Aberavon Beach Sunset

Aberavon Beach Sunset
Originally uploaded by loochie.

I spotted the sunset whilst at home so jumped in the car and managed to grab just a handful of shots - wish I had been there 30 minutes earlier to scope out the place and shoot a few locations...

reposted since I messed up the jpg / lab conversion - it looked a bit flat compared to my original and I realised my mistake

Never work with children and ...... !

So, probably the last blog of the year. I was out with my relatives on Devils Dyke near Brighton. Freezing cold and flying the kite. I thought I'd take a shot of Simone and my nephew Joshua. As we were on a hill I thought I'd get nice and low and shoot with the flash to fill the foreground. I'd managed to get Joshua to stop doing his photo face and hit the button only to find the frame rudely filled by an inquisitive (and very fast) Spaniel. You'd find it hard to Photoshop this :)

Aside from the slightly comical nature of the shot, this was a simple B&W conversion in Photoshop CS4. Definitely a step up from the same feature in CS3.

Posted by John

The body snatchers

playing around with the flashes and we eventually ran out of light, so decided to have a bit of fun.....

Landscape Photographer Of The Year

I bought the book this weekend. Here's a picture taken by Gary Eastwood, this years winner.

A week earlier on a grey and rainy day, I was there singling out this as a potential shot.

Having a dog, some wacky weather and a colour DSLR really makes a difference eh? :)

Just testing.

This one is a bit of a disaster really. I shot this late one evening in Hove, it was freezing. I took the film to my course on Monday night and developed it. Someone had contaminated the lab chemicals and as a result all of our negatives were streaky. I've re-washed some of them, I just scanned this one as it was to see whether there was a shot there and whether it was worth spending more time on it. I might go out and re-shoot this as I think there's potential in the subject matter and shadows cast by the streetlamp. Shot on the Leica R4 28-75mm lens Ilford HP5, 4 seconds at f/16.

Posted by John

Promised and now delivered.

Here's a scan of a print from my coursework for my college project "Similar But Different".

This was taken at home set up using a felt background with some clear bulbs dangling from black thread at varying levels and distances from the camera lens. In order to throw the background out and leave it perfectly black, I lit the shot with a single Interfit Flash Head arranged below. I shot this on HP5 400 on the Bronica ETRSi with sync cable @ 1/500th second at f/16. The negatives were developed in bath/darkroom and printed at Brighton Uni. There's a few obvious mistakes in composition and visible threads but this is only my first attempt to see whether it could make an interesting set of images. Hope you like it comments appreciated.

Posted by John

Breaking the rules - Sunset at South Beach

Miami -23
Originally uploaded by loochie.

ok, it's been such a long time since I posted that I had to put something up.

I've broken the rule of thirds here, but I think it sort of works, and the tyre tracks add to it too.

Bargain Hunter

New camera purchase alert.   With my course dictating the need for a manual 35 mm camera, I did a bit of research and found myself a bargain.   A reasonably conditioned Leica R4 for £65 with a slightly battered (just the paint) 50 mm f/2.8 lens.  Works a treat.

No manual but one on order from the manufacturer.

I'll scan in one of my first prints which I will produce this coming Monday..

Watch this space.

Rally Section at Goodwood

A Racing Legend - Original

Here's the original, sharpening 120-1.0-3. I think the colour one works best.. Thoughts?

John

A Racing Legend

Managed to get this shot of Stirling Moss at the Goodwood Festival of Speed this weekend. We were just leaving Goodwood when he approached in a green Vanwall VW5. I just had enough time to switch from 28-135mm to the 100-400, enough to get one shot before he started off up the hill. I was extremely lucky, this image was at 400mm and has been sharpened and converted to B&W only, no cropping or vignetting etc.

What do you think... ?

Here's Stirling Moss sitting in the same car in 1957 (http://www.wheels-near-u.co.uk/gallery2/v/motor-racing-legends/Stirling-Moss-Vanwall-VW5-Aintree-1957.jpg.html) both seem to be doing pretty well for their age.

John

The Wedding Shots - getting ready

Paul and Heather wedding
Originally uploaded by loochie.

second style - a softer look. I can't decide which one I prefer....

The Wedding Shots - getting ready

Paul and Heather wedding- 165
Originally uploaded by loochie.

ok guys - lots of pics from the latest wedding I went to, so need to work on them. I'm thinking black & white for the 'getting ready' shots. What do you think?

Cornwall

Just got back from my week's trip to Cornwall. Although I rarely got the camera out (this being a holiday) there's huge potential for a photography weekend down there. There's everything from picture postcard villages and harbours to dramatic coastal scenery, beaches and historic sites.
Anyone up for an extended weekend to take some pictures?

Something from nothing?

again, the same type of approach as below - just used on a pretty dull photo of Bodium Castle. I quite like the result, especially given the original

Next Wednesday Evening

How about Richond Park next Wednesday evening?

Sounds like an outing for Chris's new Defender (High vantage point... ) and the 500mm Sigma :) ... Takers?

Buy that man a lens cloth!!

Going Grunge

More experimentation here - trying a grunge effect - do you think it works?

originals now added :)

Aperture v Lightroom - quick test

I d a quick test of lightroom v aperture today and there seems to be quite a difference, especially the amount of detail in the clouds with the Aperture processed file. I could not replicate this using lightroom, which was a surprise. It's such a shame that the workflow seems so much easier with lightroom, and I have added lots of presets which I like using. I did get annoyed with Aperture for lots of little things like zooming (and moving around - soo slow even with 4gb RAM) and even the spot healing and file exports were tedious. I gave Aperture a try after reading a recent review (Practical Photography May 08) which ran some speed tests - Aperture trounced Lightroom, but I'm really puzzled as it's the other way around for me??

Anyway, see what you think of the two pics...I'll try some more tests soon.

Submitted to photo competition

folks, sure you remember this pic I took on my recent California trip. I've played around with it some more and submitted it to this months Digital Camera competition...

caught in the act...

Gareth Owen - disallowed try
Originally uploaded by loochie.

sadly this try was disallowed for a forward pass, but I like the shot - and the expression of the touch judge...

to crop or not?

The big lens got an outing yesterday - to watch the Ospreys claim the EDF Cup Final at Twickenham. I had a decent seat, even if it was behind the posts. I grabbed quite a few shots, so there will be more to follow, but here's the question - should I crop this one or not - which one do you think has more impact?

A Fish called Wanda?

John and I tried our hand at a bit of studio-style shooting. Several ideas were thrown into the pot but we only managed to get decent results with this, and it was an experience!

Point n' Shoot - Snow Scene

I used the Canon G9 for this shot, and played with the levels a little to get more contrast (as John suggested). Not too shabby for a little camera?

Miami - The Lincoln Theatre

Lots of Sun in Miami on the recent visit, so not great for taking pics. This one was taken on a particularly sunny day and did't look too inspiring so I thought I'd try some simple stuff - black & white conversion and that's about it really...

Experimentation - or does it just give you a headache?

Start of the new year. Much more photos everyone.


Was messing around with multi-exposure and managed this one. Interesting and has potential (Maybe). I like it because your minds eye flicks to each image in turn.

Thoughts please

posted by Chris

Suggestion

Hi Rob, I love that last photo. It is perfect for a pure black/white pic. I've just done this in 30 seconds with picassa but with your darkroom skills it will look fab :). Just a suggestion.

Posted by Chris

I thought there may be something...

I found this whilst going through some old photos and thought it had some potential - so here's the result

and now version 2 (top)

High pass filter, dodge and burn and some saturation of the cabs

it's been a while...

since any of us has made a post so here's an effort from the xmas period. It's my cousin Emily and I've tried a bit of the 'high key' effect with it.

What do you think?