So where have all the blog posts gone…..

It has been a week like no other week; here I go with the excuses again. Almost every time I have sat down at the PC to actually compose something for No More Dead Pixels one of several things have happened.

1. I have been distracted and never got back to finishing anything
2. Been far too busy visiting Wheatfields Hospice
3. Tiredness (this sounds a lame excuse I know, but busy days take it out on you)
4. A lack of inspiration.

These do sound awful excuses I know. One of the things that crossed my mind last week was my commitment to writing this blog. I raised several questions in my head (to myself) that made me actually think about what I was doing. One of the things about doing a blog like this is to have a reason behind the whole project. I don’t! I don’t have a motive or a reason. No even a passion for writing really. I originally just felt like attaching words to my photography to give an in-depth explanation of my reasoning and ideas when taking a particular image.  This led to topical additions and current news of my interests been inserted here, there and everywhere. Does it work? Who knows…I have had views and comments, lots of them actually and I am yet to receive negative feed back. So I continue.

The last weeks have been spent doing things that have had to take priority in my life, in our lives to be a little more precise. Elaine is part of this too and at the end of the day I have found little time for recreation. Time devoted to loved ones is so precious and time that I will never shun or put off. My photography has been limited and the figures for 2013 are really starting to show. Compared to 2012 I am a long way behind. Current total for 2013 is 4647 RAW files in five months, compared to 2012 this is far short of the 7977 done then. So what is the problem? Like I mentioned above, time is a major factor. Cost is another, trips here, there and everywhere are expensive and are currently on a back burner. Weather is probably the number one reason, we havent had what you might call a wonderful Spring have we. The West of the Pennines seem to have faired a little better than the East but that s just the way the cookie crumbles.

Saturday was particularly nice and after several hours in the back garden with Elaine and our grand children I even managed to feel my forehead starting to burn. As the sun made its way down to the horizon, for the first time in weeks I felt and urge to grab a camera. Racing up to one of my many vantage points I tapped off a hundred images before and after the suns’ disappearance. I was actually happy with the sky that evening, it looked like Spring was here and Summer was around the corner. There was a gorgeous glow fading in to a bluer band of colour. One disadvantage of my selected location is a distinct lack of decent foreground and I was aware of this when I set off.  I knew what I was looking for and a minimalistic horizon with a few trees was going to be ample. Camera RAW offers the photographer a great deal of flexibility at the point of pressing the shutter and also back at the PC at processing stage so in front of the computer I was left with a few possibilities for this particular scene. Panoramas and photo-stitches I absolutely love and find them so much more realistic when it comes to trying to recreate what the human eye can see.

The images were taken with the panorama in mind and they were all shot within a few yards of each other.  I uploaded the results to Flickr today. Oh I forgot to say……We have a new Flickr…mmmm it seems that many are not so impressed. Me…well, I am ok with it and very happy to stay with Flickr, lets accept the change and get on with it. Others however, don’t seem to be seeing it this way but as Im not prepared to re-upload 11K images to another site then so be it. No way. So, whether the slide show facility that allows me to show a preview in WordPress will work remains to be seen….so here goes:-

Thanks for reading, all comments, as usual are very welcome

Bye for now

…and the numbers keep dropping

Disappointment !! Now there is a word…it will sit alongside frustration, annoyance and other choice vocabulary as words that could be used to describe my feelings within my photography life. I shouldn’t complain at all really. It has been a good week in terms of output. First was an hour down at Rodley by the canal which produced some lovely images, then the sunrise on Sunday with some coverage on BBC Look North and that was it. The week dried up in terms of images, but not on the weather front. Only this morning I am hearing that Scotland has snow forecast for next week. Snow in May?? Is this heard of? Yes it is, a trawl through the archives of the internet reveals that May 17th 1955 was probably the most notable May snowfall on record. Much of England and Wales was affected by several hours of snow, including two to three hours worth in the London area. I think it is best that we don’t go down that route and let’s try forget about snow until the end of the year, if at all.

So, to drop all thoughts of cold weather and howling gales lets move on. I did make a mad dash down to Rodley on Saturday morning as the weather was wonderful. Warm enough for t-shirts and I even stretched to a pair of cut-offs too. I am not sure why I selected Rodley but when I show you the handful of images that I got from the side of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal you might understand why. I am sure you will all admit that it’s no where near as easy to just set off and travel miles just for the sake of a few images. A few years back I would have not thought twice about getting in the car and setting off to the Lake District to get some photography under my belt. If the weather was right it was a great feeling to be spontaneous and just go. Today, that’s not quite so easy; not because of personal travel restraints or my ability to get to the places but for the sheer expense of the journeys themselves.

For the married man with children (and grand children) prioritising time and money puts certain things in ascendency over ones leisure activities. For me, this is just the case. My love for my wife and children, my family and my own well being will always come first over any activity that could be looked at another time. Is this normal I think? I am sure it is.

The Rodley visit wasn’t meant to be anything special. Every other Saturday a couple of hours either side of lunchtime I have some “me” time and if the weather is good I usually get out with the camera. The canal side in Rodley is ideal, close for parking and seating too. What more could I ask.

I churned out just nine decent images from about 50 or so that came through the camera. Overall, I was pleased, especially with the lone tree in a monochrome edit.

And that was it, the week that was……As my passion for image making goes, ranking it against the Football League this was at the foot of the table….The Conference Table.

Enjoy your weekend….

Who needs Photoshop Anyway?

What did we do before Photoshop….?
How were images manipulated…?
Did image manipulation exist….?

Questions, questions, questions…. We managed, didn’t we?

I came from an era where film in the form of negative or positive was the only option. The seventies and eighties were great for photography…truly fantastic. This was closely followed by Polaroid Instant Film but we are going slightly off the beaten track there aren’t we? Yes we did have image manipulation, it involved push processing. dodging and burning and even masking; sometimes all three not editing I hear you say but at the time it was classified as image manipulation.

Did anyone question the ethics of this work in the darkroom? Well I was never questioned if that’s a genuine answer. No I don’t think they did.. Surrealism is considered to be an element of this subject but I don’t want to cover that here.

I have slightly touched on this whole subject in other blog posts but after chatting with someone the other day it spurred me to write this post. For the purpose of this blog and this blog only we will call him “Jeff”. Jeff is a nice chap and a damned good photographer too. Up until last year he continued to use colour slide film which he had stock piled for years in his darkroom refrigerator. Many purchases from Channel Islands discount film stockists had packed full his darkroom fridge. Opening the door would reveal a sea of small green boxes marked “Velvia”. Oh what a memory, a fantastic slide film for landscapes and general photography alike. Velvia was favoured by landscape photographers for its lovely greens and blues which gave awesome rendition when viewing slides on a large screen.

Jeff is a few weeks shy of the grand age of 74. He has been a photographer for nearly 45 years and has progressed through the decades from the post war years to modern-day Britain. The SLR camera is where things stop for Jeff, for his talent lays not just in his ideas but also in his skill with the tool of the photographer….the camera itself. He continues to turn out fantastic images that are super sharp, images with awesome clarity that are perfectly exposed and all round very pleasing to the viewers eyes. So why should Jeff change to meet with modern technology? He is very happy with the results he obtains, what advantage would it be to him to make the switch to digital photography? The answers to that is “None”. Simply because he doesn’t want to. In a single word Jeff is “Happy”

Jeff processes all his own slides using the traditional process of a developing tank, chemicals and has mastered the technique very well. And I supposed that’s quite understandable after all these years. If Jeff wanted to make any alterations to his images then it would mean a change to the processing technique. This in turn would affect all the images on the roll. There are lots of combinations that can alter the way a film was processed from the chemicals used to the way that it is agitated to the amount of time it stays in the tank. All these contravene the manufacturers recommendations and are classified as “manipulation”. The resulting film can have a slight colour cast, which….if that’s what the photographer intended then all is well. With practice it can be achieved every time. What matters here is that Jeff was happy with his alternative approach and continued to ignore the manufacturers guidelines.

Jeff won many competitions. Dozens and dozens, not just locally but nationwide and even a worldwide contest too. His work was outstanding and was way before its time. Jeff was no means the first to do this, it was the normal practice to do this with the wet film process and was by no means frowned upon. It wasnt for everyone, the “average” photographer wouldn’t even consider darkroom manipulation (Please accept my apologies for the use of the word average, I didn’t like to but couldn’t think of an alternative) It was very left-field but there was no complaining and it was never frowned upon.

Take a step forward now and consider Jeff’s youngest grandson James. James is 19 and follows in his grandfathers footsteps with his love for photography. For him its a passion, photography is his life. He spends all his waking hours taking images and working for a local paper part-time. All this whilst studying at University for a science degree.

Jeff has never lived in a photography world other than a digital one. His understanding of his hobby is that photography is a three stage process.

1. Ideas and Investigation… researching and drafting ideas for the results we want to obtain
2. Capturing those ideas using a camera and recording them on to a memory card.
3. Transferring those images on to a computer so they can be edited and completed.

Just to go in to a little more detail regarding the above three statements as they leave a little bit to the imagination don’t they? I am going to use an image that I took as an example as Jeff’s images are unavailable to me.

Ideas and Investigation……..It’s very easy to walk out of the door and go take some photos….Its even easier when you visit a place you know well and have an understanding of the location, the light, timings etc…. However, going somewhere new requires a little more research before stepping out of the door. How will the sun influence your day’s shooting? How will the time affect your visit and the available light? Even something as simple as the weather may affect your ideas and the end result. The very point of this is that we are in control. If the weather isn’t right we have two choices; carry on and deal with the problem or cancel and wait for an alternative opportunity on a better day/time. Doing a recce of a location is an essential part of any photo shoot. I always research using the internet, Google Earth and then Google Street View. All three are part and parcel the same thing but these resources are a photographers best friend and can be a massive time-saving exercise. I look for ideal locations on Google, look where other photographers have been and think of alternatives. Look at the way the light falls on a location and using tools available on the internet you can work out the time of day they were taken along with the time of year. Look for locations that have cover in case it is raining. Think of every possibility….what would you do if the road was closed etc etc…Anything can be researched, and this is a vital part of the photo shoot so don’t put it off. If the worst comes to the worst, go to the location a few days before and have a look around.

Capturing those ideas ……. Providing you have done your research well the location should be now quite familiar and you should be well prepared for what is thrown at you by the elements. You will have a mental (if not written) note of what you are planning to do. One thing I have learned to do over the years is plan individual images. This may only come with experience but visiting a location I am able to wander around and pre-visualise what I want to capture, what I will do with the image in terms of editing and what the final piece will look like. I will describe an example to you…then show you an image.

Haverigg, Cumbria. A location I know very well that hosts a wealth of images and truly is a landscape photographers playground. I have visited this village on the southern tip of The Lake District hundreds of times but for one reason or another I have never managed to capture this particular scene; let alone on a sunny day. The view from the mouth of the River Lazy looking north back up river from the beach incorporates the edge of the village, the harbour area and the river, some wooden edge fences, and finally the beach and the mountains in the background. The day before the shoot, the weather forecast predicted a sunny day with scattered clouds….ideal. I visualised this image as a high contrast monochrome with the blue sky converted in the edit process to an almost black, I wanted the wooden fence to lead the viewer in to the scene showing great detail in the foreground. I need the clouds to look heavy but not pure white to add drama to the scene. I knew at the moment of taking the image that there was no way I could balance the exposure between the sky and the land masses with camera skills alone. This was always going to be attended to post shoot in CS6.

Transferring the images ….. The images are imported as RAW files (CR2) straight from the memory card in to Adobe Lightroom 4. I use Lightroom mainly as a library organiser and an editing tool. It really is great for editing but Photoshop CS6 is my tool of choice. The image was actually edited in CS5 as this was before my software update.  In the RAW browser of CS5 the original colour image was opened and adjustments were made to the exposure, shadows and highlights until I was satisfied with the process. I then open the image in to the CS5 interface and this is where the real work begins.

I first create a layer of pre-sharpening using Nik Software RAW Pre-Sharpener. This is only a light application at around 10%. I now take a look at the areas of the scene that the camera didn’t deal with perhaps as well as I would have liked. The house fronts were far too white and really over exposed. I made a selection around the blown out highlights and on a separate layer made an adjustment to the exposure, dropping it by half a stop. This just took the glare off the whites and stopped the eye fixing on this particular item. The next task was to create some detail in the shadows and darkest parts of the image. This is in preparation for the conversion to monochrome. The areas around the fence posts in the bottom right corner were very dark. A quick working with the dodge tool in CS5 revealed just enough of the detail to make it acceptable. The same was applied to the next fence post in the line. The next job was to work on the sand to the left of the frame. This was also blown out with it been a large expanse of highlights. I worked on this without making a selection and just used the burn tool on certain areas I felt had detail to reveal. I then moved on to the shadows behind the fence in the central area at the foot of the image. These were dodged until detail began to show. The next job was to apply some tonal contrast using Nik Software’s Color Effx Pro 4. The tonal contrast adjustment revealed the details without going to far and making the scene too gritty. It was now time to convert the whole shot to monochrome. For this I used Nik Software’s Silver Effx Pro 3. Like I mentioned earlier in this post…knowing exactly what I wanted made the job so much easier at all stages of the shoot. In the monochrome conversion process I added a red filter; the red filter makes the blues look black and creates quite high contrast. This really brought the detail out in the cloud formation as well as darkening the shadows and blackening the blue sky. Finally, a layer of Output sharpening was added followed by a swift pass of Nik Define to remove any noise generated by the editing process.

And that was it….one image complete. The whole editing process took about an hour from start to finish. I know this will seem like a lot of time just for one image, in my eyes it was worth it.As always, thanks for reading and all comments and questions are welcome

The “Very Large Montage” – How was it done….

I have had a couple of requests today asking how I put together the montage last week entitled “Very Large Montage” …. what an appropriate name. The finished image can be seen above.. I am going to explain this as a step by step guide from the very beginning actually shooting the images.

It was quite impulsive to be honest. I was stood composing an image of the bridge, it has quite a photogenic look to it. I saw the woman walking across the bridge and thought of an opportunity to do something quite different. Keeping the focal length the same I decided to shoot half a dozen images of her actually walking towards me.  I tilted the camera to create different angles, all the time making sure I had her in the frame. Samples of these standalone images are shown below.

By the time the  knowing actress had passed over the bridge I had captured at least two dozen images of just her. I then made sure that I kept my feet rooted to the same spot and making sure that the focal length of the lens, exposure, shutter speed and ISO were all kept the same I then proceeded to capture the base image for the huge photostitch. I wanted to emphasise the tall bridge stanchions in the final image so I shot plenty of frames that contained this part of the structure. Again, tilting the camera to grab them at different angles, doing it this way makes it much more interesting when doing a photostitch. I also made sure that every image I shot overlapped quite significantly and that I had also obtained enough to complete the full expanse of the scene.

And that is it. All the images from the location are complete, it’s just a case of bringing them home and letting your skill and the power of the modern PC do the rest. There are a number of ways that an image like this can be put together. Some of these are listed below.

1. To manually place all the images on a blank canvas and let them overlap slowly building a complete picture. This is very “David Hockney” and looks quite surreal but fantastic when its complete.
2. Automate the background image using software designed for stitching and then place the figures on manually using Photoshop to add layer masks and blending modes
3. Use a stitching program to complete the whole task, cross your fingers and hope it doesn’t get confused seeing the same figure multiple times.

I suppose there are many more ways an artist can portray this type of image but for the sake of this blog we will stick to these three. For this stitch I used option 2 and let Microsoft ICE do the donkey work and create the background in automatic mode. This would enable me to  concentrate on editing the individual images of the figure and matching up the backgrounds to look acceptable.  A point worth noting is that I never intended for the edges to be straight, they always were going to be uncut and “shabby”… That was the look I wanted to portray. As with anything, there are no rules when you do this yourself, try a little creativity and come up with something really left-field, its fun.

As you can see, the composite image that MS ICE created has included the original figure from the first frames. When creating the stitch, ICE sources the images from a folder on your hard-drive. I made sure that there were no other images that contained the young lady. This would have only complicated matters as the program reads the images and decides where to place them. I think a moving figure would have confused it somewhat. Anyway, this was a great baseline to work from. I started from the back just placing the first image of the girl so as many of the edges matched with the background as possible. It was never going to be possible to get them all to match but as long as it looked workable then I would be happy. The trick now is not to work on that new layer you have just inserted with the figure on, but to lock that layer in place, make it invisible and move on to the next. This step is then repeated until all the final figure is in place. Now you can make all the layers visible again and you get a good idea of what the final piece is beginning to look like.

It’s now time to work on each figures layer and decide what you want to remove using layer masks. As you can see from my final image, I chose to leave the bottom half of the figures unmasked. I actually spent over 30 minutes masking each figure around each foot, leg and arm and then decided that it didn’t look quite right. It looked somewhat “impossible” without the slightest hint of surrealism. One of the great little tools in Photoshop called the masking tool enables you to remove what you have already masked by merely changing the colour of the brush from black to white. So, I decided to put back all the edges except the ones next to the bridge structure. Playing around with this for about 35 minutes I arrived at something acceptable.

I left all the outer edges of the background as they were when I had put them together and then copied the whole composite on to a black square background. Converted it all to monochrome and added a title. Voila !

Thank you for reading, if you have any questions then please do not hesitate to drop me a line.

Mindblowing Photoshop edit….

My youngest son came to me this afternoon and said “Have a look at this….”
Now, before we go any further lets get something straight here. Up until this point I considered myself quite good with Adobe’s flagship product. Never afraid of a challenge and quite handy with the program.

If you decide to watch this short video you will see what I regard as the best editing I have ever seen. The film is obviously sped up but the complexity of the selection and sourcing is amazing.Anyway, take a look for yourself. I cannot embed the video from the site but the link is enclosed below. Enjoy.

From 8-Bit to ultra-realistic, this is one of the best Photoshop videos we’ve ever seen
http://www.break.com/index/mindblowing-super-metroid-photoshop-modernization-2427419

As inspiration goes, this is up there with the best | Lomokev

I have always been open to inspiration with my photography. Years of studying, reading, more studying, taking photos and doing recce’s of locations has taught me that. Reading about historical photographers is a great way to understand not just technique but the way things have progressed with technology since earlier times but most importantly the ways that ideas have progressed and altered. Photographically, if we are all stuck in the same rut doing the same things day in, day out then the job in hand would surely become very tedious. I’m not talking about professional photographers with specific interests like bird life, wildlife, photojournalism who are tasked to do specific tasks etc… what I am referring to is the run of the mill photographer getting out and trying something different for a change.

Of course, this is easier said than done. I will be the first to admit that back in the beginning of my photography years I would never have stepped out of my comfort zone; a comfort zone moulded from family grounding, holidays in summer and Agfa Ct-18 film. There is a whole article on my blog here about this very subject. It was only through forced situations and then education that I began to learn how to deal with opportunities thrust before my eyes and positions that were psychologically out of my league offered to me on a plate. What I dont want to and not going to do is start criticising and condemning camera club photography. I have been a member of various clubs since I was sixteen and having sat and watched countless slide shows, stood and given numerous presentations and made some fantastic friends; they are great places to go. If you are a budding photographer or a serious enthusiast, a complete professional or just want the social atmosphere then this is something that I would highly recommend. Unfortunately what I have found is that some (and that is said very loosely) can be very set in their own ways. The acceptability of images that push the boundaries of photography to the limit can easily be frowned upon. Club lectures and presentations frequently concluded with some members silently questioning whether the last two hours would have been better placed at an art club or even a local historical society. A number of years ago I attended a lecture at an unamed club where a very highly qualified and competent photographer and artist had been asked to speak. His two-hour slot was to display a very small portion of an extensive portfolio on a set subject. He had chosen to show around 120 images that were all uniformly mounted in large black frames and looked very impressive in terms of demonstrating continuity.

The images were all based upon rejects that had been cast aside over the years whilst sorting through his newly received slides. Instead of doing what most of us would do and throwing them away, he had chosen to store them for a rainy day. Before the digital age it was impossible to check the accuracy of your composition, ISO, exposure and shutter speed settings. Waiting until it had been developed was the only option back then, usually a box of 36 slides had 1 or 2 rejects that were either split frames from the end of the roll or purely out of focus and candidates for the trash. He had kept them and put them in a show called “Oooferiges” a ficticious word that stood for Out Of Focus Images.

I could really follow his lead… the colours, the shapes, the ideas (intentional or not) were great and it really got you thinking. I could understand why he hadn’t thrown them away. It was like art college all over again. I set out to try it myself and at the time it was one of the “been there, done it, filed it away” topics as something more important was always waiting in the wings to try next. College taught me a lot. Not just how to take photographs but how to see. How to use an image for its worth not just its photographic quality. An image that may first appear unsuitable for whatever reason may not necessarily be destined for the bin. It taught me that photography is co-joined with art and that the two are inseparable. It taught me that surrealism can be your friend and as a photographer you have so many choices to make when it comes to taking, editing and printing the final shots. Each stage can have influences that will steer the eventual purpose of the finished piece.

What it also taught me is that there is no right or wrong way to take a photograph. If you intentionally set about tilting the camera to add a different take on a portrait then so-be-it! It is not for anyone else to judge but the end recipient or user. A classic example of the difference between 1980’s club photography and the real world of image making in business. If a customer should call asking you to shoot a portrait against a barbed wire fence with a model wearing an army uniform and from a very low angle to emphasise the size of the feet then that is what you must do. If it breaks all the rules of photography then it doesn’t matter. The point here is that it fits the customers criteria and brief and they paid you to do that then it’s a result. All parties are happy. Job done.

I learned this at the right time and on every photo shoot and trip out I was always up for trying new angles and different approaches. In the computer I would play with Adobe Photoshop and push an image to its limits to create what I had envisaged as the final output. One example of this can be seen below. Low light photography: a simple image of something I love….but with a slightly different take

A mere low light photograph of a simple subject, but by carefully exposing over a few minutes then later increasing the blacks and contrast, cropping alternativley and changing the style of the image by allowing the subject to move creates a whole new take on an idea. In my opinion the ghostly figure really makes it jump out. I have had quite a few inquiries to purchase this shot and it has subsequently been used in a number of publications.

In September last year I was invited to the White Cloth Gallery by a group called Exposure Leeds. The White Cloth Gallery is a unique space for established artists to exhibit and elevate projects of particular importance while at the same time providing a platform for emerging artists to showcase their work. The gallery and its events space also has a pioneering vision to support the artistic community, encourage creativity and work alongside other local arts organisations to aid the city’s burgeoning development as a cultural centre and to become ago-to destination for art lovers everywhere. Throughout these endeavours they also wish to promote a socially aware and progressive approach to visual culture and aim to create a sense of community, attracting artists and visitors from all walks of life. White Cloth Gallery is also home to the WCG fully licensed Café and bar – a cool and vibrant urban retreat, serving up tasty snacks for those looking to enjoy the exhibitions, as well as those just looking to grab a drink or a bit to eat. An early start to the evenings presentation meant parking in central Leeds in the rush hour. A note to any prospective visitors:- allow plenty of time for this as it’s not as easy as it may first seem.

I was attending to see a presentation by multi-featured photographer, author, teacher and speaker Kevin Meredith (aka Lomokev). Kevin’s website can be viewed here. The video of the presentation is available for viewing on Kevin’s website and link to watch it is shown below

There had been no time for me to do any research on Kevin’s work as the invitation I received was very late, same day if I am truthful. I turned up “blind” if that is the right expression to use and made the customary introductions in the meet and greet area of the White Cloth Gallery. Upon sitting down and listening to Kevin talk I felt an instant connection to what he was saying. Everything I had learned over the years raced through my mind with certain items triggering old ideas and others tossing memories around like a leaf in the wind. I was fixated. I had learned alot about surrealism and studied the works of David Hockney at college so joining photographs to create montages was nothing new to me. Prior to this evening I really thought nothing could surprise me when it came to photo montage and joiners. Kevin Meredith on the other hand did surprise me. This chap has established his own ideas and turned out some absolutley amazing pieces of work.

I can understand that this is not to everyone’s taste but personally this is right up my street. For much of his photography Kevin uses a Lomo-LC-A Camera. This is a fixed length 35mm compact style camera. It is loosely based on the Cosina CX-2. The camera is a perfect companion to this style of work and in particular Kevin’s ideas and approach to photography. This is just my opinion but the Lomo Camera is a perfect tool for street and documentary photography allowing easy use for this experimental style approach. It allows easy storage in a large pocket and can be used quickly and effectively. The Lomo Camera is available in many forms which were kindly demonstrated by Kevin at the event. The camera stems from a style of photography called Lomography. This is an analog camera movement and community and also a commercial trademark of Lomographische AG. The Lomographic Society International was founded in 1992 by a group of Viennese students after they discovered the Lomo LC-A Camera. In 1991, a group of Viennese students discovered the Lomo LC-A and were “charmed by the unique, colorful, and sometimes blurry” images that the camera produced. The name is inspired by the former state-run optics manufacturer LOMO PLC of Saint Petersburg, Russia. If you would like to read more about Lomography and the Lomo LC-A then click here for a link to Wikipedia

Another of Kevin’s many arms in photography is shooting portraits. As before, he lends his own unique take on portraiture by capturing images from his hometown of Brighton and the people on the streets. He narrows his selection by discretion and in particular to fit his own ideas of hip and notable characters. A lot of this work is for Brighton Source Magazine’s street style section. I personally find these “Fragmented” portraits fascinating. It’s hard to put my finger on what it is but I particularly like the un-cropped edges and the very alternative approach of the imperfection in the joins. It reminds me so much of my studies of David Hockney back in my exam days. Kevin has a whole site on these portraits here and they are really worth a look. I have discussed this elsewhere on Nomoredeadpixels but I will say it again; it takes courage some nerve to approach a stranger in the street and speak to them. It takes a lot more to ask them to pose for a photograph let alone half a dozen of them.

After Kevin’s show at the WCG I vowed to go away and try this myself. As it stands currently, I am yet to do anything like this and forever fall back in to my own style. It’s not for a lack of desire to do it, more a fear of “copying” and offending the original artist. I am sure Kevin wouldn’t mind as he is not the only photographer to do this type of imagery. A quick google search reveals many derivatives but the fear came from the heart. I’m not a person to copy, I much prefer to put my own take on the ideas of others. Ideas, we all have them, and many will have a go at doing the obvious and making an exact replica of what they have seen. I would much rather try to understand what the photographer was thinking and go out with the same feelings and shoot a different subject with the same approach (if you follow).

So there it remains. A field that I have yet to try. But one that is almost certainly in the queue.

Thanks for reading. Kevin is a great guy and if you are fortunate to meet him you will completely understand everything I have talked about. Please, please take a look at his website and his Flickr pages…it will take you hours and you will inadvertently become one of thousands of addicted viewers. I am going to leave you with one final image from Kevin. In his own words, from his website “At the HiFi festival in 2006 I spent the night documenting the array of different coloured wellies on show. Before 2006 wellies were mostly green or black, this was the first time I had seen so much variety. I also shot some of these images at another festival, Beachdown in 2008. Shortly after Beachdown I was contacted by CHI Partners asking if they could use the images in a TV spot for the Sunday Times Festival guide.” Click the image below to view the full article.

Links

Kevin Meredith aka Lomokev – Photographer, Author & Teacher
http://lomokev.com

Kevin Meredith – flickr.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lomokev/

Kevin Meredith – Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Meredith

Lomokev – Twitter
https://twitter.com/lomokev

The White Cloth Gallery, Leeds
http://www.whiteclothgallery.com

Exposure Leeds
http://exposureleeds.org/

All images are copyright (c) Kevin Meredith and must not be reproduced.

One of my favourite images from last year.

Sunrise | Leeds Bradford Airport – 19th November 2012 – and what a sunrise too…,
a photo by Mark Winterbourne | P H O T O G R A P H Y on Flickr.

This was taken at Cemetery Road, Yeadon looking south-east towards the airport at the rising sun. In November the skies are normally grey but in 2012 we didn’t do too badly. This was probably the best sunrise I saw all year. Capturing the aircraft in the scene made for a combination of my two favourite subjects.

Via Flickr:
A compilation of images, some photostitches and some cropped – Not seen a sunrise as nice as this for many months..some of the images are aviation related as opportunities couldnt be missed. Hope you enjoy them as much as I did shooting them and editing them. Thanks for looking

Two Boeings, One Moon & A Sunrise – The Flickr Images

Two Boeings, One Moon & A Sunrise, a set on Flickr.

The Gallery of images to accompany this post https://nomoredeadpixels.wordpress.com/2013/03/02/two-boeings-one-moon-a-sunrise/

Bananas ! A Faux Pas

Exactly ! Bananas….that’s how Thursday started at Winterbourne Towers. In a nut shell (or Banana skin in this case) I stole my wifes breakfast. Technically speaking it was a “portion” of her breakfast. Well I didn’t know that she wanted a banana in her porridge did I? Elaine never has banana in her porridge, she always has Granola. Having said that so do I. Anyway, to cut a long story short we’ve not had chance to shop this week yet so supplies have been diminishing slowly with Granola and bananas holding on to the top two on the shopping list chart rundown. This is all beyond my awareness as a male by the way. So Thursday commences like any other Thursday.  I got up slightly early to make sure the sunrise wasn’t up to much after yesterdays faux pas. And also because I had agreed to meet my good friend Lee Pirie aka Yorkshire Flyer to have a morning taking aviation images. Two days in a row I hear you say. Yes, its been a while hasn’t it. Anyway, back to the bananas… I am going to try to defend myself here but it’s probably all in vain as I know I was in the wrong. So here goes…My beautiful wife (that’s not a grovel by the way, that’s what I always call her) Elaine was about to put two bowls of Porridge on the table and as usual I pop a sliced banana in my bowl along with a small handful of  Granola. This morning there was only two very small bananas left in the fruit bowl so I grabbed them both thinking that wasn’t greedy as they were significantly smaller than normal and proceeded to slice them whilst sat at the table.  After Elaine had placed the bowls on the table a brief statement to the words of “Oh there’s no bananas.. err … there were some bananas” came out of her mouth with a comical glance in my direction. Yes, I know, I was guilty. I just didn’t know….. “I’ll just have porridge then shall I” she said….We laugh about things like this, because life is way too short. I did offer Elaine my bowl before you ask.

Despite the Faux Pas at breakfast Elaine was still communicating with me, that was until the second slip up of the day. Elaine has been very fortunate to have been granted a place in this years BUPA Great North Run. My wife is what I would call a serious, casual runner. You know what I mean, she doesn’t go running twice a day and spend 32.5 hours in the gym and she doesn’t need a rub down from a bronzed Italian masseuse afterwards. Elaine runs to a plan; she has a set routine in place for the countdown to the GNR and she’s sticking too it. I have to give her credit as her running is something that has evolved over the last few years and I am extremely proud of her. I never thought I would see someone diagnosed with Asthma run the way she does.  Anyway, before I set off to meet Lee this morning Elaine informed me that she was going running. Now, I don’t have the best memory in the world, but it might have helped if I had listened instead of drifting off in to Winterbourne-Land and thinking of aviation and photography. Half an hour in to my photography I received an email on my phone asking for further details regarding an issue I had with a website I am looking after. Now I knew these details were on my desk at home and instead of being patient and waiting until I actually got home, I did what I always do and ring my beautiful wife, only this time Elaine was 5 miles from home and half way through her training plan.The  only way of answering the phone was to stop her in-ear coach and take my call. Well, I didn’t know did I? I should have listened. I actually rang twice, because she didn’t answer first time which I think made things worse. When I finally did get to talk to her I found out that I wasnt the only one that had rung and I was reliably informed that her morning run was crumbling beneath her feet. I’m truly sorry Elaine……lol 🙂

On to the important bits…. My great friend Lee Pirie, (before you go any further please have a read of Lee’s Bio here because this guy is the salt of the earth and what you would call a real true friend. You know what I mean, someone who would do anything for you and you would do the same back ). Lee loves his photography just like me and with the weather being so nice it was an ideal opportunity to get up to the airport. Lee expressed his desire to get some photographs of this mornings Thomson Holidays flight as it departed. So that was it, the stage was set. Cloudless skies, wall to wall blue and sunshine..yeehaa..a photographers best friend. In winter the sun rises almost in the south-east and this leaves a bit of a problem at Leeds Bradford Airport as it means shooting in to the sun. Who cares !! this is No Rules No Limits Photography … so we did.

Jet2 Boeing 737 departing Leeds Bradford Airport

As you can see from the shot above, the images do require a little bit of attention once you get them in to the computer. But they do give an impression of what it was like. I really like seeing the heat from the back of the engines in shots like this, it really provides atmosphere. We arrived at the end of the runway just in time for the Thomson flight and with the view down the runway looking direct in to the morning sun it was going to be a similar effort to the one above.

Thomson Boeing 757 rotating off runway 32 at Leeds Bradford Airport

It was, in fact it was almost an exact replica. What happened next was very strange and it took a couple of minutes to sink in what had actually happened. As the aircraft passed overhead and climbed in to the Yorkshire sky it started to snow. Seriously. Lee and I looked at each other in disbelief. There were no clouds and the sun was shining.  You could see the snow, feel the snow it was very strange. Before I had time to take it in, it had stopped. The only explanation I could muster up was that it had blown off the wings of the departing 757 and it was actually small ice crystals and not snow. Who knows.

It was a slow morning  at Leeds as aircraft movements were limited but we had a great time and I managed to tap off just under a hundred frames. It was also great to catch up with Lee again, I am just hoping it wont be as long before we get together again. Thanks Lee.

On a final note….Yes, we have no bananas, we have no bananas today…..

The Pixel Doctor

Over the years I have gained a lot of experience taking photographs. From location photography to studio shoots; from football matches to weddings and still life to medical injuries. I have done it. As time moves on my passion for this hobby never fades. A few years ago I decided to change my way of thinking and put my knowledge to good use by teaching photography at a local school. Things moved on from this as local groups and societies invited me to do presentations and tutorials on photography and Photoshop.

In the last few months I have had countless people from friends and family to strangers I have met out on location telling me “Why don’t you go out and teach this….use your knowledge”. This is where “The Pixel Doctor” comes in. Yesterday, in light of three enquiries in one day I set up The Pixel Doctor. If you click the image below it will take you to the Pixel Doctor Blog Page

In today’s world social media plays such an important part of our lives. I decided to set up relevant accounts in Twitter and Facebook for the Pixel Doctor. Links for these are shown below.

So what is the Pixel Doctor all about?

Well, is there anything you wished you could do with your images but dont know how?

Would you like to take better photographs?

Do you need inspiration or lack ideas?

Or even learn how to use Photoshop?

Learn how to see with an image in mind?

Image Composition

Discover Camera Controls

Working with light

Well the Pixel Doctor can help ….so go one then, why not drop me a line