Nostalgic trip...

A mate of mine has recently gone and bought an original Namco Point Blank arcade machine.

Looking back  into my youth, this game certainly took most of my pocket money.

It was a great afternoon reliving a misspent youth.. 

Night Shift offshore.

Here are some images taken at night while offshore at work. These images believe it or not are taken with the Lumix GF1, i would never have been able to have taken these with the Canon G10. The quality is superb!

A self Portrait.  

BMW 1200RT

Here are some images of one of my best mates with his beloved bike. 

Compositing.

Here are some images from the Oliver Neville shoot that i wanted to play with and do some composites. 

I really enjoyed using studio lights but i do like to try and create fun images. The idea behind this shoot was to show that come and have a studio shoot with myself, and i can make some images to help your business. Ill show some examples of this in my next blog post. 

Oliver Neville - Studio shoot.

Last sunday i tried out my first studio shoot, and i thought it was fantastic.

My good friends over at

MelenStudio's 

let me hire out their studio for the day.

I had a plan of what i was wanting to achieve before i arrived, and was more then happy with the results.

For a living Oliver is an estate agent. I wanted to do some images of him in his work wear, and then some fun images. The goal was to show businesses that with a little thought you can spruce up your websites with some professional looking images of the employees, and with most businesses these days having facebook pages, why not have some fun images of the work force?.

Happy Christmas.

Happy Christmas from Me,

I hope that you are all having a great festive period while im away working.

Catch you in the new year.

Lee

Glyn Dewis Workshop

Well the other week i attended my first studio workshop ran by a Glyn Dewis. (UK's version of the photoshop guys) and i was highly impressed.

It was a half day workshop titled

"a workshop full of character"

and the aim is to give you the tools needed to try and create a fun image like the one above. Glyn sets up the lighting but gives you pretty much a free Raine to move the model where you want to in the light, and to pose him on how you see fit.

Once you are happy and have the image that you are after, you all then go through some photoshop techniques on how to create something different. Glyn shows you how to improve an image up to a nice respectable standard... and then the fun starts and you are taught how to push things and come up with great concepts and the fun really begins...

The day is broken up as follows-

• RAW Conversions

• Cleaning up your images (Dust spots etc…)

• Removing Blemishes

• Eyes (Brightening, add contrast, colour and sharpening)

• Creating Texture/Adding Details

• Dodging and Burning

• Cut Outs (Getting the most out of Photoshop CS5 Refine Edge Command + Extracting using Channels for those using earlier versions of Photoshop)

• Adding in the Background

• Creating ‘The Look’

• Special Effects and lots more

My finished image, I can not take the credit for the lighting on Dave Clayton, who was a fantastic model. Or the style he was dressed. But i did really enjoy finding the stock images and coming up with a theme to produce the finished result.

The Art of Photography Podcast meet up

As a regular viewer of Ted Forbes "

the art of photography

" podcast and a fan, i was excited to see that Ted and his good lady were coming over to London for a meet up/ photo walk.

We met up some great photographers, some of who had travelled a great distance to partake. 

Here are some of my favourite images that i took from the day. 

Camera's and beer... A quality afternoon if you ask me :0) 

Dont Let Dunstable Die...

I have met up with, a couple of times now the ladies who are running the DLDD campaign, and what a fantastic job they are doing for the town.

We met with the intention for a couple of promotional shots that they can use, but as you can see the weather wasnt playing ball and so we will meet again soon. 

Also keep watching as when i can ill be attending some of the functions that they are doing, and so ill post images of the great things happending in Dunstable in the future.

A couple of short

videos

explaining their campaign.

Check out  their

website

 to see the latest news in Dunstable. 

The Ladies Bio...

Sharon and Sharon are two ladies who want to help Dunstable to become the lovely market town it once was, please give us your views and ideas. Together we can make a difference. Long Live Dunstable!

"Tell your friends and spread the word, Dunstable must be heard.Long Live Dunstable can't be wrong,the supporters are growing forever strong. We believe in Dunstable and the support that you give, so let's all make Dunstable,the best place to live!"

We are now as of 15th December 2010 two ladies who want to help Dunstable to become the lovely market town it once was, please give us your views and ideas.

LLD

Long Live Dunstable (Don't Let Dunstable Die) was established last year by two woman to help raise the profile of our Historic town of Dunstable and to keep the supporting public informed as to what is happening as best we can. We have no businesses in Dunstable or political agendas just a passion to see our town great again. Thank you for your continued support.

"Tell your friends and spread the word, Dunstable must be heard. Long Live Dunstable can't be wrong,The supporters are growing forever strong. We believe in Dunstable and the support that you give, So let's all make Dunstable, the best place to live!

"LONG LIVE DUNSTABLE!"

Stage Writer. Jessica Luxembourg.

I was asked recently to do some portraiture head shots and promo shots for a fantastic stage / screen writer actress Jessica Luxembourg.

With having a little bit of notice with this shoot, i wanted to set it, in a relevant location.

I came up with the idea of having books in the back ground and so set about trying to find a willing bookshop.

I thought the best places to try would be small independently run stores, and so the search began...

They are becoming harder and harder to find. Even this store will be closed at the end of the month.

I think due to the Internet, people do not seem to visit these places any more. Even i am very guilty of this. As it is far to easy to order books from say Amazon or if going to a store we head to Waterstones as they have a huge collection of items. It is a great shame with the changing world the "small business" has an almost impossible fight to remain in the game. 

This was shot in the book castle over in Dunstable,

A big thanks to the ladies who run the shop, They were great and very friendly, with out their help i do not think i would of been able to achieve my goal and so would of had to resort with another back drop.

Biography of Jessica Luxembourg

Jessica Luxembourg is an award-winning writer

(International Student Playscript Competition, Arc Productions sponsorship, Time Out DVious Shorts Award)

Whose work has been performed at venues including the Hackney Empire,

the Soho Theatre and the Pleasance Courtyard.

Her short film "Phil's Job" was produced by Blaze, The Trail with Nick Rowe (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels)

in the title role and screened at the Cannes, Melbourne and Raindance film festivals. Jessica is a graduate of the MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, and of Cambridge University.

Jessica's plays include:

Denver, Contact Theatre, Manchester (2006);

Babel Junction, Hackney Empire (2006);

The Devil's Own Goldfish Scam, Soho Theatre (2003);

Insane Jane, Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, transferred to Soho Theatre (2003);

Reflecting Flesh, UEA Studio Theatre (2001);

Losing Track, UEA Studio Theatre (2001);

and Craze, UEA Studio Theatre (2000).

Her short films include: Phil's Job, Cannes, Raindance and Melbourne film festivals (2001).

Teelan Stack.

Hi all, 

Well, what a busy couple of weeks with re: to the photography.  

Last week i had a fantastic child shoot with the little Teelan seen below, 

It was the first toddler shoot that I have done. I have worked with babies before and they are great as they tend not to move.... 

As you can see Teelan is full of character and is a fast little runner keeping me on my feet and having to think fast. 

Big thanks to the Stack family and hope to work with you again. 

Over the next couple of weeks ill be posting other photography work that i have been working on, 

I had a corporate head shot with a great stage writer, 

some portraiture work with a model, 

a couple of shots with the Dont Let Dunstable Die ladies,

plus i have started a personal project which can be seen over on the main website. 

Attend 1st Photography course on outdoor flash lighting.

I have recently been hooking up with Phil over at

Melen Studios

Phil was running an outdoor flash lighting course and so had to attend.

I have been a fan of flash photography, but just lack the knowledge how to use it properly. So a course was right up my street to push and progress my photography.

I would strongly recommend

courses

ran by these guys-

a day outside with a load of cool down to earth people being creative sounds more like fun to me rather then a course.

Here are a few images from the day..

Amsterdam, Queens Day April 30th 2010.

I ended up travelling over to Holland to party at Queens day in Amsterdam.

If you are like me you probably have not heard of this day before, i think it's a Dutch secret...

But WOW what a day!

The day origins from a previous Queens birthday, which the people still remain to celebrate.

The Dutch people are very much like the Brits and enjoy a good drink and party!

Queens day starts off early, where the towns people are out in force selling there possessions on the streets.

The buyers and sellers are all drinking, there are boats with HUGE sound systems booming out tunes which adds to the party atmosphere.

The sellers, then get drunk and seem to wonder off from their pitch.

As you walk the Streets of Amsterdam you turn a corner, the roads are blocked off and a DJ has set up shop with party go-errs dancing, drinking having a great time.

Here are a few images from my time there...

Revisited Photos..

Today ill start with a big tip..

Don't ever throw pictures away (delete)!

Your hard drives are getting full and so you go through and delete images.. noooo!

It's time to buy a new hard drive.

You might not like an image today, but in time you may view it, with different eyes and fancy having a play around.

The following image was from the hard drive and at the time i was not too keen on them.

The Cat was a Big Hit on Flickr, I also printed this image off and gave it to the owners of the feline. They were thrilled!

Xav and Corinne Shoot.

Good friends of mine Xav and Corinne wanted some pictures taking of themselves. 

Corinne is a singer/song writer. Her personal site is here and goes under the name Vanessa René

" and so want a promo pic, where as Xav loves his bike and so wanted one with his beloved triumph bike...

The Bike picture, i was trying again with the flash at sunset theme i like. This has worked better then the car one i have previously done. 

Once again the TTL mode is letting me down. It has made me bite the bullet and im saving for some pocket wizard flash syncs. With syncs you can be so much more creative too, rather then just placing the flashes where they can see one another.

Here are my 2 favourite images from the day.

Arm Wrestling.

Last night i went round to a very good mate of mine's in Manchester. After a few beers the camera came out and so we had a mess around.

Here are a couple of images - the making of the idea, and the finished image…

Ronin Ryu Atemi JuJitsu, Martial Arts Club.

A mate of mine runs a martial art club in Blackpool. I loved the idea of trying to catch some natural shots of the guys, and girl - doing they're thing.

I didn't want to use a flash on this shoot so I could fit in better and try to be unnoticed.

Scot who runs the Club is a fantastic teacher, very clear and puts things into perspective, so everyone can understand. 

The people who train there are great, there are no egos, 

all just want to train hard and enjoy it.

Scot runs self-defence and fitness classes also.

Lee has Discovered PHOTOSHOP!

As anyone who is looking to improve their photography, will at some stage came to the cross road, where you have to decide, 

how and what to use to edit your images. 

After much reading as there are hundreds of programmes out there, some free, some mega expensive. What offers you what.

I chose the Adobe Photoshop brand, there are many versions, and different programmes, but I am a big believer in buying what you can to try and limit the need to upgrade at a later stage. So I went for Photoshop CS4 and im over the moon.

Well, I say over the moon lightly, its more frightened feeling to be honest, you sit there download the programme and it opens, oh my!

Now what do I do?

There are a million of settings, boxes, tools....

hmmm I think a book is going to be needed for this or a Degree course Ha!.

I would strongly recommend downloading Podcasts, they are free and offer some fantastic tuition,

if not there are various magazines out there, books all sorts on the photoshop software.

Here are a couple of pictures of me playing about on Photoshop, i took the first image trying to be smart and have a photo of lots of me, but that evening out in a bar, a mate suggested a picture of trying to give yourself a head lock...

Aaaarrrgghhhh,, you cant throw a curve ball at me like that!

and so hung over the next morning, all i could think about was to try and create this shot,

and so here is me - giving myself a head lock :0)

Its Christmas and i have just treated my self to a DSLR camera

Well Christmas is here with us once again,

While browsing over all the websites and shops, for presents for my loved ones, I thought it's finally time to bite the bullet and buy a dSLR.

Ive been a Canon IXUS point and shoot user for many years now and have upgraded a couple of times.

Now on facebook people are uploading images which just make me envious, as they are producing images which are well out of the baby IXUS's league.

With being a Canon user for years I was toying with the idea of a dSLR from them, but a few people have been raving about the Nikon brand, without getting into a Debate, Canon Vs Nikon, I have opted for the Nikon D90, and guess what?? I LOVE it!!

She came with the 18-105mm kit lens.

Here are a couple of images where im trying to get to grips with all the millions of settings, buttons and dials.