Postcard from Liverpool

One of those pictures from my blog last year that has yet to make an appearance on this website. It is from a trip I made to Liverpool in September last year where the Liver Building was something I took many pictures of. I deliberately try not to post too many pictures of the same thing but with not being a well travelled photographer and promising 3 pictures a week, similarities do occur here and there. I processed this shortly after another picture of the Liver Building, so I wanted to attempt something different with this one and give it more of a postcard feel. This meant processing it in a vintage fashion, largely achieved in Nik Color Efex Pro. I never did decide which version of the Liver Building I prefer but this was well received on Flickr, so have always kept amongst my portfolio.

Blogging is not going to be easy over the next couple of weeks as I am for the first time this year travelling abroad, in preparation (legal stuff) for my wedding in Poland in September. Unfortunately, I won't be taking my D700 along with me this time, mainly because with nearly 6 weeks to my wedding, I have to get my priorities sorted for once and put the wedding first. Ironically, when I do travel over for my wedding in September, there will be plenty more time for pictures, as we are over there for much longer and taking a car. So I will set blog posts up but am struggling for pictures I want to post, so I'll be the first to admit, it could get interesting!

Justice for the 96 - 2012

2012 version

This is the first time in a long while that I have done a 'Saturday Special' but with the Olympics coming to a close and the football season beginning again next week, I feel it is an appropriate time for another one! So I'll ask the question if you already haven't - why am I posting this picture again, when I have already posted it before (December 2011)? Well after seeing this picture on various websites over the last few months and having printed it a couple of times for Liverpool fans, there was always something bothering me about it that I did not really pick up on when I first posted it. Although it is natural, there was too much darkness in the Kop area of the crowd where this picture is focused. On blogs such as this one and Flickr, it was not very noticeable but as other people have used it for their blogs (which I do not mind at all) the dark areas seem to obscure the whole message of JFT96. This became apparent when I had it printed as well. I have long pondered tweaking this one to bring out the dark areas more so it stands out better on websites and you can see the difference with the old one below.

I only had the Hi resolution JPEG to correct as I had long thrown away the TIFF files I processed it with (I never throw away the original RAW files but as I have discussed before, processing it from scratch is a frustrating and ultimately disappointing method). So I worked on the JPEG in Lightroom and for all the bad press editing JPEGS get, it doesn't seem to have reduced the quality at all between the old and saving the new version. I know it would get worse the more you save it but I think editing it once makes almost no difference, which is the way I know Trey Ratcliff works (if you've seen any of his tutorials you will know he converts all his RAW files into JPEGs rather than TIFFs). Back as usual tomorrow!

2011 version

The Most Famous Club in the World

Ok so I know I have posted a few old pictures recently but there are 2 reasons for posting this one today. Firstly, it has been absolutely hectic recently and I have not had a lot of time to process a new picture and have it up and ready to go. Secondly, I am very excited about the new look to this blog, that I want to fill it with some of my own 'classics'. I've been trying to tinker with the look and size of the pictures on this blog for quite a while and it all came together on Sunday. Some of you may know that I have had a smugmug site (HalewoodPhotographic.com) for quite a long time but haven't really been able to make much use of it. Well suddenly now it is very useful, as basically the pictures you see on this site are imported from my smugmug site, which has always been one of the best possible ways to view pictures on the net. So now I can make them look great on this website and present them in a much better and bigger size as well. Therefore, there will be some further 'classics' (my opinion I know) to appear in the near future but I will get round to posting new pictures on Thursday. For now I hope you enjoy this HDR picture, I posted this one especially as it is always one of the more popular ones at the exhibitions I have done.

I'm going to do a 'Downton Abbey Special' this weekend, posting one picture of Highclere Castle on the Saturday and another one on the Sunday. I have never watched the show myself but I know that the photos I have produced of the castle have always been well received and sold well, due perhaps to the success of Downton Abbey (which if you didn't know is modelled on Highclere Castle, a famous country manor about 5 minutes from where I live). So the 'Downton Abbey' special will be for all the fans of the show, especially those who have used my Highclere Castle pictures before on their blogs, tumblrs, pinterest sites etc. Every one I have seen has always credited me for the picture so in that sense I don't mind at all.

Port of Liverpool

Today is a big day, not for me personally but my beloved football team Liverpool FC are playing in the League Cup Final at Wembley. I will be there this afternoon, in fact am spending nearly all weekend in London in anticipation and aftermath of the big game. So while today's blog maybe be brief, I decided to post a picture from Liverpool, this being the Port of Liverpool building, right on the sea front (where else would a 'port' building be I guess!). I took this image while visiting Liverpool last September and the tourist season still seemed to be in full swing - many people enjoying the day by the front soaking up the atmosphere and eating ice creams (including me!).

Hopefully by the time I blog again on Tuesday, I will be in a great mood as Liverpool would have won the cup final, but you just never know with football. As well as going to the game, this picture is me doing my bit for Liverpool today!

Modern Liverpool

Continuing last weeks theme of not being able to name buildings I choose to display on this website, the internet has now failed me in finding the name of this stunning modern building in Liverpool. I'm much more confident finding the name of this one, so if anyone does know it, then please let me know! It's a bit embarrassing for me to not be able to name buildings in Liverpool, with all my family history based there, but Liverpool has been rapidly developing and modernising in recent years. Of course the building in the background is the legendary Liver Building and this area is right down by the waterfront, next to the Albert Docks.

As a lot of my pictures are, this was largely post processed in Lightroom with a bit of layer masking and 'fixing' in Photoshop. It is an HDR from just 2 shots, as this was all I needed to capture the light range of this scene. Processing this image in total was about 1 and half hours work.