The Photography Show

2014 sees the launch of the first ever 'The Photography Show', perhaps seen as the UK's answer to Photoshop World. I attended this event on Sunday and can absolutely confirm it is like DisneyLand for photographers. Not only did it feature representation from many of the big photography companies, there were many of the world's top professionals present to offer photographic advice, and provide inspirational stories.

Nikon and Canon predictably had rival giant stands at each of the entrances, though there was also a huge presence by Adobe, Panasonic and Olympus. Adobe had many classes on throughout the day, more than I unfortunately could attend. I made it an absolute must to catch up with Mr. Tricks himself Glyn Dewis at his presentation 'Pro retouching using Photoshop'. As usual, Glyn was present to offer a short but plentiful burst of techniques using Photoshop, and of course there were some things I simply did not know, but cannot wait to start using. There is 1 photo in particular from my recent Dubai trip, that I have been holding back because it has an 'obstacle' let's say with it, but having watched Glyn's seminar yesterday, I think I now have the solution.

It was great to see some of the companies I have been following for a few years now such as Smugmug and Topaz, though I was quite surprised by their small presence. A smaller company making it's presence felt was DXO, an upcoming rival to Photoshop, or so they would have us all believe. Their software does certainly seem impressive and was well demonstrated by the charismatic Hector. I have since downloaded their products to trial, and well we shall see how I get on with it.

Perhaps the highlight of the day was watching a seminar by the legendary Joe McNally. Although I am not too familiar with his work, it is not hard to see why he is so admired. He took time to come and meet some of his audience (such as myself) before the show, and his speech featured many great photos along with the stories behind them. It was a wonderful insight into his career and his philosophy as a photographer, and one you could not help but get inspired by. It was a genuine real pleasure to see him speak, and I recommend it to anyone gets the chance.

A wonderful footnote to the Joe McNally experience, was learning today exactly who the guy sat in front of me was. I was sat in the 2nd row, behind all the special guests and Joe especially was delighted to see the guy in front of me, and they conversed for a couple of minutes before the show. Joe introduced his assistant to the man in front of me saying 'this is Steve McCurry'. Joe also mentioned him during his seminar (they both worked for the National Geographic) and I kept thinking to myself 'I'm sure I have heard of Steve McCurry' before, but I could not think where. So I googled his name today, and was shocked but pleasantly surprised to learn that the guy sat in front of me was only the guy who pictured the world famous 'Afghan Girl' photograph, perhaps the most famous photograph of modern times! Had I realised that at the time, I would have definitely introduced myself and said hello, but perhaps next time hey. It was still wonderful to know I was sat amongst such esteemed company for McNally's talk. I really want to see and meet many other great photographer's in the near future, they are so inspiring.

All in all it was a great day out, and I only hope this the first of many Photography Shows to come. The enthusiasm for photography in the UK is enormous, and it's great that so many of the world's top professionals come to acknowledge that.

Today's picture is one I posted on Flickr last week. I want to start getting back into the social media side of things such as Flickr, as I miss the interaction you get over there. Although I love doing this blog, you have to accept that the people are at places such as Flickr, Google+ and 500px. I took this just outside Sherborne Abbey, as the sun went down.

Inside Sherborne Abbey

Rural Dorset and Somerset is where I have been staying for the last 3 days, very near to the town of Sherborne. My wife and I stayed in a beautiful cottage, and of course it gave me the opportunity for me to explore this part of England with my camera.

Today's picture is funnily enough one I took today. I can't think of a more glorious opportunity to picture this glorious abbey, when no other people were present, and a place that is fine with you taking photographs! I even had the tripod set up and everything, I genuinely could not believe my luck. The abbey itself is amazing, the only thing I have not been able to capture more of in this photograph is the highly decorated and detailed ceiling, but another time perhaps.

The JPEG Monster

So here's a fun story for you photographers out there. The HDR picture above is taken from 4 JPEG exposures. I did not realise this until I had already created the HDR. Of course I did not mean to shoot in JPEG, but I was in such a rush to get the photos, that I know I held one button on my D700 too long and flicked another one at the same time. Now I was sure I must have changed the settings somehow accidentally, but I was so careful to avoid the ISO Monster (Definition: where you adjust the ISO to a high setting for one particular photo, and forget to turn it back) that I did not realise my file settings had been changed from RAW to JPEG.

The only saving grace about shooting these exposures in JPEG is the fact that I did bracket the shots, meaning I could blend them together in Photomatix, and still cover the dynamic range. Had I wanted only a single image from this, adjusting all the shadow and highlight details from a JPEG would have been very difficult. So knowing I had used JPEG settings for this HDR, my post-processing after Photomatix was very minimal. I did a tiny amount of layer-masking, and figured I could probably get away with another edit in Nik Color Efex 4. All in all, I think it was lesson learned and disaster averted.