Hey, hope everyone is well.

Been a while since I updated my journal, been busy with various stuff. Last weekend I finally managed to get out to the coast and do some waterscapes. It's been more than 6 months since I got my feet and my tripod legs wet in the ocean, and I got some shots I'm quite happy with.

Another thing I finally managed to get done was updating all the galleries on my website to get the style consistent and coherent across the whole site.
I was never really happy with the old galleries, as they were just templates from Apple Aperture, but I finally managed to get around to building new ones using Flash and a plug in called Slideshow Pro. It's the same software I used for the slideshows on the front page, you only need to do a tiny bit of XML coding, and then you can position the slideshow or gallery or whatever anywhere you like on a html webpage using Dreamweaver.

All the galleries are the same style now, so check out any of the the Travel Galleries.

As I've said in other journals, I've been doing lots of weddings and events, and as I was starting to get inquiries about next summer, I realised I should get a proper wedding website up and running. It's still under construction, and I'm still waiting on the testimonials from previous clients (it's really hard to nag people for stuff like that), but it's pretty much taking shape. If you're interested, you can see it here.

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Huge thanks to =pestilence for the sub. Mate, you need to stop doing that, I owe you so much already

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Features

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Links

My Website [link]
Neutral Density Magazine [link]

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Some of my recent work






Take care everyone

Check out this video. Some incredible BASE jumping footage, the guys skimming the cliffs with their fingertips as they go down. The part where he misses the road by a couple of feet is enough to make you look away.
Absurdly dangerous I know (I read that there's 1 fatality in 60 BASE jumping participants), but this is definitely worth watching

[link]

Not been doing much landscape photography recently, I'm just too busy with other stuff. I did do some shots for Climate Change day yesterday, which are somewhere on the 350.org site.
Then, last night I was doing some shooting with a string quartet at a launch in Cascais.
Just bought Steve McCurry's "In The Shadow Of The Mountain". Wonderful book, he's far and away one of my favourite photographers. While this isn't quite so brilliant as South South East, his books are always a real treat.

I'll do a full journal with new features and stuff when I've got a bit more time...

Hope you're all well :-D

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I've been working on putting together a new website for my wedding photography, which I should have up and running in a week or so, and also working on the new calendar, trying different online printers etc.

I've got a large glossy and a smaller calendar already up online at Lulu, which you can find here. There's also a slideshow preview on my website. The Lulu calendars are nice, good saturation (a little TOO saturated truth be told) and print quality. I may change one of the images, and I will certainly be doing a Deviant Art version in the next month.

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Contest Winer

I was one of the judges in a landscape photography organised by =Rykardo and there were a lot of fantastic images entered. Congratulations to everyone who took part, judging them and picking a winner was really difficult.

Anyway, once the votes were all counted, =r3novatio was the winner with this wonderful shot.



The runners up were ~iahveh and *autumn-ethereal



Well done everyone


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RAW Conversion

If you shoot Nikon, this might be interesting to you. Years ago, when I started shooting RAW, I spent a while playing around with both Lightroom and Aperture for RAW conversion. To be honest, I didn't really see any difference between them and liked them both, so I decided to stick with Aperture as it's an Apple program and integrates better with my Mac system. I was always happy with it, although I noticed when I switched cameras to my D3 that I needed to put more time into getting the images looking great. Basically, with my D3, the RAW images right out of the camera were very flat, lacking in contrast and vibrancy and soft. Of course, it's RAW, so that can all be added back in, but when I go away on a trip and come back with 800+ images, that means A LOT of work. Likewise with a wedding, where I might shoot over 1000 frames, it's time consuming to have to do so much to each image.
Of course, Aperture is great for batch processing, but this only works if you need to do exactly the same adjustments to each shot, which is pretty rare.

So I started to look at different RAW conversions, and every single time I kept coming back to Nikon's own Raw converter, Capture NX2. It seems that if you're using Nikon, there's no better software for NEF conversion than Nikon's own software (makes sense really). I also kept reading that it was slow, clunky and not as intuitive to use as Lightroom or Aperture. It DOES use Nik Software's control point technology ,which if you ever used Viveze or Silver Efex Pro, you'll know how fantastic that is....so I downloaded the 60 day trial from the Nikon site.

I'm amazed to be quite honest, the difference in files right out of the camera is astonishing. The contrast and colour right out of the camera is brilliant, the richness and depth of the reds is something I have NEVER seen in a RAW file converted by Aperture. On top of that, astonishingly, I'm seeing A LOT more resolution and detail, which I suspect is how the software handles micro contrast. Blown up to 100% the images don't look digital at all, and there's a lot more detail.
This is right out of the camera, with no sharpening added.
I've uploaded 3 comparisons which you can see below. These have been converted from RAW to TIFF in Aperture and Capture NX2 with nothing done to them. No sharpening, no contrast, no colour or contrast adjustments, you can even see the dust spots from my camera.



Now, I don't know if this is the case with all camera's, as this is Nikon software, so I expect it to work best with Nikon cameras. Having said that, I never had a problem with my D80, just the D3, so it might even depend on the camera and it's image processing. But for the D3, the improvement in the images is incredible, I'm seeing as big a difference in the files between Aperture and Capture NX2 as I saw between my old camera and my new one. I feels like I've bought a new camera, and I'm only frustrated I didn't make the switch sooner.

When it comes to usability, the interface isn't as slick as LR or Aperture, but it does offer A LOT more control, particularly over localized changes (impossible in Aperture) with the U-Point technology, you can do local adjustments of colour, contrast, curves, levels, colour temperature, sharpness, guassian blur, saturation, etc etc...directly on the RAW file. I don't need to convert to PSD or TIFF files and do that in PS anymore, it really is fantastic.
It also runs faster than Aperture on my machine, but the file sizes are bigger.

All in all, it's the best thing I've done since I upgraded my camera, and if you shoot Nikon (especially one with the image processing from the D3, such as a D700 or a D300s, then I really really recommend you give it a try.
I can't speak for LR, as I never used it with my D3, but as should be obvious from the pictures I uploaded, Capture NX just wipes the floor with Aperture.

Now I want to revisit a lot of my older shots and see if I can improve them.....

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Features

_________________________________
Links

My Website [link]
Neutral Density Magazine [link]

_________________________________
Some of my recent work






Take care everyone

Hello everyone, hope you are all having a good week.

So, been busy throughout the summer with various stuff, and now I realize that my 3rd DA anniversary has passed.

Three years since I started here, at the time I had only just started taking pictures and was using a point and shoot. I recently was talking with =Orca76 and we were both in complete agreement about how crap the early images in my gallery are. I'm not completely sure they're all that much better now, 3 years on, but at least they're taken with a nice camera, I've stopped doing horrible big borders and started resizing my images for the web a little better

A HUGE amount of whatever I have learned, I've learned from watching the brilliant photography of people on this site, and received so much good advice on everything from camera techniques to better post processing ideas.

I can't believe it's been 3 years, and I can't believe how many fantastic people I've met through DA. Both brilliant artists, and people who I hope I can call good friends (you know who you are).

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Been meaning to put this in a journal for a while.
Months back, I was pondering about the best way to cut down vignetting at 17mm with a ND400 screw in filter and Lee grad filter holder screwed on top. I came to the conclusion that it would be better to just remove the ND400 from it's screw in housing and insert it in the grad filter holder adaptor ring with a bit of Bostik. I ordered another adaptor ring, and used it to screw in the glass of the ND400...it took me about 10 minutes to do and has completely removed any problem with vignetting, as well as cutting down on the number of things I have to screw onto/off of my lens.

One of my better ideas



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I've been getting more and more requests for weddings, and as they really do pay very well, have taken a couple of them up. Of course, it's meant learning how to use flash, which first meant buying one. I got a friend to pick me up a Nikon SB600 Speedlight from B&H Photo in New York (US price = 170 euros. Portuguese price = 450 euros! WHY DO WE CONSISTANTLY GET RIPPED OFF LIKE THIS IN EUROPE?!)
Anyway, after lots of experimenting with photographing my (incredibly patient) wife, I used flash for the first time at a wedding last week and was really pleased with the results. No highlights on the skin, no nasty shadows, no red eye and no artificial brightening of the room front to back. I read a lot of Joe "Grandmaster Flash" McNally's blogs and picked up a lot about flash underexposure from there. It's about just getting the flash to feather or kiss the subject.....easier said than done.

I actually enjoy weddings a lot more than I ever thought I would, but it is VERY hard work. I was shooting at the wedding for 8 hours, and did over 20gb of images...around 1100. You never rest or stop, you always feel that you have to be making sure they get a fantastic record of their day. Then, four days of editting, and a couple of days setting up a webpage and slideshow, as well as a gallery.
The camera is vital, and the Nikon D3 just sings at work like this. It focuses and fires faster than my nerve synapses do, and it always seems to know just where to focus. The frame rate ensures you get the fleeting moments, and the quality of the colour on the skin tones is absolutely spot on. A really wonderful piece of equipment and a pleasure to use.

I'm shooting another next week...
Anyway, here's a selection of shots from the wedding.








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I've been proofing calendars for 2010, and have received a really nice one from Lulu [link] It's huge, and the glossy paper is quite a bit nicer than DA calendars. I will DEFINITELY be doing a DA one though, I've been blown away by the support I had here for my last 2 calendars, so I'm not about to stop making DA versions.
There'll be more on this in a later journal

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Features

_________________________________
Links

My Website [link]
Neutral Density Magazine [link]

_________________________________
Some of my recent work






Take care everyone

I have been invited to be a judge of the second landscapes and waterscapes contest run by =Rykardo


Description

This is a contest for landscape and waterscape photos. the shots may be submitted to other categories as long as it is clear that the photo is either a landscape or a waterscape.


Rules

* One photo per person.

* To enter, send a note to =Rykardo with the subject "2º Landscapes/waterscape Contest".

* The photo must have a minimum resolution of 400x400 px.

* Photos must be taken in 2009.


Deadline

The deadline is 15 September, 2009


Judging

The judges are as follows:


=Rykardo


=Alex37


*islandtime


=AndyMumford


=Inebriantia


=soulofautumn87


=realityDream

The judges will choose their 10 favourite photos and give:

1º > 10 points
2º > 9 points
3º > 8 points
4º > 7 points
5º > 6 Points
6º > 5 Points
7º > 4 points
8º > 3 points
9º > 2 points
10º> 1 points

I noticed Alex gave a brief description of what he'll be looking for in the images he chooses, which I think is a great idea, so I'm going to do the same:

I'm interested principally in composition and the arrangement of elements and colour within an image. The mood and atmosphere of an image is also really important to me, as well as an element of originality.
I'm also going to be looking for images where good camera technique and control of light is strongly evident, rather than an image that depends on post processing skills for the final result.

It's worth noting though that a quick glance at the galleries of the different judges will make it obvious that we all have slightly different taste in what makes a great landscape image.


Prizes

1º Featured by

2º and 3º Featured by who offer the feature (briefly announced in my Journal)

All works received will be featured in news article.


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August Features & Stuff


On holiday here, and it's bloody hot.
I've got a big list of "Things to do this summer" as my computer screen saver, so I doubt I'm going to be around DA much over the next month.
I've not been out shooting landscapes in months, but I have been doing more and more street photography around the city. I like to try to push myself in different directions, do new things and not the same old same old things-that-I've-done-before-that-worked or I've-seen-shots-like-this-and-they-worked approach.
Not saying there's anything wrong with that, I just want to expand my range a lot more and become more versatile and flexible in the field, and I find doing really different stuff (in my case street or architecture) opens my mind up a lot more than just doing nature photography.

Came across a great couple of sentences on Thom Hogan's website the other day

"Formulas create formulaic work, where one person's work looks like another's. Those of us who photograph to evoke response don't use formulas. We experiment. We break rules. We try randomness. We dream before we photograph, and we dream again after. And what we try doesn't always work."

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My Best Work From 2008

About this time each year I like to look back on what I shot the previous year and see if there are 6 or 7 shots that I know I'll still be happy with in 10 years time. I leave it until mid-way through the year because I like to have some distance between the time when I took the shots, for them to have moved out of the realm of "recent work" so I can judge them more objectively.
Looking at my work, it's apparent that the vast majority of what I shot last year was coastal waterscapes, and to be honest, now I find them to be pretty generic. The shots which most excite and interest me are the ones where I tried something new, which started a new direction in photography for me

The popularity of a shot here on DA I've realised very rarely has anything to do with how proud I am of a particular image, and in the case of last year, many of my most popular shots are nowhere near my own favourite 5 or 10, and conversely some of my favourites were only submitted here as scraps.

So here are my own faves from my work last year:






It's an interesting exercise, and something I really recommend everyone have a go at.

_________________________________
Features

_________________________________
Links

My Website [link]
Neutral Density Magazine [link]

_________________________________
Some of my recent work






Take care everyone

Hello everyone, hope you're having a nice week.

On holiday here, and it's bloody hot.
I've got a big list of "Things to do this summer" as my computer screen saver, so I doubt I'm going to be around DA much over the next month.
I've not been out shooting landscapes in months, but I have been doing more and more street photography around the city. I like to try to push myself in different directions, do new things and not the same old same old things-that-I've-done-before-that-worked or I've-seen-shots-like-this-and-they-worked approach.
Not saying there's anything wrong with that, I just want to expand my range a lot more and become more versatile and flexible in the field, and I find doing really different stuff (in my case street or architecture) opens my mind up a lot more than just doing nature photography.

Came across a great couple of sentences on Thom Hogan's website the other day

"Formulas create formulaic work, where one person's work looks like another's. Those of us who photograph to evoke response don't use formulas. We experiment. We break rules. We try randomness. We dream before we photograph, and we dream again after. And what we try doesn't always work."

_________________________________
My Best Work From 2008

About this time each year I like to look back on what I shot the previous year and see if there are 6 or 7 shots that I know I'll still be happy with in 10 years time. I leave it until mid-way through the year because I like to have some distance between the time when I took the shots, for them to have moved out of the realm of "recent work" so I can judge them more objectively.
Looking at my work, it's apparent that the vast majority of what I shot last year was coastal waterscapes, and to be honest, now I find them to be pretty generic. The shots which most excite and interest me are the ones where I tried something new, which started a new direction in photography for me

The popularity of a shot here on DA I've realised very rarely has anything to do with how proud I am of a particular image, and in the case of last year, many of my most popular shots are nowhere near my own favourite 5 or 10, and conversely some of my favourites were only submitted here as scraps.

So here are my own faves from my work last year:






It's an interesting exercise, and something I really recommend everyone have a go at.

_________________________________
Features

_________________________________
Links

My Website [link]
Neutral Density Magazine [link]

_________________________________
Some of my recent work






Take care everyone