and over again?!) …We cannot pass on to you (and Carol, ‘your quiet assistant’) enough thanks! You have truly made our day/ week/ month/ year!

Captured in the shots you and Carol have taken are the very essence of everything that was important to us that day – the laughs, the smiles, the fun, the romance, the friends, the family, the charm, the enchantment, the atmosphere, the love …simply everything! – and you’ve managed to seal it in a visual image that depicts our memories of that day that we will love and cherish, and which will last us a lifetime!

Everything about your management and service has been exceptional; there is nothing we can fault. Not only did your pricing come as a wonderful surprise to us (given the quality and calibre of your images), but your style, generosity and ability to take stunning contemporary photographs has truly blown us away.

We remember back to when we first emailed you and how we waited in anticipation and fear that the hiring of such a high-end photographer would be far out of our price range; but you didn’t disappoint! Right from the very offset you were exactly what we had been looking for; a friendly, down-to-earth, talented and accommodating bloke, who offered us individuality and everything and more that we wanted. We instantly knew that we had landed on our feet! Indeed, in all the hunting and searching we did to find a wedding photographer, the endless meetings and emails we exchanged with them, none came close to your distinctiveness and bespoke approach.

So, as corny as this email reads – and we are aware that it is very fanatical, but in our opinion very much deserved – we cannot put into words how blown away we are by what you have done for us. We were ecstatic when we found you, and even more ecstatic when we realised how flexible and dedicated you were to suiting our needs. In short, this email goes only a small way to giving you the full credit and admiration that you deserve and the thanks that we want to convey to you.

It was our absolute pleasure to have you take our wedding photographs and we had the most amazing day. We feel it very safe to say that we WILL be in touch in the future should we need the slightest of pictures/portraits/photos taking. We will be sure to recommend you to everyone and anyone, and we wish you all the very best for your future photography career and business. We will continue to follow your blog in sheer admiration of the amazing images you take, and we look forward to meeting up with you again in the not to distant future (who knows, maybe to capture the next new chapter in our life)!

Once again, “Thank You” a million times over!

Yours sincerely

Laura & Mike

Trees in a Field at sunset near Nostell, Wakefield, West Yorkshire

Tree in a Field at sunset near Nostell, Wakefield, West Yorkshire

I sometimes use Flickr maps for a bit of inspiration as to where to go if I’m a bit undecided and it looked like we may have a decent sunset so today it sent me to Ackworth which is near Nostell Priory just outside Wakefield. I could see (from google maps) there was a good size field with a few lone trees so off I went. The sunset wasn’t the best in the end, a thick layer of cloud just above the horizon stopped it really lighting up the clouds but as the saying goes, you’ve got to be in it to win it! Got a couple worth posting, both taken at f/16 and ISO100 around 25mm and 1/10 sec. I had the circular polariser on along with my Lee ND grad.