Category: News

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AI – Or Human Expertise

Photographers have a lot of fancy tools available to them these days but I usually end up doing things the hard way – straightforward clone tool in GIMP

The trick to removing something is to work out what to put in it’s place. Generally there’s something in the frame you can use as the basis for a replacement – a bit of wall or a plant or something that will cover whatever shouldn’t be there. Then it’s a matter of blending and making it look natural.

But the cage in this photo is an issue: we have some elements to copy and use but the rad valve is partially covered but unique in the image. So a bit of creativity was required to create something that looks right

The Disappearing Dog Basket

Now it’s possible that Photoshop’s AI tools could have done this automatically. I have seen it get pretty close to some of these edits – but crucially it missed some of the reflections and shadows so needs some finishing off the old school way.

I’m not an expert in these tools. I’m a photographer with pretty good expertise in editing with the basic tools. I’m like a carpenter with a sharp chisel.

In reality, this kind of thing doesn’t come up that often – it’s usually just simple fire exit signs – so there’s no need for me to look to major efficiencies here.

Of course we should have just moved the dog basket out of the way in the first place! But the reality of most photo shoots IRL is that there is always something that you miss or can’t fix on the day.

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Please leave a message

…or text

If you call me and I don’t pick up, please leave a message or text me.

I’m getting loads of cold calls from Overseas Call Centres which cloak their VPN call using random Irish mobile numbers. If you call these back, you get that random person’s number who hasn’t got a clue what’s going on because they never called you. I’ve had some of those calls (and made a few), it’s very confusing. So in general I’m now not calling back missed calls from unknown numbers unless there’s a message or a text.

I got four missed calls yesterday in a row. New business or time wasters?

These calls are really annoying and a massive waste of everyone’s time but don’t see what can be done, if you block the number you risk blocking a real person who might one day need to call you. And I’m sure they use a different number each time.

What boggles the mind most is that these companies say that they are ‘Marketing Experts’ but not only do they not understand GDPR but they are actually loosing me business if a new client calls but doesn’t leave a message.

So please call me if you think I can help. If I’m with a client I won’t pick up so please leave a message and I’ll call you back. Or just drop a text.

If you are a Company cold calling with a cloaked VPN. Please stop calling me.

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Headshot Season

Portable Professional Headshot set up in action

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…

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Old Fish

The New Year brings a time to generally sort things out. I’ve fixed up the web site a bit so it’s all WordPress now and works better on mobile devices (still more to do on the content). It’s also the time of year when I think I need to do more personal work. Previous projects include Shooting Nana which in time has become something that I’m very happy I took the time to do.

So far this year I haven’t come up with anything significant for a personal project but the urge to take some more photos has had me outside with some unusual and unused combinations of cameras and lenses. Just to try out, maybe learn something, add a few strings to my bow.

I’ve always been a fan of the Fisheye lens. I have an old 16mm f3.5 manual lens from the early 70s and it’s served me well when the fad has taken me over the years.

So I put it on my usual work camera (the D850) and took it for a spin on Sunday. The results were … underwhelming. I loved this lens. I love the weird and simplistic point of view. But it looks kinda dull on the D850. I’m not sure if it’s picked up some fungus or the newer, higher resolution sensor is just showing it up for what it is or maybe the subject and lighting just didn’t suit it.

Railway Bridge Fisheye. The intention was to show the unusual construction of this bridge over the old railway: the way that the stones are laid radially with the arch and then slope into the arch underside

More testing required and it may be time to look for a more modern replacement – even though I don’t use it that much (and hardly at all professionally). There are a few new Fisheye being made for the mirrorless cameras that look interesting.

So I went back today with the rectilinear wide-angle. These are more complex (and expensive) wideangle lenses which try to correct for the natural distortion that a simple lens like the fisheye creates.

Again the aim here is to try and bring out the unusual structure of the bridge by using the extreme wide angle to exaggerate the geometry.

Railway Bridge at 14mm, fully corrected. The wide angle gets you in to the arch and shows up the shape while the rectilinear lens hold the horizontal lines as straight as possible. The black and white conversion brings your attention to the geometry of the stone work.

Hopefully it’s easy to see the different characteristics of these two lenses. Although the are very similar focal lengths, their rendering is quite different. The Nikon 14-24f2.8 has done a far better job of rendering the details and contrast of the image (in fact this was taken on the Z6 as an experiment and to take advantage of the maximum dynamic range).

I still like the Fisheye. I might put it back on the D700 and do some more testing before replacing my 16mm f3.5 AI-converted lens (which is nearly as old as I am!)

Freshwater Steps. The glory days of the 16f3.5 fisheye: paired with the Nikon F4e
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Work in Progress

I’m in the process of migrating the whole of my web site to WordPress.

And I’m doing it live, in phases so it might look a bit weird over the next few weeks. Please bear with me, it’s getting there. But there were sections that looked pants on your phone and I need to fix that.

So the main site is now be hosted on WordPress. I am steadily moving all the old content over to new pages and a new Gallery plug in. I then need to refresh some of the content – especially the images which go back some years now (but still look good!)

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Gentle Reminders

A reminder of how things were once

I’ve been sending out a few reminders to families who had sessions but not ordered prints.

I’ve never really done that before. I never want to put people under pressure. In fact I try to turn around a proof gallery as quickly as possible and then leave it to clients to come back to me. As with most things in life, everyone is different: some people come back straight away and want it sorted; for by far the majority of people with young families, life takes over and they put it to one side, fully intending to come back it. And in fairness most people do get around to it sooner or later.

Christmas is usually a trigger. Or the anniversary of the event. Or the next child’s communion or confirmation.

And look, I know what it’s like. You should see my ‘to do’ list. So I really don’t mind, as long as they eventually do come back. The one thing I don’t like is lovely pictures taken and forgotten forever.

But I do think that for some people, if they leave it too long, they are reluctant to come back to me for the sake for pure embarrassment. Please don’t feel that way.

So if you are one of the lucky clients who got an email this week, I hope you don’t think I’m nagging or badgering or trying to make a sale. I haven’t sent out reminders before because I don’t want to come across as pushy.

I just got that ‘disc full’ warning and had to kick off my periodic archive process: moving files from my working drive to the archive drive. Generally I keep images not yet printed handy on the working drive so I came across a number of sessions not yet printed.

But every session is kept on archive. It’s a time-consuming process but one which I think is vital for a professional service. Your images are always available, whenever you need to come back to them. Going back to 2008.

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Small and wide

What kit do you take on holiday? Do you just go with the phone and try to do justice with the semi-wide angle and reasonable image quality? Do you bring ‘all the gear’ and have to deal with getting on as hand luggage and lugging it around all the time?

I think I’ve finally hit on the best compromise (for me, for general holiday stuff anyway): I picked up the wide angle lens for my trusty, compact Nikon J5. It’s a very capable 1″ sensor and a pretty neat lens. The camera community never really loved the Nikon 1 series but neither had they anything bad to say about the image quality (or the focusing system – which was pretty ahead of itself). The biggest issue was price – and the second hand market has resolved that one!

So I pretty much took all my holiday snaps with this one combination. I’m a lover of the wide angles anyway and it suits most scenic work and it gives a different perspective to the standard views of most well-known places.

Nikon J5 + 6.7-13mm – the happy walk-around. Image straight out of camera
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Still Here

Just an update on the current state of Lockdown 3.0

I’m here if you need me. A lot of what I normally do isn’t possible under the current restrictions but like many small businesses I’m trying to keep trading as much as I can.

I have some Commercial work still on: Product Photography, Digital Reproduction and Fine Art Printing can all be done safely without contact.

I am still processing print orders from Family, Communion and Confirmation sessions from last year (and the year before, and the year before that!)

So it’s a good time to look out those proofs and think about finally getting prints.

But I’m not in the office full time. I’m here when I need to be – generally mornings after the school drop (or after I make sure my home schooler is out of bed). So if you want to call in it’s best to phone to make sure I’m in the office when the time suits you – 087 683 8511

It’s no problem coming in to do something or meet you.

Otherwise I’ll be in my pink chair, drinking coffee in my garden – which is starting to spring to life again
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Family Portrait Gift Vouchers

Just in time for Christmas, Family Portrait Gift Vouchers are now available direct from the web site at https://roblambphoto.com/?product_cat=gift-vouchers

I have put the three most popular values up on the site but you can also customise your voucher by adding value in €10 units.

Vouchers are effectively a pre-pay for the a session and include products up to the value selected. Or they can choose to take the value of the voucher as a credit against another product like larger Framed prints, Tryptichs, Storyboards or Albums.

You can of course still phone or email me to get more info on vouchers and purchase them direct from me: 087 683 8511 rob@roblambphoto.com