August 31st, 2010
A simple shot for this months wallpaper from here in Barcelona, shot lying down with the camera resting on the floor to gain a very low point of view which brings out some nice detail in the paved floor, the soft light is reflected off a building in front of the scooter. It was the soft light and the contrast between the bright red scooter and the earthy coloured walls that first attracted me to this scene, I spent about half an hour search for the best composition. The scooter is parked there every day so I´ll probably return one day soon and shoot it again, perhaps a little wider, I´ll share my results with you soon.
So to install the wallpaper just click on the link below that matches you screen resolution, right click and save image as wallpaper (or something along those lines)
Download it here: 1024×768 | 1440×900 | 2560×1600
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
August 19th, 2010
OK I apologise to those of you who don’t use Lightroom, if that includes you then it could be this post will make absolutely no sense at all, it’s really just for the Lightroom users among us. Also I’m a PC user (please forgive me) so these tips are based on the Windows keyboard but its all transferable. Sorry, but I can’t please everyone 
So here we go.
- Let me start by telling you how to get Lightroom to take over the entire screen and remove some of those menus too, easy just click ‘F’ and keep clicking it until you find your preferred viewing area. The ‘Tab’ key will add and remove the toolbars .
- Spot removal, man I just hate dust on my images and I hate removing it even more, its so time consuming and downright dull. I recently stumbled onto a copule of little tricks that makes things a bit faster the first is in the develop module increase the Blacks to around 80% this, for most images, will make the dust spot stand out and make them faster to find
- The second part is to remove the dust you should be viewing the image at 100%, the problem with viewing images at 100% is that they tend not to fit on the screen and involve clicking and dragging the image around to see the next part. Well it turns out that you can actually use your keyboard to do this and its much faster and more accurate. First zoom in to 100% click the ‘Home’ button on your keyboard and the viewable area will move to the top left hand side of the image, now you can use the ‘Page down’ button to navigate the image, when you reach the bottom and click ‘Page down’ the focus will automatically move to the next column. Try it, it works really well.
- Want to gain accurate exposure in Lightroom? well it would help to know exactly where the pure white points are, so when adjusting the exposure hold down ‘Alt’ and a slightly underexposed the image will turn black, as you increase the exposure white points will appear these are pure 100% white and will contain no detail at all. Similarly you can do the same for the blacks with the ‘Blacks’ slider.
- Want to compare changes you’ve made to an image and to be able to see before and after versions? Well in the develop module just click ‘y’ to view the changes from the orriginal file. But what if you wanted to view changes from just the last few steps? Fortunately the guys at Adobe have thought of that too. You can set the ‘before’ state to be any previous state in the history of the image by simply right clicking the setting from the history menu and choosing ‘Copy History Step Settings to Before’
Now you can easily see if the changes you’ve just made improves your image, or just makes it look naff.
- Ever tried to add a graduated filter to an image only to struggle to get it horizontal? try holding down shift when drag out the gradient and it will be perfectly aligned. Genius.
- If you ever use Lightroom on a laptop then I strongly recommend you download Gavin Gough’s greyscale gradient ID plate. Its a very simple, but yet incredibly ingenious little thing, that will ensure your monitor is set to the correct angle and that you can see a full range of tones
- When using the adjustment brush did you know you can paint over an area many times, this is particularly useful with the clarity setting as sometime 100% clarity just isn’t enough, to speed up your workflow even more just press enter to start a new brush.
- Want a more sensitive slider in the develop module? Simple just increase the width of the panel by hovering the mouse on the panel edge and click and dragging it to the left. This will give you more control over your adjustments.
- Keyboard shortcuts. No doubt about it they can save a heck of a lot of time but what are they? which once do you need to know? well no mater which module your in, just by clicking ‘Ctrl + /’ a list will pop up of all the available keyboard shortcuts for that module, easy to find and always available, one shortcut that isn’t on the list and can be extremely handy after several hours of processing is the good old ‘Ctrl + Q’
As always the comments are open for your town tips.
Posted in tips & tricks | 3 Comments »
August 17th, 2010
Just a quick post for today, but more come later in the week.
I’m very proud to be a part of the IGVP initiative whose website went live yesterday morning. It promises to be a strong community of visual artists lead by some of the best do-gooders out there.
Check out the website for more information. www.VisualPeacemakers.org
I told you it would be quick
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
August 1st, 2010
My goodness August has sneaked up on me but I´m already making plans for Christmas, what´s going on??
This shot comes from Calcutta taken at the end of last year and shows a Rickshaw Puller sitting in his cart in Calcutta.
1/50 sec, f4, ISO 160. 22mm, 1Ds MIKII. Calcutta, India. December 2009
Rickshaw Pullers lead incredibly difficult lives, of that there is no question. In almost every other part of the world this form of transport has been made illegal due to the strenuous conditions they face. Working in such extreme environments, pulling heavy loads & passengers in weather ranging from temperatures that often reach over 100 degrees Fahrenheit to the monsoon floods that can last for months. The constant pounding of the Pullers feet and hands as he runs with his cart across the pit holed roads of Calcutta, receiving very little pay, its difficult not to feel for these folk.
These Rickshaw Pullers are now seeking new ways of making a living & can often be found hanging around tourist areas and are slowly becoming more of a tourist attraction than anything else, charging well over the odds to transport tourists. Is this a positive move? Well I believe so, the Pullers are leaving a better style of life, even if it is spoiling what many would consider the real India. I´d love to know your thoughts on this, its a complex subject and would appreciate you comments.
Anyway the wallpaper
download it here: 1024×768 | 1440×900 | 2560×1600
Posted in The streets of India, Travel, wallpaper | 3 Comments »
July 26th, 2010
Last week I was the proud recipient of an email from the guys at IGVP asking me to be one of the beta testers before their site goes live Over the last year or so I´d heard rumours about this new organisation and wanted to learn more so I jumped at the chance.
So what exactly is the International Guild of Peacemakers (man that´s such a mouthful, I think I´ll stick to calling it IGVP for the time being) stand for, well I think it´s best summed up by their vision statement on their site:
“We are visual communicators devoted to peacemaking and breaking down stereotypes by displaying the beauty and dignity of various cultures around the world”
Here´s another quote from the site that explains more about what visual peacemaking is:
“Visual Peacemakers meet the need caused by today’s pandemic of “shock” images and stories that kindle fear. Without glossing over tragedy and conflict, they seek to show more than human hardships. They display all that is beautiful about us, and all that connects us. Visual Peacemakers treat humanity’s similarities as sacred and our diversities things to be honoured”
This speaks strongly to me and I´m passionate about shooting more than human suffering, I´ve said it before but it saddens me when people visit developing countries and can´t see further than the suffering, there is so much more to these places. In fact in my experience the less developed the nation the happier the people.
Intrigued and want to learn more about IGVP? well the first thing you should do is sign up on their site VisualPeaceMakers.org to receive notification of when the thing goes live (from what I´ve seen so far I don´t think it will be long). When the site does launch I´m confident you´ll be impressed by what you find – there´s even a give-away for everyone who signs up in the first 76 hours.
The new site is incredible and promises to be so much more as the community builds, come join me and others at VisualPeaceMakers.org
Posted in IGVP | 1 Comment »
July 6th, 2010
There are times in this life, for all of us, when we have to do something hard, something we don´t really want to do, something we just have to knuckle down to and get through for a greater good. I´m going through something like that at the moment, part photography related part not. The short term result is that my blog is suffering, with just not enough hours in the day. The trouble I don´t know what the solution is at the moment,. I´m currently planning my next trip when I should be able to update more frequently.
All I ask is that you bear with me, I´ll try to update the blog once a week, but the days of 3 post a week are gone at least for a few months.
Posted in What I've been up to | 1 Comment »
June 29th, 2010
Ok so its an image thats been kicking around for a while but I really like it and for me that´s enough to make it the wallpaper for July. It´s a meditating sadhu in a small temple on the banks of the river ganges shot earlier this year.
For anyone interested settings were 1/200th @ f/4. ISO 250 on a 1DsMKII with off camera flash diffused by a small umbrella.
You should know how to install these by now if not check last months wallpaper
As always if you want a different resolution then just let me know
1024×768 | 1440×900 | 1440×900 | 1600×1200 | 2560×1600
Posted in wallpaper | 1 Comment »
