HDR Trial...

HDR Photography has always been appealing to me. I've seen many examples good and bad over the years, but really thought I should give it a go.

So camera in hand and an open day at the FlaxMill in Shrewsbury, I went off to take pics of an old decreped building.

This particular image was take with my cheap 18-55 kit lens. At 18mm I bracketed 3 images at 2 stops difference. took the RAW into Photomatix, converted into a HDR, then finished the image off with a little bit of selective colour layers, a tiny bit of dodge and burn, but that was it.

I think the results speak for it's self. I really like this, and as it's one of my first attempts at HDR, I think I'll be doing this more often...

As always, you can see the image and a 'View on Black' here - FlaxMill (Flickr)

And as ever, you can find a few more images of mine on my - Flicr Feed

Thanks for reading...

Portraits...

So I haven't posted anything for a while. I have been a little busy with clients and also trying to improve my website.

So, this little pic comes from a job requested for a portrait session for the CEO of a company in Birmingham.

I have photographed this guy before so know him relatively well, and he was pretty relaxed.

The brief was that we didn't want the usuak head and shoulders shot, but a few other angles that showed a different side. They will be used in a magazine on case studies that he and his marketing team write, editorials on the company, adverts, the web profiles, and from what he was telling me his wife wanted a copy for a new framed shot on the fire place.

So we met at the Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury, organised by a good friend of mine. With the hope we would put Graeme into a more modern surrounding, to give a fresh feel to the portraits. The shot I've added to this Blog is probably my favorite out of two from the many we shot.

Most of it was a little spontanious as I hadn't been to this location before, and haden't had time to scout the place out, it was a last min location change due to not getting permissions for another site.

The set up was easy enough, natural light from a large window to the right, and my trusty 50mm... need I say more? I wanted not to make it look that staged, and tried to make him as relaxed as I could so the poses looked as natural as I could.

I am about half way through editing them, but have already emailed a few to the client, who has already said they love them...

There is another to see here on my Flickr photostream. But I can't post too many for obvious reasons.

Thaks for reading.