Hi thought id share with you a few images from my day job, up here in the Shetland isles. We are building a gas plant, currently 2500 guys on site. Mad times.
Shetland Gas Plant.
in Oil and Gas, Shetland
Composite with a snow machine in the garden.
in Portraiture, Tutorial
Nikon D800 f10 1/125th ISO 100
Good morning, hope that you had a good weekend.
This was the set up, pretty straight forward really. Two light sources, both camera left. The elinchrom ranger in a large octa positioned in front of myself, so the light was feathered and soft.
with a bare elinchrom quadra behind back lighting the snow.
With a snow machine you can see on the left of the image.
The image was shot with grey paper background intentionally to aid in the photoshop work afterwards.
Image set up and execution around 45 mins, and all photoshop work an hour and half.
Some times these images can take a lot more, but having the final goal in your mind and through experience you can achieve that goal much quicker and have a nicer final product.
Nikon D800 f10 1/125th ISO 100
A cold trip to Helvellyn.
Nikon D800 f8 1.5seconds ISO100 with various flash bursts around the scene.
Last week i headed out to try and take some pics up Helvellyn in the lakes. I was losing light as i didn't plan on the amount of weight i carried would slow me down so much, and so i pitched up here rather then planned for the evening.
I awoke at 3am and the place was covered in snow. At first light there was an absolute white out, and was very thankful for carrying a GPS with me as navigating would of been near on impossible in zero visibility.
So photo wise it was a failure but a good heavy load carry is a well received for a bit of Phys after the indulgent new year.
Nikon D800 f5.6 1/50th ISO800
Brrrrrrr a fresh morning.....
Nikon D800 f2.8 1/50th ISO5000 Lit with red head light.
Breakfast for a king...
Thanks
Lee
Volvo V50 - play with a car rig.
Nikon D800 f10 1/30th ISO800 (multiple flash exposure)
I know that we are all guilty of this, i purchased some camera kit, and it has just sat there for months unused... (this is just me? - yeah right)
And so it was time to have a play. I purchased some car rig - mounting equipment. For making the movement shots you see in magazines.
Nikon D800 f5 1/13th ISO 800
Here is a final shot, with using a slower shutter speed to give the sense of movement, i would of been blurred in the shot, and so inside the car is a strobe light, set to rear curtain sync to give a pop of light to freeze me, and make me sharper.
I triggered the camera and flash using pocket wizard 3's. I find these work a treat. I have one in my hand, and when i press the button the camera fires, and the flash.
Nikon D800 f3.2 1/15th ISO 400
A Shot of the mounting system attached to the bonnet.
Nikon D800 f5 1/13th ISO800
Added another pole to extend the reach of the camera. I felt the camera was too heavy for this though, as the poles were worryingly bending, and so only a very slow speed was used when driving.
Here is a short Video of the top image, being taken and processed.
Thanks
Lee
Blackpool on a Shitty Afternoon.
in Blackpool
Nikon D800 61sec F14 ISO 100
Hi all and Happy New year.
Apologise for the tittle to this post, but i am climbing the walls to do a shoot and so headed out this afternoon. Not much going on but thought that was kind cool.
Sorry I'm no good at making flamboyant arty titles up like most, there seems to be more thought gone into the title then the image in a lot of cases.
I aim to head up to the lakes at the end of the week if i have not returned to Scotland for my day job.
Hope you are well.
Lee
Metal Prints. Loxley Colour.
Hi all,
Hope that you are all set and ready for the festive period about to kick in.
If not...... good luck.
Just a quick one today, thought id Share an image of a print i have recently had made for me by the guys over at
I decided on ordering a metal print, to really make this print shine. I am truly speechless, the quality is fantastic. The turn around from order to your front door is also really impressive.
I was never a fan of the metal prints, but maybe it is just i have never seen the right image displayed. A landscape or a high saturated image really shines and looks impressive, a blurred HDR picture from your iPhone of your dog or selective colour will not benefit being printed on metal, never.....
This is Loxley's largest metal print size, 60x40 inch. I sent them an image with a size of 30x20 and they managed to double the size perfectly.
This is not a cheap print though, but i feel it is worth every penny. You certainly pay for quality.
This photo of me stood with it does it no justice what so ever...
Something you really have to see in person!
I had made some framed prints for clients and am very impressed.
We will certainly be sticking with Loxley Colour now for all our professional prints.
Have a great festive holiday and hope to see you in the new year.
Lee
Wind Turbine instalment.
Recently i spent a week rebuilding a wind turbine. Interesting work scope seeing the guts of these great machines that line our landscapes.
Apologies for only having iPhone images.
A view of Lancashire from the top.
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..
IRATA rope access training course.
in Rope Access
Big apologies for not having a post for some time now,
with work, the new house and the baby, my hands are pretty busy,
but i couldn't be happier.
I am planning a trip to the Brecon Beacons in the near future, which i am super excited about,
Here are some images i snapped on a recent rope access course. I was refreshing my IRATA Level 3's ticket and so was in for a weeks beasting!!
I can highly recommended the training over at
C&J training in Blackpool. The training centre comes under the Talon umbrella and John is a great trainer there.
It was an informative week. I understand a few of you are photographers. This post has no relevance to you?
But ask your self - How many times are you at work, and at height? up step ladders? on roofs? hanging out of a window? I know even you wedding photographers are guilty of this. This course is not for you, but take some time and look at the working at height guidelines. Hurting yourself is just not worth it. no work - no cash right?
Say your assistant takes a tumble, your insurance will turn their back if nothing is in place. Say good bye to your business, once you pay out the court fee's and the settlement.
Here is what the HSE say about it. Thanks for reading.
Red Arrows.
Over the Weekend Southport had an Air Show.
From over the water in Lytham we could see the planes.
Here are some images of the Red Arrows,
It doesn't matter how many times you watch them, i am always in awe.
There is some amazing talent needed to fly with pin point precision like they do.
A subtle technique, but goes a long way..
in Tutorial
Hello, here is a little tip which i have recently picked up and thought id share as it makes such a lovely difference.
When working on images of buildings here is how i now add contrast.
Rather then use contrast adjustment layer, i created two levels layers, one darker and one lighter - both with black layer masks.
Now take your time, and paint in, where the face of a building is lighter, make it lighter and the dark side darker. It takes a little time, but certainly gives your image much more depth and a 3D feel to them.
This image has the effect turned off.
The extra layer you can see is a contrast adjustment layer to the lighter layer.
Here is the final image with the contrast technique added.
Subtle but certainly makes a lot of difference to the image.
Canary Wharf London.
in London
Here is an image of Canary Wharf.
This image came about after alot of scouting on google maps, and street view.
From the way the road intersects with the rail line i thought that it would be worth checking out.
If you take you time and plan where you want to be at sun rise certainly goes a long way.
Hope you are having a great weekend.
Lee
Battersea Power Station.
in London
Here is an image i took one early morning of Battersea Power Station.
This image was made up of 3 exposures, one for the sky, building and the water.
I converted to mono in Nik Software silver efex pro 2, and again i processed three times, one for the sky, building and water.
I hope you like.
Take care
Lee
London Westminster, Houses Parliament, Big Ben.
in London
Here is an image i have taken in London on a cold 4am morning.
Westminster with Big ben clock face is an iconic view and a tourist hotspot, but at this hour not a sole around.
I hope that you enjoy and are having a great weekend.
Lee
Canary Wharf London.
in London
With recently spending some time at the in-laws waiting for the baby to arrive, i have used the time to head out and about at sunrise
Above is an iPhone image of my location on the Thames.
Alarm call for 02:15hrs - and headed out, just a shame the weather did not really play ball, but thats landscape photography for you.
Below is the image created by the d-slr.
This is certainly a location ill revisit to try and capture an image of more what i had in my mind.
Thanks
Lee
15 minute exposure using Lee filters big stopper and circular polariser.
Patiently waiting.
in London
This morning I was patiently waiting for the sun to rise in a cool location.
Here was the view behind me.
10 points if you can guess where i am....
Hope you have a great day.
Lee
Polarising Filter.
in Tutorial
Hi,
Today is just a quick post, but wanted to try and show the importance of using a circular polarising filter. Here you can see from a shot of London from the View at the Shard, i had to shoot through a window.
This image you can see the reflections in the glass from inside of the building.
By using a polarising filter, it is not perfect, but seriously cuts out the reflections and so saves you much more time having to edit less.
Like always if you have any questions please feel free to post in the comments.
Hope that you enjoy the rest of your Sunday...
The above image would not have been able to been created so clean without a polarising filter.
Please feel free to share this post on your social media, giving credit to the photographer Lee Ramsden www.leeramsden.com
Thanks
The view from the Shard London HDR image break down.
in Tutorial
Hi, hope your keeping well and have had a good weekend.
Here are some images from the previous London landscape image that i have posted.
I wanted to show the images used to create the final image.
I clamped the camera down to the handrail using the Manfrotto Magic arm and using a cable release i rattled a few bracketed frames.
I have included the metadata on each image, but other then converting to jpg, they are straight from the camera and in the order the camera took them and i added to Nik softwares HDR efex pro 2.
Here is the first base image. In face i quite like this exposure but i personally prefer having the extra range to play with.
And finally this is the out put from the software. As you can see it has little punch, no halos. or even much contrast going on. But the key is to get a nice base to start with, and then bring this into photoshop and make it your own.
I have tried many different HDR software on the market and not one will you be able to click process- done.
But i do think that this is a good thing, no 2 images will ever be processed the same and so this way it makes you take your time and make something unique and more realistic.
Here is the final image.
Thanks.
Lee
The View at The Shard London photography tips.
Hi, how are you?
I hope that you are well, while I'm stuck out at work on the rig for a month....
Last week I took a trip to the new viewing platform in the Shard building- London.
72 floors high you get an incredible view of London.
You have to book in advance and pick your time slot, I was particular in that I wanted the sunset to dark.
After googling the timings I was happy that we would catch the setting sun, but just had to have our fingers crossed for the weather :0)
As you can see, we were so very lucky in the weather front, after so much snow and bad weather recently.
I wanted to give a couple of tips that i found so handy while shooting here.
and these tips will not only help if you fancy going up the Shard but I'm guessing 99.9% of tourist locations.
Tip 1
- The venue Tripod ban...
A lot of tourist venues have a tripod ban and so you are not allowed to enter with / or use one.
As you can see i over came this by using a Manfrotto magic arm, and super clamp.
The security observed me using this and did not bother in the slightest.
While using the clamp and magic arm, i treated it like a tripod and so was using my cable release to gain much longer shutter speeds.
Tip 2
- Don't for get your polariser filter.
To try and reduce the reflections you gain shooting through the glass, a circular polariser filter is not perfect, but cuts down the problem loads.
Nothing will stop the other members of public and their point and shoots, using the flash - still amazed at what they recon the on camera flash will light up.
That its, i can really recommend the Shard, it was a fantastic experience.
Keep in touch in the comments bar bellow...
Thanks
Lee
Amsterdam canal by boat.
in Amsterdam, Netherlands
As followers of this blog will know i head over to Amsterdam at least twice a year,
It is such an amazing city, spilling out at the seams with art and design.
My favourite way to view this city has to be on the canals by boat. Im very lucky that my cousin and her fella have their own boat.
Grab some beers, head out and enjoy the diverse and interesting sites of Amsterdam!
