AAttwoodPhotos Blog

2013 Review and looking to the New Year

2013-12-31T08:20:00.002+00:00

All in all 2013 has been a interesting year. Photographically it didn't get off to the best start, with my main project making the newly purchased house into a home. Although i did get out once and get this cool shot. It wasn't until march, when we moved in it really started for me.

Then in march i decided to do my first interpretation of a movie poster, it wasn't a movie but at the time we had just got into Dexter. I saw the poster and thought, i can do that. This is what i come up with.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos?pid=5889987978608118306&oid=109100807350218009783

For the main part of the year I took to the landscapes, till June that was all I photographed. Really enjoyed this and got some good results.

Then with a website redesign and the introduction of people to the site, I come up with some really interesting shots

Looking forward to 2014 i really do hope I can up the standered of my photography as i did from 2013. I would like to collaborate with other photographers to better my self in working with people. With a couple of super secret projects on the way its all set of a creative year. Thanks for supporting and i hope you continue to in 2014, I leave you with the latest composite of the year hope you like.

New Style

2013-08-16T20:58:00.000+01:00

Hay i know i have been away for a while but other commitments have taken over.

Im trying to develop a new style of photo that is unique and fresh, here's an example of where im going with it.

Im looking for subjects to photograph, so if your interested simply get in touch. Im particularly interested in people that play sports or have specialist interests.

All the photographs are for my People Gallery on my website. Im starting to hone my photos in to People and Places, that is going to be the main focus of my portfolios, but there will still be all the other stuff too.

Thanks for reading and don't forget. Get in contact.

The Slaughters

2013-07-20T22:38:00.002+01:00

This shot was taken on a evening trip to The Slaughters, like so many of my shots now this is a HDR. Because my landscape style is so much post processing i recorded the edit for you to follow along with. I would be happy to answer any questions on my editing or workflow just leave a comment or contact me any other way.

St Oswald's Priory Ruins

2013-05-10T18:39:00.000+01:00

Purchase you print here

This image is special to me because this was one of my first morning shoots, and it taught me a couple of lessons. I got up nice and early set off to the cathedral grounds which was my original location. I got there before the sun set and had a wonder around but wasn’t happy with the placement of the sunrise and the cathedral it was more of a sunset location. Which is what brings me to my first lesson, research your location. I knew there was some ruins nearby so I headed to them. As soon as I got there the sky lit up. My second lesson, don’t give up the shot will come. I quickly framed the shot, set down the tripod and pushed the shutter.

Lightroom side panels

2013-03-09T21:01:00.000+00:00

Do you ever get that annoying little thing, that just bugs you so much that you just have to find the answer. The side panels in Lightroom gave me just that. I was clicking the hide arrow obviously to hide it, but it just kept popping back up. Well I found the fix! In this blog I'm going to share the fix and how I customise Lightroom.

The "auto show & hide" panel as it’s called in Lightroom is default however sometimes I don't want this. When I have hidden the panel I don't want them to just keep popping up.

So here it is. If you right click on the hide arrow of the panel you want to affect, you get a pop-up menu. By default it is "auto hide & show". This is when you hover over the collapsed panel, it pops up and when you go off it diapers. There is an “auto hide” this is when you have to click on the collapsed panel to show, when you leave the panel it disappears. Next is "manual" witch is the one 90% of my panels are. Finally “Sync with opposite” which makes it do the same as the panel on the opposite side.

By knowing this now I have been able to customise Lightroom so when I am doing a certain task Lightroom behaves in the ideal way for that task. Watch the video to find out exactly how I customise Lightroom.

Thanks for reading Ade Attwood

Keep it real HDR

2013-02-08T19:58:00.001+00:00

Last year I was asked to take photos of a house a construction company built. I went there with the aim to bracket my shots to give a good choice to play with when I got home. Looking through the shots I decided to edit them in a HDR to give a massive tonal range, as this was not the place for a arty HDR it would have to be a real appearance.

I am sorry to say but you can't do this if your using software before Lightroom 4 or Camera raw 7.0. If you do have software before that time send me a message and I'm sure we can find a different way.
If you can do HDR this way it's an effective way to get the real HDR look like I needed in the shoot I did. First you need to have your shots at different exposures you want to stitch together. I work in

Lightroom so I'm going to right click and go to the edit in HDR pro.

This then brings up Photoshop and the HDR pro dialog box. This is super simple to edit at this stage all you need to do is select the 32bit mode and hit ok, it dosent even matter where the slider is.

The next step is to save your file. So give it a name and save as a TIFF in a safe place.

When the TIFF Options box pops up all you need to check is the 32bit depth, I leave at default.

Now you are already to import in to Lightroom and start editing like any other file. If your not using Lightroom you can find the TIFF file in bridge, and open in Camera raw.

Here is a file that i edited, it didn't need HDR it's just to show how effective it can be. One is the middle exposure edited the same way as the HDR and the results are very similar. This shows how you would be able to get a HDR image if you could not capture all the data in one file.

Starting a new year in Lightroom

2013-01-01T18:41:00.001+00:00

Happy new year everyone, hope 2012 was a good year for you and 2013 is even better. I have a lot planned this year and I hope you are all around so I can share my photography with you.

In this blog I have made a video on how I set up lightroom ready for importing all my new photos. This is how I structure my workflow and sort my folders.

Thanks for reading Ade Attwood

DIY White Balance Filter

2012-11-11T21:08:00.000+00:00

If any of you are a reader of my blog, follow me on twitter or just generally know me, you will know that I am big on DIY photography. I do like the feeling of satisfaction you get when you make a photo using something you have made, the sense of achievement if nothing else.The most recent of my DIY products is a white balance filter.

All it is is a Pringles lid with grease proof paper inside, a very simple little thing but it works so very well.

To use it is nearly just as simple. All you need to do is get your new tool you have made and put it in front of your lens and take a picture of your light source and set that to your custom white balance (WB) or use it to set in post production this will get you the correct colours for the scene you are photographing.

Using this for for the last month I have found that if there is a very even light on your subject then you can get away with just shooting the scene, this comes in very handy in some situations when you can't get to the position of your subject E.G if you shoot sports and can't get to the players or a concert where u can't get on stage.

Now for the good bit. Just because you have the correct WB doesn't mean it's the most aesthetically pleasing for your image, sometimes the correct WB just looks to cold and that it has a blue colour cast to it. This is where you can use your gels for WB, usually you would be putting these coloured papers over your flash to make them the same colour as your ambient light. You can also use your gels inconjunction with your WB filter to adjust the colour cast to get a more pleasing look. Using your knowledge of colour temperature you can tweak the WB for the best look. Mostly I would use the blue filter to make my image warmer just how much is up you depending how warm you want it weather you use a 1/4,1/2 or a full CTB. I haven't had the situation to use it but you can use the orange gel (CTO) to make the WB colder

In testing there is not a lot of difference when using the filter like other bought models however, there is a slight difference of around 3 kelvin, if I was doing product shots were the colors had to be spot on I would use a grey card but for everyday use this is ideal for me. Here is a link to my website all the sport photos were taken using the WB filter. Also the link to my G+Profile were you can find all my social media links

Fireworks part 2

2012-11-04T16:19:00.000+00:00

If you haven't read my first firework blog I would suggest you read that HERE. At the weekend when I do 90%of my shooting I went to the churchdown fireworks which was the grand opening of the ponds which I have not yet gone to see in the day time. Anyway back on subject, on the whole it was a good display there were a lot of white fireworks which as a photographer isn't the best, they don't photograph well.

As for the shooting I found myself quickly going form f8 to f11 and going for a longer exposure. As a result I took in more ambient light, due to this I was able to capture some more detail in the shadows. Because I was shooting in raw I was able to slightly brighten the shadows and because of that I think it is a more interesting image.

The whole point of this was to keep shooting and trying to do something different than last time seeing how it plans out. In my last shoot I was able to bring out the foreground in one of my images, I liked the look of that and tried to make it better in this shoot. With the longer exposure I was able to pull the foreground with less noise. This is all working up to when, and there will be a when I get into the location with the awesome foreground which means I will then be able to execute the shot a lot better and hopefully get one of those killer images.

Thanks for reading you can find more images on my website and more more about me her e where you will find all my links

YouTube

2012-10-30T06:21:00.000+00:00

You know when your writing and you read it back and nothing makes sense, you know what you are trying to say but it just doesnt come across in your words. The other week I had this feeling so I decided to make a video on YouTube.

Fireworks

2012-10-29T21:58:00.000+00:00

Many years ago (1605 in fact) the people of England stared to celebrate Gunpowder Treason Day and the fact that King James I of England and VI of Scotland had served a assassination plot. Robert Catesby had a plan to blow up the House of Lords to take a Protestant King off the thrown and replace him with a Catholic head of state, with his 12 accomplices would try to execute this by sneaking 36 barrels of gunpowder in to a undercroft under the House of lords. Nowadays we call it Firework Night, we have bonfires and set off rockets that explode with a huge bang and a mass of colour that fills the sky this as a photographer is grate to get out and get some grate shots. In this post. I am going to run through what i do when shooting fireworks.

In photography if u want to get "the shot" you need to be dedicated. So get out your picnic blanket and flask of hot drink set out nice and early and get to the front so you don't get heads in your shot ( unless that's what u want ), camp out and wait till the show begins.

As most things you can shoot with what u got. Whether it's a point and shoot with a firework mode or a top of the line DSLR with some sexy glass, anything will work the only necessity is a tripod, you have to keep the camera super still throughout the duration of the firework to capture the full light trail with no shake so your images are super sharp. There are things we all want that will make our shots easier to capture, the one fairly inexpensive thing is a cable release, this is one of the few occasions this come out for the simple reason I can use bulb with out touching the camera.

The settings for the fireworks is the one thing that when I started I thought there was some kind of magic setting, but when u learn how the camera works it couldn't be simpler. If you are using a point and shoot make sure the flash is off and go to night mode or, put it in to firework, how easy is that. Using a DSLR I start with f16 ISO 100 and shutter into bulb, attach the cable release when the firework starts to go up push the button and when it has finished let go simples, now this is not written in stone if you take a shot, review it then use your knowledge of exposure to get it correct for the situation your in. If you are not using a cable release set the shutter speed to about 2 seconds take a shot and then review, if you are not capturing the hole explosion you want to make the exposure longer 3 maybe 4 seconds, review then set ISO and aperture according.

For the focusing the way I do it is set it to infinity ( yes on some things I do take the incredibly easy way ). The better way to do it is wait till one of the bright lights shoots into the sky quickly focus on it then switch it to manual focus then leave it there and shoot away.

Hopefully this gets you on your way to shoot on this one day a year unless you get some for new year I suppose. I will be posting some more after the next time I shoot fireworks a part 2 if you will.

Cotswold Wildlife Park

2012-10-29T21:57:00.002+00:00

Here in England we had a couple of weeks of very nice weather, which can only be described as our summer. As a result of this Em decided she wanted to go to Cotswold Wildlife Park, I thought grate it will be a good test for a backpack I just bought and a chance to get some nice shots of the animals. Some nice shots I did get along with some very blurry ones more to come about this later. All in all it was a very nice day it was very hot which is a luxury for us and I'm glad we decided to go out and do something.

This is the second time I have been shooting in a place like this, the same as anything, the more you do it the better you get, and this time round I'm a lot happier with the shots I come out with. My main gole when I got out of the car was to capture the animals so they looked as much in the wild as possible, I think that makes the images a lot stronger. Obviously that isn't always possible after all most of them are in cages no matter how unhappy the poor things may look.

This was a big aim on this trip isolating them from that zooie feel most of the time I was looking to the composition for this, moving around trying to get the best angle. Others I simply had to zoom in to crop out any unwanted

fences/cars/people out of the frame. I also tried blurring the background which nonly really worked on the smaller animals when I could get closer.

While we were walking though the maze of enclosures we found some very weired animals, well not what you think of when you describe a certain type of animal.

Panda

Dog

On the weekend that we went there just happened to be a bird show so we thought we would sit and watch and I would try and get some shots, boy was I wrong. I have massive admiration for the wildlife photographers who capture theses amazing creatures in flight, that was very difficult and I got lots of blurry out of focus shots. This is one area of photography that needs improvement, but that's for another day. Here are a couple of the best shots I got of the birds in the show.

Going around I was trying all of the photo techniques I have learnt. This image was taken with the 70-200 there was over 20 images stitched together, it gives a completely different field of view to using a wide angle lens. Using this technique got rid of a lot of things in the foreground that I didn't want in the shot

And of course it wouldn't be a day out without getting out the wide angel, the one lens that should come out of the bag a lot more than it dose.

Here are the rest of the images just click on one to flick through them all.

Bracketing

2012-10-14T15:02:00.001+01:00

With HDR being such a huge part of photography I find my self bracketing everything. Whether its because I want to tone map the image later in post, or just to get the best exposure possible, and bracketing is a very good way to achieve this. There are a few ways you can do this and in this blog I'm going to run through the settings I use and why I use them.

The first thing I suppose I should talk about is the auto bracketing, on my Nikon camera it has a BKT button that I have to hold down, spin the wheal, and dial in the setting I want. If you have a different model Nikon or a Canon there is a 90% chance you camera will have an auto bracketing mode, just read the manual to find out how to access it. My camera only allows me to do 3 frame bracketing so thats what I do, I shoot it at 2 stop increments, if I have it on a tripod I review the images to see if I have all the exposures I need if not I go and manually shoot the exposures.

In the camera there is a setting that allows you to choose the order in which the images are put on the card, I choose the Under MTR Over setting this puts the darkest images first followed by the metered image and then the brightest. For me this is the best way because when I am back at the computer it just makes them easier to review in some kind of order.

Continuous high mode is the mode I bracket in 90% of the time. Its the fastest way to take your exposures because you just hold down the shutter and take advantage of your cameras frame rate. I do this because when I am hand holding I want to get through them quickly to eliminate as much movement as I can, when you come to make a tone mapped image this reduces the ghosting and saves you time sat at the computer editing.

When I am on a tripod continuous high is not the best tool for the job, if you are holding on to the camera this may cause some movement that you can see when your exposures get up to 1 second or longer. Because of this when i am on a tripod i don't want to be touching the camera, the one way is to use a release cable but i very rarely take one on a day trip out, so to get around this i turn on the bracketing and put the camera in to timer mode after i have pushed the shutter the timer goes off and the camera takes the 3 shots. You can customise the timer mode in the menu, typically i use a 2 second timer with a 0.5 second gap between shots, if my tripod is high i may put the timer to 5sec to allow time for the camera to stop any movement before the camera takes the shot.

OK at the top of the post I said I bracket everything that isn't strictly true but I do bracket most things like out on a walk or shooting stationary subjects. The time I don't bracket is when I am shooting a portrait, I don't want the shot when the subject gives me that look to be 2 stops over or under exposed. Another time is doing action shots I don't want that decisive moment to be too dark or too bright.

Generally bracketing is a very handy tool and don't worry if your camera dose not have auto bracketing, it is simple enough to adjust your shutter speed and manually set up the brackets with honestly a lot more freedom and control of your brackets.

blogsy test

2012-09-15T06:45:00.000+01:00

Hey guys and girls I was looking for a app to blog on my Ipad so i can write on the go. I stumbed upon a app called blogsy, in the near future i will be blogging on this app and testing it out. As i am looking to update the blog fortnightly this willl hopfuly be a realy productive app that i can use on the go.

I am looking to uploading a fue vidieos too so hopfuly i can work how to edit and upload not shore my ipad will do that but if i can it will be grate so i dont have to spend so much time in front of the computer.

As a bit of a end note i have new website to run along side my blog to display my best work resent trips and client proofing. AAttwoodPhotosLink

Just to end here are a fue of images well it is a photo blog after all.

Shot from a mates garage the old things are usually the most interesting.

This one is from a walk along the river

This was playing with my gels and light temperature

Posted with Blogsy

Fill flash

2012-09-02T21:26:00.000+01:00

FILL FLASH!!!!!!! What is it? Fill flash is using added light to lighten the shadows on your subject, or to illuminate your subject because the dynamic rage in your image is to great for your camera to capture.

Personally i think it dose deserve to be in big capital letters with exclamation marks it is that important. I think its the next thing to learn after exposure and computation, its so easy to do weather your using a reflector, pop up flash or a top of the line speed light, it is a simple uncomplicated way to make your images 100% in just a few hours practice.

The simplest way is to just set your flash to auto and fire away, thats it. You can play with the plus and minus to get the most pleasing look but 9 out of 10 times on a nikon ttlbl setting works fine.

After you have mastered that you can start playing with it off camera flash, this is the enjoyable bit and the basis of all strobist work. it is relatively simple, if you start with your ambient exposure then dial in your flash to give the best look.

Next its adding diffuses to give a better quality of light and your really in to the strobist lighting. Stick with the same principals start with your ambient and you will do just fine, remember to keep in mind your flash will need more power as the diffusers eat up some of the light.

Now your ready to start adding more lights what then is no longer fill flash. So go crazy and see what you can come up with.

Thanks for reading Ade_1

Beach Tips

2012-08-19T22:03:00.001+01:00

We all love going to the beach and me personally love to remember the moments by photographing my great days. However as much as we like the beach if were not careful our gear can rely hate it.

If you do a bit of research you will find out about the fogging of your lens and just be careful with your camera. here are a few of the best tips i can give after my experience of shooting at the beach.

First and you will probably find it everywhere but its just that important, be very careful changing your lenses. if its windy and the option i went for is to find out what lens i was going to shoot and not change it, this way there is no chance of getting anything inside.

Second get a blower and DO NOT use a lens cloth on the beach. If you get anything on the lens blow it off if that dose not work, leave it for the night in the morning give it a really good blow and the when all the grit is off then use a lens cloth. Leaving it overnight drys everything and makes it easier to blow off so you don't rub the grit in and scratch your glass.Just to add uv filters will help

Last and probably the hardest to explain leave your tripod legs down about 100mm for the night. after i finished shooting a couple of long exposures i packed up my tripod as you do. in the morning i found out i had loads of sand stuck on the legs and when i collapsed it it all went inside. My idea for stopping this is leaving the tripod legs down 100mm leave it over night and in the morning when all the sand is dry and a lot less sticky it will simply blow off

Thanks for reading Ade_1

Update

2012-08-12T20:37:00.000+01:00

Hay guys and girls i no i have been away for a while so its just a short one to say my plans. I've had a lot on and it has been crazy. I am hopefully back with semi regular photo blogs I've done a lot learnt loads in the art of photography, i now no the basics of light and touching on so advanced lighting. There are a lot of things i have to blog about some diy things,reviews on the gear I'm really impressed with and tips i have learnt along the way and haven't read or seen what will hopefully make my blogs a bit different and interesting to read. Ade_1

Leckhamton Hill

2012-02-12T17:35:00.000+00:00

After we finally got snow where we live i thought it was only right to go and take some photos. So me and Em walked up the hill and got a couple of shots.

More photos at Flicker

Thanks for reading Ade_1

Grid Spot Portrait

2012-01-30T20:39:00.000+00:00

Grid Spot Portrait

Ever since I made my grid spots I have been dying to test them out, so I convinced my girlfriend to model for me and got searching on the internet for inspiration. Overall I’m happy with how they came out they didn’t take too long to edit which is always a bonus

I done four different lighting setups all including at least one of the grid spots. I chose the black background because I don’t have a good backdrop and that was the easiest background to achieve in the living room of our house.

The first setup I use an umbrella as the key light and grid spot was the hair light giving a glow to the hair. If I done this again I would move the hair light round to the back of the model, I don’t like the hot spot on the right of her head.

The second light setup was a silhouette shot achieved

with two grid spots. My model gets bored very easily so I didn’t have much time to set up these lights, I love the idea of the shot and need to do some research on the lens flair. I definitely need the lights to have the same flair to get the cemetery in the image (that’s for another blog).

For the third setup I again used two grid spots. A grid spot it is very good at isolating what you want to light so I want for a split light with a moody face, and the second grid spot directly behind the model giving a complete rim light.

The last one I used one light with a grid spot. I put the light so it lit the one side of the models face, and cast a shadow of the model inside a spot of light. This took a bit of playing around as I wanted the shadow a similar size to the models head.

For the rest of the photos from the shoot cheek out the Flickr set. As we are all here for learning if you see anything you think that will make my photos better please leave some feedback.

Thanks for reading @Ade_1

Pringles grid spot and snoot

2012-01-24T20:48:00.000+00:00

Pringles grid spot and snoot

This is the Pringles light kit i made it has 3 grid spots and a snoot.

I was on the internet looking for a grid spot for a speedlight and came across a brilliant product that ticks all the boxes bar one the price, RPP £40 a little over my budget. After this i done some research and found a DIY alternative and added my own twist to make it more like the product i was going to purchase.

My grid spot is made out of two bits of a Pringles tube filled with two different size straws made interchangeable to give me three different size spots, i also got a separate Pringles tube to make the snoot

The things you need

2 Pringles tubes

Approximately 90 straws 40 big and 50 small this changes depending on the size of the straws

Glue

A cereal box

Tape

1 Cut all the straws to one inch peaces.

2 From the one Pringles tube cut two 30mm strips.

3 Glue all the straws inside the strips.

Once you have finished you will have the two different size grids.

4 Cut a 10mm strip of the Pringles tube.

5 Cut two 50mm strips of card out of the cereal box ( I know i have three i changed the design after i took the photo)

6 Rap the card around the small strip of Pringles tube and secure with tape then remove the Pringles strip.

7 Repeat the process and leave the Pringles strip approximately in the middle.

8 Now all you need to do is put it together. The card sleeve with the strip inside goes on the speedlight with one grid inside. The second card sleeve goes on top, you can fit the other grid on top stacking them to give you the three combinations.

To make the snoot simply cut the end off of the second Pringles tube and put in to the sleeve over the speedlight.

I made this for a Nikon sb900 and a yongnuo yn560, you could adapt this to whatever speedligth you have, you can adapt the diameter of the straws and the length to change the size of the spot. I must worn you cutting the straws is very tedious i was lucky the masters snooker final was on to help me though it.

Thanks for reading @Ade_1

Coin Drop

2012-01-14T15:51:00.000+00:00

So this is my first blog post it took me a while to get the right shots. I was shooting coins being dropped in to water. The set up was pretty simple it was as the photo, all you can't see is a flash behind the background and after a fue shots i put a bag over the camera to stop splashes

I watched a fue videos on the subject and they all make it look so easy. Every one of them done it in the first few shots it took me a lot longer than that,. my first 10 frames were of still water

For these shots i used f/11 which was properly not small enough next time i do this i will go for f/16 f/18 to get more of the splashes in focus. As i was splashing water everywhere i found the lens hood very useful for stoping the drops get on the lens

for my last one and this is my favourite of all form this shoot.I was playing with a fue things frist i put a red gel on the flash behind the background, after a fue fail attempts i dropped a handfull of coins in to make the splash bigger and i think all the playing around worked

Thank you for reading Ade