Greg Bloor - Photographer and Designer - Nottingham

Merry Christmas from Greg Bloor Photography

2009-12-22T12:37:00.002Z

I just wanted to wish all of my clients a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

I just wanted to wish all of my clients a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

Awesome advertising - Michael McIntyre on Amazon UK

2009-10-24T12:34:00.007+01:00

This is possibly the best piece of advertising I've seen for a while.

The question is, did it make you buy the DVD??

I don't do weddings!

2009-10-15T14:20:00.000+01:00

Being predominately a sport and product photographer I've never gone down the route of weddings but last weekend it was my cousins. I decided to take my camera along and see what I was missing out on.

A few of the snaps are below;

When pictures say a thousand words

2009-07-22T10:22:00.003+01:00

This is an genuine image available on Getty!

Absolute genius!

Another tiara for Laura Elizabeth

2009-07-04T11:32:00.003+01:00

Laura Elizabeth just keeps getting better.

Check out here latest custom wedding tiara below.

Monkey in a coffee

2009-07-03T10:58:00.002+01:00

Now I've seen everything....I just love monkeys

New tiara shoot for Laura Elizabeth

2009-06-29T15:03:00.003+01:00

Two more cracking tiaras made by hand by Laura Elizabeth. They look stunning and the bride and bridesmaid will look great in them.

Water Sports Centre - White Water Rafting

2009-06-22T17:12:00.005+01:00

A few snaps from the National Water Sports Centre in Nottingham.

A great place to go if you like white water rafting and canoeing.

Oasis in Heaton Park, Manchester 2009

2009-06-10T13:53:00.003+01:00

Last weekend I went to Heaton Park, Manchester to see Oasis perform to their home town crowd. Supported by Kasabian and The Enemy it was truly amazing.

I wasn't allowed to take my proper camera so these shots are with my Casio point and click.

Three days in Kirkby-in-Furness, Lake District

2009-06-01T19:57:00.010+01:00

I've just come back from an amazing long weekend in Kirkby-in-Furness in the Lake District. I hadn't had a holiday for quite a while so it was great to get away. I still has my mobile broadband so was still working to some degree - mainly tweeting!

Anyway i juts thought i'd share a few snaps from the trip.

A cottage while on route to Eskdale

The stone wall at the Longlands Caravan Park

Track behind us

The Steam Train on the Ravenglass to Eskdale Railway

Sunset over towards Millam

Its amazing how much fun you can have with a model aeroplane, elastic bands are so underated...

The RenaultSport 225 after the 3 hours there and the 3 hours back...

You can see the full flickr album here

My cheeky little monkey - Pops

2009-05-05T15:59:00.007+01:00

I've just adopted a monkey!!

He's well cool. Check him out.

Pops Bio
Pops was rescued, only a week old, on the side of the road in Salima, Malawi. He arrived at the Centre the day after Coco, very distressed, and he took to his bottle immediately.

He is now quite a greedy little guy and calls for his bottle as soon as he thinks he might be starting to feel hungry! Pops is very independent and doesn't really like being cuddled, although he does not move too far away from his carer. He adores his big adopted brother Coco and always goes to sleep holding his teddy with one arm and Coco with the other.

Pops is not used to strangers, though, and will go to his carer if anyone else comes into the room. Unlike Coco, Pops hates water; he is in fact the only monkey ever not to enjoy his bath.

Pops is to move with Coco and a new friend Mik to the Centre where they shall begin their new life. Here their carers will start helping and preparing them for being returned to the wild in 2010.

Photoshop CS4 Digital Diet

2009-03-29T21:29:00.008+01:00

This is just a really quick demonstration on how to do a digital diet using Photoshop CS4. The tools used in the process were liquify, the patch tool, the clone stamp and the spot healing tool.

You really can spend a couple of hours fine tuning the image but I wanted to give you guys a quick demo.

Enjoy.

Please contact me below or send me a tweet if you liked this. Would love to hear your feedback.

Digital photo replacement with Photoshop CS4

2009-03-29T14:16:00.002+01:00

I was recently asked by a client to see if I could replace part of an image for them. I thought I'd share with you how I did this.

They had recently had professional photography done of their helicopter fleet and as you can see in the photo below they had a yellow Bell helicopter.

Unfortunately soon after this photo was taken they sold the yellow helicopter and bought a new blue one. They didn't want to have to get all the professional photography again and so I was provided with just a photo of their new blue Bell Helicopter. (see below) and the image above.

The Process

Step 1 - The first step in getting this helicopter to replace the old one is to cut out the helicopter from the image. I did this using a combination of clipping paths and lasso tool.

Firstly create a copy of the layer. (Always a good idea to have the original as a hidden layer.)

Then select the pen tool and carefully create a path around the helicopter making sure to keep this nice and smooth and include all the details.

With the path created in the paths palette you now need to create a new layer mask and fill this with black.

Then with the path selected in the paths palette right click on the working path and select fill.

Your image will now be isolated apart from the sections that are within this clipped image.

To tidy these up take the lasso tool and select the areas you want to remove and delete them.
You then need to switch back to the layers palette and convert the this layer to a smart object so I could then use this on the existing photo.

Step 2 - Open up the original image and begin to remove the old helicopter using the clone stamp. You only need to remove the areas of the helicopter that would be visible when the new helicopter is added. As you can see from the image below I've only removed the parts of the helicopter that would interfere with the new image.

Step 3 - Take the smart object helicopter we created in Step 1 and place this as a new layer. As you can see from the image below the new helicopter is in the foreground and need to appear behind the people and the car.

Step 4 - To get things looking normal we need to bring the people and the car to the front. To do this I created a layer mask on the new helicopter layer and started to cover the areas in the layer below I wanted to bring to the foreground with black. This can be done either by creating a path the same as Step 1 or you could just use the black brush and paint. If you have a Wacom tablet this can be done very quickly.

The picture is almost complete now. All that is needed now is to add some extra detail, such as shadows, sun rays and we are done. The levels and curves on the new helicopter layer can also be tweaked to improve the final shot.

The finished result

The before and after

The Killers in Nottingham

2009-03-04T10:02:00.003Z

The photos below are from The Killers at Nottingham Arena on Tuesday 3rd March 2009 on their sell out UK tour.

Supported by Louis XIV from San Diago Califonia

Golf Trick Shot

2009-03-03T10:34:00.004Z

Morph Madness

2009-03-02T14:43:00.005Z

Over 200 devotees gathered outside The Tate Modern, about 200 devotees gathered to pay tribute to their doyen of DIY art - Tony Hart.

Check out the video and story here.

Super Soup

2009-03-01T15:40:00.002Z

Don't you just love soup. Especially chunky Leek and Potatoe. mmm

Gourmet Chocolate Pizza - Mothers Day

2009-02-27T09:38:00.002Z

You can get the pizza from http://www.gourmetchocolatepizza.co.uk - although its not on the website just yet.

Snowy Days

2009-02-09T12:36:00.002Z

Gourmet Chocolate Pizza - Easter Pizza

2009-02-04T11:25:00.003Z

Client photography for Gourmet Chocolate Pizza Co.

This is their new Easter Pizza - soon to be available online

The Valantines Pizza which I shot before Christmas is available at Firebox

Jason Hawkes amazing aerial photography

2009-01-29T11:44:00.004Z

Find more here

Follow Greg Bloor on twitter!

2009-01-26T06:00:00.000Z

Follow me here http://twitter.com/gregbloor/

Sony Awards entry date extended

2009-01-10T20:17:00.003Z

Have you got what it takes to be the next Heinz Kluetmeier? The Sony World Photography Awards -- the global competition which honours photographers -- is looking for budding amateur photography to be submitted to the 2009 Sony Campaign Award.

The global obsession of football games is joined together with a passion for photography with the Campaign Award seeking to uncover amateur photography that transcends beyond the standard snapshot of an action moment and capture the vibrancy, celebration, camaraderie and cultural phenomenon that are football games. Sport has long provided us with some of the most arresting photographic opportunities and, as a sponsor of the UEFA Champions League and the 2010 FIFA World Cup, Sony believes there is no spectacle on Earth that can compare with the rich, colourful, turbo-charged football experience of watching football games.

The panel which will judge the amateur photography will be chaired by Delly Carr, one of the world's leading and multi award winning sports photographers. The judging panel which will also include Shigeki Ishizuka, President of Digital Imaging Group at Sony Corporation; Yoshiyuki Nogami, Vice President of Digital Imaging at Sony Europe; and James Kennedy, Brand Communications Director at Sony Europe.

The competition is free to enter and the winner will receive:

1. Two VIP tickets to attend the Sony World Photography Awards gala ceremony on the 16th April 2009 in Cannes, France (including flights and two nights' accommodation in a luxury hotel on the famous Croisette)
2. Sony A900 DSLR camera and lens
3. The opportunity to be one of the photographers used in Sony's forthcoming digital imaging FY09 campaign work
4. Two tickets to a South Africa World Cup game in 2010 (travel and accommodation included)

The top 50 images entered to the competition, including the winner, will be exhibited at Festival @ The Sony World Photography Awards in Cannes, April 2009.

This amateur photography competition is open to submissions from across the globe and the closing date has been extended until 28 February 2009. The winner will be announced on 20 March 2009.

The Sony World Photography Awards are entirely international, welcoming people from across the globe to submit their photographs into an exciting amateur photography competition, which is run alongside the Professional Awards. They are judged by some of the most renowned names in the industry including Tom Stoddart and Elliott Erwitt.

Further information about the Sony World Photography Awards can be found at www.worldphotographyawards.org

Happy New Year

2009-01-01T09:32:00.000Z

I would just like to wish everyone a Happy New Year and hope 2009 is a great year for you all.

If you need a photographer in 2009 then please considor Greg Bloor Photography for your next shoot.

Contact me here

The Sony World Photography Awards

2008-12-09T14:56:00.003Z

A global competition which honours both professional and amateur photographers - is inviting all budding sport photographers to submit their work for the 2009 SWPA Sport amateur category. Sport has long provided us with some of the most arresting photographic opportunities, and this is your chance to get your work seen by some of the world’s leading photographers including Tom Stoddart and Elliott Erwitt.

The competition is free to enter and the submission deadline is 31^st December 2008. The winner will be announced on 17^th March 2009. There are eight amateur categories in total. The SWPA Amateur Fashion Photographer of the Year will be showcased as part of the official 2009 Finalists exhibition in Cannes and be part of the annual SWPA Global Tour.

One grand prize winner will be selected from the eight category winners by the 2009 Judging Committee and will be awarded The Sony World Photography Awards Amateur Photographer of the Year. The overall winner and a guest will be flown to Cannes, receive two nights’ accommodation in a luxury hotel on the famous Croisette, receive VIP tickets to attend the evening gala awards ceremony on 16^th April 2009, and will receive $5000 and a Sony prize.

Find out more at http://www.worldphotographyawards.org/