Rob Lamb Photography

August 20, 2024

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

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.

July 1, 2024

Mytleville Seascapes

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.

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.

May 23, 2024May 23, 2024

Disappearing Me

It’s been a busy few weeks between First Holy Communions, Confirmations and a lot of Commercial work. I was recently back in APC Physiotherapy and Sports Clinic. A great team who really know their stuff and had everything ready for a great shoot. Hopefully you’ll be seeing new pics on their web and socials soon.

Mirrors are my nemesis. Usually it’s just the odd mirror over a fireplace and I need to make sure that neither am I in it nor does the bounce off my flash make it look weirdly bright.

But there are some places where there are mirrors everywhere. It’s a necessary part of the functionality of the space: people need to see themselves in action in order to correct their movement or posture. So physios, dance studios, karate clubs all have big mirrors.

Once you know about it, then you can work around it. And in over 200 delivered photos, there was one that I was in (and couldn’t be cropped out of):

Now it’s a minor edit but necessary enough.

I did a talk for Cork Camera Club about edits like this and it occurs to me that I could probably do about 2 hours of tricks and tips on this kind of thing – there are many little tricks to getting it right. But maybe the AI tools are all doing it now?

March 28, 2024March 28, 2024

En Vacaciones

Although I take photos for a living, I still enjoy taking holiday pics. There is always the expectation of finding a new way to capture a much-photographed location: whether it’s just because you have a fresh, unique eye for something (?) or just because you get lucky with something unique occurring when you happen to be in location.

Valencia was a mix of both: the last weekend of the Fellas (a mad festival of sculpture, parades and very loud firecrackers); and these very modern buildings waiting (begging) to be photographed.

The Fellas is pretty hard to capture and like a lot of things you need to be in amongst everything and I was on holiday, I did capture some of the artwork. The trick here is to find a different view of things (and try to exclude a much of the clutter as possible).

I do have a grá for slightly abstract photos of modern buildings (especially with nice blue skies) – and especially in black and white. It goes way back to shooting the Grandstand in Epsom with black and white film and a polariod + red filter combo to make the sky go black.

And although I’m sure these buildings have been shot a million times, and maybe in better conditions and with more time (much fewer people for a start!), I did have fun.

Looking around at what other people were doing, there are a few teaching points:

I used a wider angle lens (on the Nikon 1). This exaggerated and emphasized some of angles and perspectives of the buildings.
I didn’t always try to eliminate the people – they are part of the landscape in a busy tourist attraction like this.
Look up, squat down
Look for abstract details: shapes, colours and structure. Isolate them (I also had a longer lens with me)
Think about contrast – and possible options for black and white images with high contrast.
MOST OF ALL: keep your eyes and mind open. I particularly like this letter-box photo viewing between the bridge shadows and rather than waiting for the people to clear out I like the people in there as silhouettes (especially the two taking photos). Also I think I as the only one to spot the reflection in the water in front of the building at the side. The other water features may be been intended as reflection pools but it was too breezy that day apart from around the side.

Anyway, here’s the edited highlights:

January 25, 2024January 25, 2024

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.

January 22, 2024January 22, 2024

Back to the Beach

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.

January 16, 2024January 16, 2024

The Best Camera…

…is the one in your hand

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.

September 26, 2023September 26, 2023

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…

May 3, 2023May 3, 2023

Gibbous

A student on my evening class asked about taking pictures of the moon. It’s a facinating subject and I think it’s become current with a prominent mobile phone Ad boasting the ability to take amazing moon photos.

I’ve never really dabbled but I know the theory, and my course notes have been updated with the following about taking photos of the moon:

It’s very far away so it is very small. We often think it’s larger than it looks as our brains have the ability to ‘focus’ on the details of small things. But to the camera it’s small. You are going to need a long lens (or a telescope)
It’s very bright, especially in the night sky so balancing the detail of the moon and anything lit with ambient light (or moonlight) on earth is tricky.
It’s moving faster than you think. So if you are going for long exposures to balance out the ambient darkness then you can’t go too long before the moon itself will blur as it moves.
Most of the stunning moon images you see on the internet are
- Double Exposures
- Dramatically enhanced in Photoshop
- Just pure fake (two images mixed: one of the landscape and a completely different photo of the moon taken with a completely different lens – and maybe not even at the same time).

Having recently finally acquired a long telephoto lens (the Sigma 150-600 Sport) I decided that I should really try and see just how hard it is to take a nice photo of the moon. And this weekend I was in the garden and notice a nice Gibbous Moon by twilight. Now I didn’t have a tripod at home so this is hand-held, so I had to tweak up the ISO and turn on the OS to keep it steady but I think it’s quite nice.

However, this isn’t just the a long lens shot:

Taken at 600mm
With a x1.4 teleconverter
On a crop sensor camera (Nikon D500) – which is worth another x1.5
And finally cropped about 50%
Equivalent focal length, over 2000mm! Or around x40 magnification

Now this isn’t my specialist field. I do understand that the ‘large’ moons that we see on the horizon appear bigger partly because the light travels through more atmosphere (also making it less clear) but my understanding is that a lot of this is still pretty perceived so I stick by my belief that most of those dramatic moon-rise photos are faked!

So the question remains, how does a mobile phone, with it’s tiny sensor and lens package create stunning photos of the moon? It warrants more research but I read something that seems to suggest that the AI in the phone recognises that the moon is in the photo and ‘intelligently’ blends in stock or reference moon photos to your scene to make the moon look great. Don’t hold me to it, but it makes more sense than it being better than all the tech I used to create this simple image.

Now I’m off to find a landscape to paste this beauty in to…

February 1, 2023February 1, 2023

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!)