The Bodleian Fortress

Yikes has it really been that long!? I knew I hadn't blogged in a while, but didn't realise it had been nearly a whole month! Well it's a good job I've decided to revert back to an old habit. Oh yes, I will again be blogging 3 times a week, starting today. Every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday (as opposed to previously Sunday), I will post a new photo or topic for discussion. It is the only way I can keep up my blogging habits on here, at a time when I am enjoying photography more than ever.

So having said that, I will keep it brief tonight. Today's photo was taken at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. It was processed entirely in Lightroom, despite the numerous black and white processing programs available for photographers these days. I am currently trialling Topaz BW effects, and am yet to make a decision whether to make the full purchase. Lightroom 5 (as 4 did previously as well) does a great job of black and white processing, and it's often difficult to judge how a stand alone black and white program can go further. What might win it for me with Topaz's program, is the detail slider they have added, to bring out those extra details in a black and white picture.

Tip: The key to black and white processing is contrast. It's too easy when converting a picture to black and white to overlook how boosting the contrast can really bring the picture too life. They can look quite flat otherwise. See you on Tuesday!

Hyper-Realistic HDR

Creating 'hyper-realistic' HDR photographs has not really been a forte of mine. Hyper-realistic means going beyond creating a realistic photograph (HDR or otherwise), and taking it into something perhaps a bit more extra dimensional. Critics tend to cause this style 'over-cooked', meaning they have taken the HDR too far. This criticism is completely justified in many cases, but I think the hyper-realistic look is one of the key looks of HDR pictures, and encourages many photographers to give it a try.

I have tended to go for a look that uses HDR techniques, but still tries to give the photo a realistic look, and not providing an image that was an unrealistic representation of the scene. However, I have tried my hand at more hyper-realistic techniques recently, to give a particular scene more edge, and yes something beyond reality. In another sense, going for a bit more detail in architectural pictures. It is important to note that the hyper-realistic look is not suitable for all HDR scenes, and I will certainly stick to my usual HDR techniques for landscape scenes, away from an urban environment.

This picture was taken on the Oxford photo walk recently, and the idea as stated above, was to give it a look perhaps beyond reality (even though of course all the details were there when I took the picture). 

I hope you like it, but in any case, let me know what your thoughts are on 'hyper-realistic' HDRs.

iPhoneography

This is undoubtedly a party I am arriving very late to, perhaps even to the point where all the other guests are leaving. However, having finally acquired an iPhone in the last month, I have added a new tool to my photographic repertoire - mobile phone photography.

When I was lured (completely willingly) into photography 3 and a half years ago, mobile phone photography was the last thing on my mind. I wanted to get the best possible images I could, meaning expensive cameras and editing software. I had been noticing though, the advances that were being made on the photo apps market, and whilst not willing to buy a phone just to have a go, now that I own an iphone, I have waded into the thick of iphoneography.

I have 3 camera apps for my iPhone - 1) Snapseed - The best, the king, the one I could not do without. It was created by Nik Software (now owned by Google), which is basically all you need to know with regards to credibility. 2) Mextures - A relatively new app I believe, based primarily on adding textures to your iphone photos. It's pretty good but only gets used occasionally in conjunction with Snapseed. 3) Camera+ - I used this app once after downloading it. I don't like it, never use it, and have no further intentions with it.

It's important to get straight, that though an iphone can take great pictures, it is not a patch on any DSLR camera (which of course it is not intended to be). I will always continue to take out my D700 for  the very best quality. What an iPhone can do though, is provide great images, whilst being a constant companion, being right there in your pocket. There has been more than 1 occasion recently (look at the black and white bridge image above for example), where I have thought 'what a shame I don't have a camera on me', only to then remember, I have a pretty good camera in my pocket.

The other good thing about iphone photos, is that once edited, they are easy to upload to Twitter, Facebook, or any other platform you wish to share them on.

Hope you like the selection of photos above and below, plenty more iphoneography to come!

Meat Specialists

I had planned to blog some pictures from the Oxford Photo Walk (part of the Scott Kelby Worldwide Photo Walk) sooner, but there has been a new addition to mine and my wife's household; a little Cockapoo Puppy called Chester. We bought the little fella a week ago, and he has given me a very exhausting week. I have never had a dog before, so this is all a new experience for me, but am thoroughly enjoying being a dog owner. Naturally, everyone who meets him falls in love with him, so we can't wait until we can take him out walking in the big wide world (in less than 2 weeks after his 2nd vaccinations).

Back to the Oxford Photo Walk though, and this easily qualifies as my first photo walk with a large group of people. It was led by Glyn Dewis, and he organised a fantastic walk and event in general, and though it is perhaps a cliché, I can honestly say I met a great bunch of people. Meeting other keen amateur photographers, plus the opportunity to visit sights in Oxford I would not have thought of myself, made the day very worthwhile. Looking forward to going on more!

One part of the Scott Kelby Worldwide Photo Walk are the competitions, and though I am not really motivated by these things, I decided to enter the picture above nonetheless (taken in the Covered Market in Oxford). Whether it is the best picture I took on the day, I don't know, but it is one of the few HDR's I took that day, and ultimately, that's what I do.

Sticking my neck out a bit now, but I have so many photos to post that are fully developed, that I do anticipate being much more active on this blog from now until the end of the year.

Oxford Sighs

The second appearance on the website for the Oxford version of the Bridge of Sighs. I was initially quite happy with my first iteration of this bridge (back in January) but it didn't have much impact on this website or any other ones. I started to lose a bit of interest in it as well, despite it actually taking me an age to process! I knew today's picture of the bridge (from a further back perspective) would eventually make it onto this blog, as I believed it had more interesting photographic elements to it.

I also knew that this was likely to be a monochrome HDR. Whereas I liked the colours the picture offered, I felt like I had already done that with my previous picture. Therefore, I wanted a bit more of a gritty, historical look to this version. After a fair bit of processing in Lightroom and Photoshop, I shipped it over to Silver Efex Pro 2 to get the monochrome look I was after. There are many great black and white options in there as you would expect (though I think Lightroom 4 can give you amazing control for your monochrome pictures as well) but I often find myself going towards the sepia/vintage look, as I have applied here.

English Country Garden

Well if truth be told it's more like an English rural city garden but Oxford is very much a city of the countryside. This was pictured in the Botanic Gardens and though we visited there in the middle of winter, it's still a fantastic place to walk around and find a bit of peace. This is an HDR shot from 2 exposures (0,-2) and was largely post-processed in Photoshop and Nik Color Efex Pro.

As I alluded to in the comments section of the previous picture, the football result on Sunday did go my way and my team was victorious. Had an amazing day because of the result, however it's left me pretty exhausted and creatively a bit unenergetic. So this is quite a short blog today but will have plenty to talk about on Thursday, with it being a couple of days away from another exhibition of mine.

The Thames Under Oxford / Pinterest

Here is another record from my recent day trip to Oxford. I mentioned last week that I need to go out and shoot some more pictures now and that is still very true. The more pictures you post from a certain location, the more difficult it is to write about. You've already written so much content on the place! Anyways, as opposed to my 'Oxfordshire' shot last last week, this is from the other side of that bridge that goes over the river Thames and is in glorious HDR! It is an HDR from 3 shots and I decided to go for the square format for this picture as there was little if any interesting content towards the left side of this picture. I always remember Rick Sammon's advice about cropping, which is to always make the picture fill the frame, that's what I try to do.

Pinterest


Since Trey Ratcliff's blog about Pinterest the other day, I notice there are a lot of photographers signing up. Which has included me as well, so if you want to have a look, here is my Pinterest page:

pinterest.com/petehalewood

I only have 2 followers so far, so more would be appreciated! There was a big debate on Trey's site about the pro's and con's of pinterest. I completely adhere to Trey's core philosophy about having no fear who uses or what happens to your pictures and let be what will be. The internet has changed the way artists can have their work accessed and I think you either accept this and use it to your advantage or don't accept this and spend your days complaining of the way things are. It was a wise person who once said "If you don't like change, you are going to like irrelevance even less".

In a way nothing has really changed in terms of gaining success. A struggling pub band with ambitions to 'make it' don't go chasing money out of everyone who hears their music. They are grateful for any exposure they get. If and when they do make it, they will be able to earn a living, but their music will still be used by people unwilling to pay for it. And the internet hasn't changed that, people have been making tapes and bootlegging music for decades. What a waste of time it would be for bands and record companies to chase every teenager who made a tape from someone else's record and let's be honest we've all done it.

The most important lesson I can offer to people who are concerned about where their pictures end up, is simply always remember to tag and record your information in the metadata. That way your picture will always carry a metaphorical 'chip' in it and some way down the line, someone may use that to track you down and ask to pay you to use the picture.

This is simple enough to do in Photoshop, just click into File and then File Info and fill out all the relevant information, just make sure you get your email address or other contact details in there so people can find you!

I have a 4 day weekend now, which will include heading over to Windsor, so hope to capture some great photos around there.

Oxfordshire

I can't remember the last time I posted a picture that wasn't an HDR and I am quite ashamed of that. It was never my intention to become just an HDR photographer and if I had a plan it was to be 50/50 HDR to single image picture ratio. I guess I just always like seeing how a scene will look in HDR and I'm intrigued how an HDR will look when you work on it for a while. I think it's the post-processing I enjoy most about HDR actually. I really enjoy working on photos with the computer and HDR lends itself to this to a great extent.

So as you can guess, this picture is not an HDR and was a single take. It is quite vague to call it Oxfordshire, but I thought it was quite a representative scene of this county. Of course, this is in the city that Oxfordshire is named after, Oxford itself. I still believe in not doing HDR for the sake of it and this picture did not scream to me that it needed the HDR touch. It was taken from inside the grounds of the magnificent Botanic Gardens in Oxford and the river you see to the right is the River Thames, the longest river in the UK. This picture was processed mainly in Lightroom but also in Photoshop CS5 and Viveza 2.

Dominus Illuminatio Mea

It sounds like something out of the  Da Vinci Code, but actually Dominus Illuminatio Mea means 'The Lord is my light'. It is the motto of Oxford University, one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in the world. This emblem slash statue is above one of the great entrances into one of the university buildings. There are so many university buildings cluttered around Oxford, that it is difficult for me as a visitor to remember which is which. Despite only living 30-40 miles away from Oxford, I visit there surprisingly rarely and know even less about it. I can say that this entrance is near the Bridge of Sighs and behind the Sheldonian theatre. This is an HDR picture but taken from a single RAW file. There was no need to add any bracketed images, as this single picture had captured all the dynamic range necessary.

Have you seen my Flickr Photostream?

There are many avenues for photographers to show their pictures these days, but my personal favourite is still Flickr. I know it lacks the functionality of other websites and is perhaps a bit dated, but after initially developing a passion for photography, Flickr was the place I gained a ton of inspiration and spurred me on to want to create pictures like some of the fantastic ones I saw there. I went through a stage last year of having title plates on my Flickr pictures, which I got a bit bored of after a while. However, now I've decided that beginning with today's picture, I am going to introduce a universal border (without text) on all my Flickr pictures. At various times I've been for and against borders and title plates, but now I've just decided I want my Flickr pictures to have their own separate identity and an alternative way of presenting my pictures. So if you've never been there before, please begin seeing my pictures in a different way:

Pete Halewood Flickr Photostream

The Bridge of Sighs

Many people will know that last year I visited Venice, and as spectacular as it was, there was one major disappointment. The iconic 'Bridge of Sighs' was completely surrounded by scaffolding and advertising boards, making any 'true' picture of it impossible. I took many HDR's in Venice but the Bridge of Sighs was not something I camE back with any cherished pictures of. I forgot to mention there was a second major disappointment as well in Venice, which was that St. Mark's Basilica also had scaffolding on one side of the roof. Again, exterior shots were therefore unlikely to be anything memorable, though the basilica is still one of the most amazing buildings I have ever been inside.

Perhaps slightly less awe-inspiring, I visited Oxford last Friday and it at least did give me a chance to photograph their own 'Bridge of Sighs' although it's real name is the 'Hertford Bridge'. The Bridge of Sighs was a nickname given to it almost immediately though, and yet it resembles both the Bridge of Sighs in Venice, in the way it connects 2 buildings, but also the Rialto Bridge in how it actually looks. The building in the background and underneath the bridge is the Sheldonian Theatre.

This HDR is from 3 shots and did take quite a long time to post-process. I did a lot of layer-masking to prevent halos and 'dirty halos' (as I call them). Layer-masking also helped make the buildings in the background stand out much clearer, as opposed to the first tone-mapped version, which seemed to blur a few of the features. In all it was about 2 hours work.