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March - A new 'Venture'?!

Another really busy month...

I am still working on finishing off the albums and prints from February's back-to-back weddings, nearly done now.

I also spent a day at Focus on Imaging with Dave McLean at the start of the month - Coming home with a set of Elinchrom DLite i.t. Studio lights.

This month's image was taken during my initial set-up test shoot.

Clare and I had some shots done at 'Venture' a few years back - Nice shots, but stupidly expensive... So I thought I would see if I could replicate a similar look in our spare bedroom with the 2 light Elinchrom set-up.

This is a white paper roll background, 1 head camera left into a softbox (main light), 1 head camera right firing against the white bedroom wall to provide some shadow fill.

Bring in a willing model, D300 with 35 1.8, 1/125 @ f11 and voila!

Still lots to learn, but enjoying the practise (and saving a fortune too!)

February - Top of the World

I have been VERY lucky this month - Clare surprised me with the best birthday present I could possibly have hoped for... 3 days in NYC for the two of us.

I decided to travel fairly lightly (camera wise) - Taking just the D300 + 18-200vr, and the G9 as a walkabout for the evenings.

Our first morning was spent at the Empire State Building - We arrived there at 08:30, which turned out to be the right thing to do... It was deserted, and we also caught the sun rising;

This shot is a 3 stop, 3 shot, HDR image, taken with the D300 perched on a ledge (no tripod).

I decided on the HDR route, as I was shooting into the sun - I wanted the reflection in the water, but at also wanted to keep detail the foreground buildings.

I combined the three .NEF RAW files in Photomatix - and then output the resulting image into Photoshop.

I ran a 'Cool Blue' action on the image - Then applied and mask, to that it only effected the sky.

I then duplicated the image onto another layer, and selectively lightened the parts of the buildings that I wanted to pick out (the gold steeple for example).

It was a fair bit of work, but I think the results are worth it.

I have lots of other images to play with from the trip yet - Can't wait!

January - Splash!

January's image was taken in Poole, Dorset, following days of heavy rain.

This is a classic case of 'The Camera ALWAYS lies!'

What seems like a straight 'from the camera' image at first actually involved an awful lot of Photoshop work.

To achieve the symmetrical water splashes on both sides, I split the image down the middle, and flipped in horizontally.

I then masked the newly flipped half, allowing me to paint back in the original image beneath...

Without this, Clare, the steering wheel and the tax disc would have appeared twice.

I then added some dodge and burn to brighten the car a little, and drop the road tone.

Finally - I downloaded the 'UK Reg' font from a google search, and applied my very own Westy Photo number plate.

In my opinion the photoshop work should not be obvious - Hopefully this is the case here.

Until next month...

12 for 2010

Following last years' 52 week project, I have decided to be even more 'picky' in 2010.

I am going to post just 1 image a month to the blog... Seeing as I have trips to Portugal and Canada booked already, that is going to be tough!

I am also going to try to do a better job of explaining how I created the images, what my Photoshop workflow was (if relevant) and also what motivated me to choose the shots that I do.

As usual, I would love to hear any feedback.

Paul