Posts about Technique
Blog posts
Focus stacking for maximum sharpness
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Editing multiple shots of the same scene together to get a massively-improved level of sharpness throughout the image.
Using colour profiles in Lightroom
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By applying the right colour profile to your photo, you can get a much more nuanced version than through simple editing.
The correct angle at Fingle Bridge
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Getting the best shot possible is all about chance, timing and consideration of the correct angle.
A score out of five
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Because I take so many photos, and because I like sharing photos online, I have to be critical of my results and only share the best. Mainly, so that people don’t get bored of seeing so much of my stuff.
Using bounced flash to improve the quality of light in your portraits.
Cooing over the lovely new panorama stitching function in Adobe Lightroom 6.
Square landscapes with the X-T1
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Where my love for the square image format comes from, and how it is achieved in the Fujifilm X-T1 digital camera.
The hardest part of the fun fair
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Creating long exposure photographs with movement and blur leads to great images. But if you want a pin-sharp photo, you’ll need to be patient.
Yannick’s lightbox
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Wow. Two years. It’s taken me two whole years to get around to writing about the photos I took for Choo Choo in 2010-2011, which they used to accompany their superb self-produced video for the single We Go. The two photo shoots to produce these photos were a little unusual but I really enjoyed them,…
Quick and subtle painterly effect in Lightroom
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Using an excessive amount of noise reduction in Lightroom produces a lovely, subtle, painterly effect.
Unexpected locations
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Brooke Shaden is a wonderfully creative photographer, whose images make me wish that I had the opportunity to spend more time on creating and editing more theatrical images. But I can’t complain; my time is, after all, spent on pursuing other passions and fascinating goals. One of the problems I came across when shooting for…
Using your shoulder as a camera rest
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A tip I passed on to a participant at a photo workshop last weekend was one I learned from Joe McNally: not on how to light your subject or how to interact with them, but how to manage your heavy camera. By holding the camera in one hand and the flash in another, with the…
Selective lighting magic
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What makes a picture is often the main subject. But a little attention to detail can also work wonders and turn a nice picture into a really nice picture. Walking in the park with friends last autumn, towards the end of a couple of hours shooting portraits, the lighter patches between the trees caught my…
My basic Lightroom workflow
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Adobe Lightroom is a boon to the photographer. With the introduction of intelligent repair tools, it has now entirely replaced Photoshop for me, and I can not only tweak photos but also re-edit them to quite a level of detail. One of the great features of Lightroom is the ability to save a group of…
Against the wobble
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Jo commented that the video I shot under windy conditions on Iona was remarkably steady. I did my best to hold the camera as steady as I could whilst filming, but the wind got the better of me and so the original film sequence is quite wobbly. The final version on YouTube, linked in this…
There’s a lot of criticism in the world of photography. Not just the personal opinion of someone who likes or dislikes your photo, but also more general criticism on the subject of such things as originality and inspiration, equipment, or what makes a “photograph” as opposed to an creative image. The biggest argument used to…
The Blue Hour
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The time between sunset and complete darkness is known in photographic circles as “the blue hour”.
Ezybox Speed-Light
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First experiences with my new ultra-compact and ultra-light Ezybox Speed-Light softbox.
It’s not about the tool you use
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Pro photographer Zack Arias is thrown down the challenge of taking street portraits using nothing but a point-and-shoot camera and an optically-triggered second flash gun. Zack’s ebullient approach and the results we see towards the end of the film show that photography isn’t about using really expensive equipment.
Thank heavens for digital tone mapping
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You may recall that I wrote about HDR technique some time ago, and a technique I employed at a wedding last weekend reminded me to write about the alternative: Tone Mapping and Zone System exposure.
The second of two photographic portraiture and lighting days this summer will take place at the Rolex Learning Centre on the grounds of the EPFL in Lausanne on Sunday 19th August.
