Starting now to play with the features of my shiny new updated Lightroom. While we previously had some limited masking options they have significantly enhance those which means that it’s less likely to need to go to photoshop for detailed edits. We’ll see how that goes.
I liked the Darktable edit but while the sky was pretty much ‘as seen’ I thought it could do with more impact. I found it easy to completely over-do this and make it a bit mad so there’s a bit to be said for subtly here.
I’ve talked about doing Seascapes in Ireland for a long time on my course. Having watched some great videos from the US, I defo think this is something at lends itself really well to the Irish Coastline.
And top of my list is Mytleville: it’s close by and has some lovely rock formations which have work at any tide. Part of a good seascape is longer exposures so early / late is best and the opportunity only just came to be there on a fine evening.
Copyright 2012 Rob Lamb
This was an interesting first go at this. The main learning for me was around an ‘optimal’ shutter speed. I had kind of assumed it would be ‘the longer the better’ I have seen some very ethereal seascapes with one/two minute exposures. So I did some 30s exposure but, in this context, they turned out a bit mushy and dull. The Mytleville landscape is all about the texture of the rock and the contrast to the water and the longer exposures covered all that up. So to get some blur but still see the rocks we’re looking at more like 1 or 2 second exposures.
There’s not one answer to this and you have to think about what you want to show and what will work best – and experiment!
Then there’s timing the exposure with the waves. Again this took a bit or trial and error because as the water comes in it covers the stones on the beach you loose the texture. So how much texture, how much creamy water.
I have two versions of the shot above and I find it hard to decide which I like the balance of best:
Still can’t quite decide: love them both
I initially put the polarising filter on – expecting it to not only block a couple of stops of light to allow longer exposures but also to effect the reflections on the water. It did help with longer exposures at the start and I think it did pop the clouds a little but not with the movement of the water made little impact there.
And I didn’t like the longer exposures so as the light dropped it wasn’t necessary any more.
Other than that: I took the cheap tripod and old D700 in case it got wet. I managed to not drop the camera (close a few times) but the tripod definitely got wet and sandy so be prepared for that. Although I’m all for fancy, rigid tripods, I’ve learned that at times you can get away with a cheaper one if you have time and are very careful.
It can sometimes be a tough decision whether an image will work better in black and white or colour. Certainly many of the images in this session worked well in colour: a cold, clear winter’s day with the sun low on the horizon produced deep blue skies and high contrast on all that sand and wood texture.
But as the sun dipped lower, at this angle the colour drained from the image and inspired by some more Minimalist Photography, I dropped the colour out of the image and I kind of like it.
I use Lightroom to do the conversion, then work on the contrast and tonal separation.
Church Bay, Co Cork, at Twilight. Roches Point Lighthouse on the horizon
After an afternoon thing in Crosshaven, we decided to go to the beach since we were so close. And I got lost going to Myrtleville and ended up at Church Bay. Which was lucky actually because as the sun set we got this lovely view of Roches Point with some interesting foreground beachyness.
It wasn’t a photo thing that afternoon but I had tossed the small camera (my trusty Nikon J5) in the car just in case and that’s all I had. It was dark enough to start trying some longer exposures (even with the J5’s minimum 160 ISO) but of course I had no tripod in the car. So I pushed the VR to it’s (limited) limits. Then I found some rocks to perch the camera on.
I quite like this. Around 2s exposure and just sharp enough.
It would undoubtedly be improved by 1) a tripod to get a more secure and flexible viewpoint 2) a camera/lens combination that produce a sharper images and maybe a nice star highlight on the Lighthouse. But I didn’t have all that that day. And although I might indeed take the time to go back with all that stuff, I also might not. And the I might not get such a clear evening. With the tide at the same point. So it’s always worth trying to do your best with what you have.
It seems to have been a week of Professional Profile Images – or Headshots as a lot of people call them (although that always sounds way to FPS for my liking).
I’ve had everything for an individual profile image for a speaker profile, to 30-odd staff profiles, student profiles for UCC and a ‘quick headshot’ at a corporate event.
Thankfully over the years I’ve perfected both the technical set up for nice professional images on-site and the technique of getting them done quickly and painlessly for all concerned.
The thing is, no one really wants to be sitting in front of a camera. Even when they understand how important it is to get the right image for their personal profile.
None of us are really comfortable with the idea – and that’s where a lot of my work comes in. It’s up to me to make the whole process comfortable so that people can get relaxed, confident, trusting-looking photos that represent them professionally.
And although most people come in the room and say ‘I hate having my photo taken’ I’m glad to say they all leave saying ‘that way better than I expected’ and they are delighted with their finished photos in the end!
Another day, another room, a similar set-up for professional profile images
While most people opt for a neutral background, there are options in terms of a natural 80% white or the 100% full or 255 white background. But the screen here also filps for a back or darker grey background and it can be lit for a gradient too depending on your choice of styling.
The Full White creates a ‘float’ on a white website background which is (was) contemporary. The 80% white is probably more natural and more flattering.
I do also like to use the business as backdrop – it provides a little more context – but more on that in another post…
Nice to see someone as enthusiastic about IR as me. Maybe time to dust off the converted D70. I did mine myself a long time ago and is very low-tech by comparison to his Fuji. The big difference with converting a more modern camera is that you can get live-view to show you what the IR is doing. My D70 is more trial and error. The Fuji also has a black and white mode which gives you live preview of what it’ll look like in mono (though there is something fascinating about the colour IR)
St Anne’s at Shandon in Colour IR. Took a bit of perspective adjustment in LR (and still not sure it’s right). Shame the fish doesn’t stand out more.
After an nice quiet Christmas Break, it’s nice to be taking photos again. I had a very lovely, short portrait session yesterday in the Hayfield Manor (great location as always and even nicer – or me anyway – that it too is quiet at the moment). And today, with the sun out, I just wandered out of the office with one of my less used cameras and walked the Marina.
I have realised that it’s easy to disappear into the Internet when you are stuck at home: too many gear sites; too many photos of exotic locations; other people’s ‘interesting’ lives.
It’s easy to forget that I actually just like taking photos, and the camera is just a tool that enables that (and one camera or lens might do that better than another).
And most of all, we are blessed to live in Cork. If you care to look, there is something interesting to photograph all over the place!
St Vincent’s Bridge and Bachelor’s Quay, Colour Infrared
Nice sunny morning yesterday and cloud was forecast for later in the day so I went out early with the infrared converted D70. This camera has a opaque filter installed over the sensor instead of the normal AA filter, so it only uses the part of the sensor that’s sensitive to the infrared end of the spectrum.
Green foliage tends to reflect more IR, blue skies block out a lot so they go extra dark. And the D70 sensor colour sites tend to get a bit confused. Most notably, the jpegs do this browny-black / blue / white feel but the RAW images have a distinctly red hue (of the same capture). Normally I’d do a black and white conversion to normalise all that but the colours are often interesting.
Everything looks kinda spooky. Love the really dark skies.
But although the IR-effect can make everything look more interesting, the image still needs to be interesting to make it work. It’s tempting to take some very simple compositions just to enjoy the IR-effect but really you still need to work the composition.
It’s just that certain elements are different. For example. you can’t let the white grass take over, whereas you’d often leave a good bit of green grass in a shot to balance things out.
Also using the ancient D70 is fun. You’ll constantly read about how new models make older cameras into trash but that’s nonsense. The D70 was a great camera in it’s day. Sure it’s lower res, lower DR, has a tiny screen, is slow and less effective autofocus. But it is by no means unusable and actually works really well for scenic images. It has a very satifying ‘clunk’ to the shutter and there’s something nice about having small files to work with for non-critical work.
Many ended up coming from my own back garden. It’s probably the most productive time in our garden just because of the range of plants we have that flower in Spring: starting with the jolly primroses, wild garlic and the apple blossom.
Love the dandelions too. A weed is just a flower in the wrong place.
It’s that time again when we are graced with an infection of politician’s headshots all over our streets. Increasingly the general public see this as an invasion. Litter. They make a mess of our streets, obstruct our view of traffic and then have to be disposed of after just three weeks.
But they endure for one very good reason: people engage with images of other people. We look, we familiarise and the candidates hope that we start to like them.
It’s a powerful process (and one that’s pretty unique to Irish Political Campaigning).
So are you harnessing this power for your business? You are the most unique part of your business. Your business will thrive or fail based on your ability to give your customer what they want and they need to be able to trust you on that.
You need a good profile image. Whether it’s on your website, your LinkedIn or Facebook or whatever, people engage with a face on a screen and they will make decisions about you and your business based on that.
