Lumination

Italian Shop Mannequin

andrew — Wed, 22 May 2013 09:45:19 +0000

As this post gets published I should packing/preparing for a short channel hop to Jersey for a three-night Landscape Photography Workshop run by Jersey Island Photography. A great change from my usual wine-focused press trips. Hopefully I’ll learn a great deal, make use of these expensive neutral density filters I’ve never used and return with great shots of Jersey’s natural beauty. I haven’t a clue what is planned but hopefully I’ll get to take some long exposure shots of the sea and other such arty exploits.

This weeks Wednesday Photo is for @douglasblyde – an Italian shop mannequin, shot in Siena, Tuscany on one of those ‘wine-focused’ trips.

Italian Shop Mannequin, Siena

The post Italian Shop Mannequin appeared first on Lumination.

Siena In The Rain

andrew — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:57:20 +0000

It was raining quite heavily. The queue for the Duomo was far too long to bother with; you couldn’t tell where the umbrella-totting crowds ended and the ticket queue began. We took refuge in the dry and joined a queue for the climb up Torre del Mangia that dominates the slanted Palazzo de Campo. We gave it a good 15 minutes before the red cross on the traffic light entry system defeated our patience. The rain had eased and a little window shopping resulted before aching feet and a need for an espresso forced us to to retire to one of the many restaurants lining the Palazzo and indulge in a little people watching…

Photo Gallery: Siena in the Rain

Siena was visited as part of the G Adventures Local Living tour that includes a day Cycling In Tuscany and a Wine Tasting.

The post Siena In The Rain appeared first on Lumination.

Green Shuttered Window Slovenia

andrew — Wed, 15 May 2013 09:45:57 +0000

One of those minimalist photographs I seem to be ‘specialising’ in; although perhaps rather a cliché as its a ‘window’. But I rather like the vibrant colours and the textural detail.

This weeks Wednesday Photo is Green Shuttered Window Slovenia .

Green Shuttered Window, Slovenia

The post Green Shuttered Window Slovenia appeared first on Lumination.

Slovenian Travel Photographs

andrew — Mon, 13 May 2013 08:45:43 +0000

It wasn’t the glorious morning light I was hoping Slovenia was going to supply. In fact it was rather dull and overcast. Amazing how the weather can change so abruptly overnight. Still I was up with camera in hand; up before everyone and everything except the chickens! A little walk then through this near silent, little village right on the Slovenian/Italian border. I didn’t stray far from the agritourismo – just up and down the road and around the corner… I thought the village was called Medana but the GPS co-ordinates put these photos in Snezatno? So who knows!

Gallery: Slovenian Travel Photographs

The post Slovenian Travel Photographs appeared first on Lumination.

Creative Slovenia

andrew — Sat, 11 May 2013 12:03:59 +0000

While in Slovenia the other week a little photo one-up-manship created itself between me and buddy Douglas. Basically it was finding the mundane, the ordinary or the visually interesting during the day. Actually I’m not too sure of the ‘rules’ or how the ‘challenge’ originated, but it certainly stimulated the photo-creativeness in us both!

Dougie-boy has scattered a few through a post on his Visuals site. I am rather taken with the umbrella behind the cracked glass, the abandoned car through the weeds and the broom… although we both have a similar shot of the ladder. My shots taken during the day are below. My favourite? The scrubbing brushes I think.

Photo Gallery: Creative Slovenia

The post Creative Slovenia appeared first on Lumination.

Lakeside Reeds

andrew — Wed, 08 May 2013 09:45:46 +0000

A simple amount of processing this shot of reeds alongside a lake in Tuscany. Taken during a Tuscan Cycle Ride the image lacked something in colour and in black and white. To be honest it is not the sharpest of photos but to me works when subjected to a Topaz filter, specifically the Quad Tone Redscale III Dynamic.

Lakeside Reeds is this weeks Wednesday Snap Shot.

Adjusted using Topaz B&W Effects Quad tone red scale III dynamic

The post Lakeside Reeds appeared first on Lumination.

Pink Lambretta

andrew — Wed, 01 May 2013 09:45:57 +0000

A wander through the delightful streets of Siena; rain due and lunch beckoning. Round a corner and down a gentle slope and the inevitable row of motorcycles and bikes. At the end a pinky-peach coloured Lambretta. Only in Italy.

Pink Lambretta a play in Photoshop to preserve just one colour and this weeks Wednesday Photo.

Pink Lambretta, Siena or is it a Vespa?

The post Pink Lambretta appeared first on Lumination.

Food Photographer of the Year 2013

andrew — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 09:15:31 +0000

A very quick post – I really should be running for the train to Gatwick… Last night I had the joy of attending the Pink Lady Food Photographer of The Year 2013 event in the Mall Galleries, London. Amazingly I had two images put forward to the finalist list. One of these images – the vineyard shot – came in second! I was amazed. There is also a third highly commended photo but I’m not too sure which one it is and really don’t have enough time to dig and fine out!

The two finalist entries are below. These are in the Errazuriz sponsored wine section…

Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year 2013

The post Food Photographer of the Year 2013 appeared first on Lumination.

Photo Processing Hanging Glasses Photo

andrew — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 10:15:26 +0000

Not the easiest of locations – a very narrow restaurant, with very atmospheric lighting (for which read dim and dark). Lunch at the Port House on The Strand in London was a very pleasurable experience – long and boozy with plenty of tapas. As I was intending to write a review it was a necessity to overcome the conditions and attempt to encapsulate the feeling and mood of the place.

The original RAW photo of the wine glass rack was not the most interesting of pictures; far from it in fact and was almost consigned to the reject pile. (Or rather marked with an X and deleted in Lightroom).

Having not really got to grips with processing photos fully in Lightroom I still process everything in Photoshop. Integration is fine – open a photo from Lightroom into Photoshop and once you save it the adjustments are saved back in the Lightroom version. I just wish there was a quick keyboard shortcut to open a photo in Photoshop though.

Here is the rundown of the methods used to process the Hanging Wine Glasses photo, used, incidentally as this weeks Sunday Wine Shot on Spittoon.

1 – cropped to remove the wooden holding rack with the bright highlight
2 – noise removed with Topaz Labs Denoise 5 at the RAW Stronger level as the original was taken at a 6400ISO
3 – sharpened with Topaz Labs Detail 3 using the Overall Detail Medium II preset
4 – using Topaz Adjust the Gritty II preset was applied (from the vibrant collection) and the Brilliant Warm preset (from the classic collection) plus a little vignette added to remove some extraneous details from the corners. (second photo shows the image before the vignette was added).

And that’s it Photo Processing Hanging Glasses Photo in four easy steps that took less time to do than reading this article. The image was saved and reopened in Lightroom where my usual export settings were applied (these add the copyright logo, meta data and resize the image for web use).

The post Photo Processing Hanging Glasses Photo appeared first on Lumination.

Submitting for an L at the RPS

andrew — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 10:45:19 +0000

Unless you have submitted your own portfolio to the Royal Photographic Society for a distinction you really have no idea of the stress, trepidation, and nervousness involved. First there is the research looking at others submissions, then reading the RPS help guides, then the tentative selection from your archives and the difficulty on being totally subjective. It doesn’t matter what the memories or feelings that lie behind your favourite pictures are; these simply don’t come into play when the photo is being judged by someone you don’t know. I went through loads of photos and forgot this simple construct. A set of 15 were sent into the RPS for a pre-appraisal. And several of my faves were rejected out of hand.

In my defence I was trying to select a range of photos that demonstrated my grasp on camera and processing techniques. These included a panoramic view that ‘held little interest in the sky’ and a wonderful (to me at least) shot of a frozen flooded field that held no focal point; both were rejected.

What I was pleased with was the fact that none of the pictures were rejected for blown-out highlights, which seems to be a major reason for a portfolio not making the grade.

The RPS does hold plenty of assessment days where you can attend in person, but these are booked up months in advance and held in places I cant get to, so the chance to send in a CD with a selection of images is a godsend. Plenty of discussion resulted from the report with friend Cooksister. She put forward her forthright views – and what should be included, rejected, re-taken and so on. It took me over a week to finally compile the portfolio for submission. I pulled out those I wasn’t too happy with – and decided not to retake one of a corkscrew. I finally compiled a gallery of 10 and sent off the CD with a request for a June assessment date; sadly this wasn’t to be I now have to wait until June.

I’ve since discovered other blog posts about peoples own experiences trying for a LRPS – Anne Rogers for example – and am rather glad to see I am not the only one that ‘suffered’. Don’t think I could cope with actually being present during the proper assessment though.

The photo here is not one of the images I included; I’m going to wait on posting the final selection until the result in June. While confident on the final selection there are still some reservations – are a couple over-processed? Are a couple too similar in style? Is the colour palate too similar across all 10? Only one is in landscape format – will that matter? I shall have to wait until June to find out!

The corkscrew was up for a re-take. Fine that it demonstrates the use of a macro-lens but the left edge just clips the photos border. Yep, these things matter!

The post Submitting for an L at the RPS appeared first on Lumination.