Snowdon Pony

Hey hey hey!

Unlike most weeks this last week has gone by at a slightly slower pace as I’ve been spending time working on my own projects and not commercial ones which has been quite a refreshing change!

At the weekend I traveled to Snowdonia in North Wales to do a spot of climbing. I normally say climbing as it implies a little more machismo and invites heroic thoughts of me, hanging by my fingertips on some rocky ledge, or battling in the ‘Death Zone’ with gale force winds. Sadly, in the stark cold of reality, for me, climbing can more accurately be expressed as rambling, which admittedly lacks the impressiveness of climbing!

Anyway, I did entertain quite a long ramble, which totaled about 15km in length, and reached a giddy height of 915m when I reached the summit of the mountain Tryfn. As would be expected, I lugged all my camera gear with me, and outset of the walk was extremely satisfied to the see that it was raining hard and the sky was dark and gloomy…in my eyes perfect photography conditions.

Unfortunately, on this occasion, the weather was too bad, and due to the horizontal rain, I was limited in what I could capture. I did manage to fire of a few shots at altitude, although I haven’t had a real chance to look at them so they may or may not make into the blog!

Fortunately, all was not lost as when hiking back across the valley floor, I encountered a number of very friendly ponies. I immediately got out the camera and started shooting. This was not as easy as it sounds as there were about 8 ponies in total, all of which at various points started trying to eat items of my clothing!

The combination of very friendly ponies and dramatic weather conditions made for an amazing shoot! I just wish all my subjects could be as much fun to work with!

Best viewed big on black HERE

I have a couple more shots of the ponies that I’m working on and these will creep into the blog over the next month!

Anyway, until next week!

Skeleton Crew

Hey people,

Once again I’ve had a very productive week in the wonderful world of photography with the completion of a number of commercial jobs. With such things coming to an end, I can now spend a little more time expanding the blog and adding new content. Aside from elaborating a little on the blog title yep, my name is now referenced at the top of the page (for some reason when people have been discussing my work online in various forums, they have been referring to me as Spike!) I also intend to add dedicated pages highlighting various examples of my work. This is intended to be a quick fix in advance of the creation of my own dedicated website showcasing my work.

However, prior to the creation of the site, I need to expand my portrait portfolio. I’ve whinged previously on the blog about how difficult it can be sourcing models etc so at the moment I’m having to rely on friends and family, however, I am intending to put a plan in motion which could involve band shoots so watch this space!

Before this plan comes to fruition, I intend to hit the streets again, with my newly acquired 50mm prime lens to catch some incredibly sharp people shots…..you can’t beat free models!

Speaking of free models, here’s the subject of this weeks image. The subject is a very good mate of mine from my home town, and fortunately for me he isn’t camera shy! Andy was lit with three strobes in this crazy subway under the M65 motorway. I was intending to do quite a funny shoot in a local park but due to the adverse weather conditions we were forced to retreat underground!

The graffiti on the wall was the icing on the cake, whilst it isn’t on a par with Banksy, it certainly lent itself well to this darker shoot!

Best viewed big on black HERE

As ever, if anyone has any quries on any of my techniques then don’t be afraid to drop me an email. I’ve had a few questions about the the Pimp My Dad Shoot from a couple of weeks ago. If your one of the folk who emailed me and are still awaiting a response, then don’t panic I’m on it now!

In a week people!

St Mark’s Bassilica

Hi people,

Well, another week has passed and as always my time has been largely taken up with photography. For those of you who are interested, my time has been largely spent retouching a set of wedding photos.

Whilst I’m quite sure the original photographer was capable of turning on a camera (I think) that was about as far as his photography capabilities extended, with many of the shots being both poorly composed and exposed. Fortunately most of the shots are salvageable, and whilst only being Jpegs, have turned out looking good. If I can get permission from the bride and groom concerned, I make post some before and after shots on a dedicated ‘Re-touch’ page on the blog.

Anyway, moving swiftly on I thought I would drop into the blog a nice architectural photo from my recent trip to Venice. I think I mentioned earlier that a few church shots would be creeping into the blog and here is one of them.

The shot below is taken from inside St Mark’s Basilica. For some reason which is completely beyond me, the powers that be in many of the churches I visited would not allow any type of photography in the inside of churches.

Now I understand fully this attitude when it comes to those idiots with point and shoot cameras, trying to illuminate an entire cathedral with some naff in built flash, as at the end of the day the building is a place of worship and nobody wants to be at peace with god whilst the strobe lights are going off. But what about those folk who don’t use flash? I did try it on, whipping out my tripod whilst hiding behind a curtain. Unfortunately I was quickly busted by the security though, much to the dismay of the missus!

Well, that’s enough of a whinge from me, I’m sure that they have a genuine reason for banning all cameras…maybe the almighty is camera shy??

Regardless, I still managed to grab a quick hand held shot, which I think came out rather well.

Best viewed big HERE

….maybe I need to invest in a dog collar and go undercover next time !!??….

Pimp my Dad

Hi folks,

Well, I’m very pleased to say that I now finally have my internet up and running which means I have no excuses for not posting regularly!

I think I mentioned last week that I was planning on doing a shoot where I would try and recreate the Dave Hill look, and to be quite honest I’m really chuffed to bits with the results!

No matter which photography forum you look at you’ll know doubt find a thread somewhere which tries to dissect Dave’s post processing technique, and inevitably these threads are ridiculously long, with only one or two folk getting anywhere near with their technique.

Sadly, most folk are looking for a one click method of achieving the Dave Hill look, which kind of typifies the way society is at the moment, with everybody expecting everything now! Unfortunately the Dave Hill look is not something that can be achieved quickly.

With regards the shot below, from the point at which I got my camera out of the bag and started shooting through to when i finally uploaded the finished image to flickr, has taken around 8 hours. That may seem like a long time, but admittedly it’s the first time I have gone the whole hog with a concept photo like the one below, which included, the shoot, the post processing, the background shoot, more post processing, blending shadows, complex selections….the job lot! I have to admit I’ve loved every minute of it though!

Anyway, as ever, back to the shot below! This was taken whilst home for fathers day. With it being fathers day, i thought I would do something nice for my dad, that is dress him like a pimp, parade him around the street and then start taking pictures of him. You can imagine the scene when the neighbours started curtain twitching, attracted by the glare of the off camera strobes…ha ha ha amazing!

It really was a great little shoot and I have to thank my dad for being such a good sport…Thanks Dad!

Best viewed big on black HERE

I was going to post a before shot so you could see my flash setup but I’ve forgotten to convert the RAW file to Jpeg. If anyone has any questions on this shot then feel free to ask away by either leaving a comment or emailing me…

Anyways, until next week!

Venetian Labyrinthe

Hi guys,

Unfortunately I still haven’t had my internet problems sorted yet…big sigh…so that’s why I haven’t been able to upload as regularly as I would like but I’m hoping this will be fixed soon!

Anyway, I have been very busy on the photo front, with a number of finished images waiting to be uploaded to the blog, including one very cool shot in the style of Dave Hill which will be posted next week so stay tuned!

Right, back to this weeks shot, as you should all know I’ve recently been on holiday to Venice for a short weekend break and for most people the weather was terrible (it rained a lot) but for me it was perfect for capturing those crazy cloud shots.

On the last day we were supposed to go on a gondola trip but due to the adverse weather conditions the Gondoliers weren’t up for it…que my big grin at saving 80 Euros…money I’m sure you’ll all agree is better spent on camera gear! So, draped in a poncho I set of instead looking to get a few snaps.

It was really cool wondering around the city, for those of you who have never been the only way to describe the place is as a maze, it’s just impossible not to get lost, which I think is part of the charm of the place. I wanted sonehow to try and capture the sense of confusion that the city can cause but to be honest I was finding it difficult to portay.

Then I remembered St Mark’s Campanile, which is a bell tower standing at the corner of St Marks Square, beside the Basilica. Normally  the ques to go up the tower are massive, but due to the weather I was straight in. Whilst ascending the 98.6m to the top of the tower, I couldn’t help dwell on the fact that the tower had in the past collapsed, see photo below:

Timber….this alleged photo of the tower collapsing in 1902 turned out to be a fake…quodos to the photographers photoshop skills!

When I finally made it to the top of the tower my worries were dismissed, the view from the top was incredible, and so was the rain, which due to the wind was now doing the old ninety degrees through the window trick. As a result I ws fairly limited as tow where I could shoot from, but luckilly I think I got the best angle anyway. I’ll let you guys decide!

MUST be viewed big on black HERE

Whilst I acknowledge that this shot goes against most of the principles of compositions i.e. no focal point, sometimes I think you need to break the rules a little!

Whilst typing I’ve just this second had a text message from my isp telling me my broadband has been activated. So if the gods are smiling on me I’ll catch up with you next week!

The Grandest of Canals

 

Hello world, ImageSpike is finally back up and running!

 

As I’m sure you all gathered, since making my last post I didn’t manage to get my broadband connection sorted, thus the lack of a post last week. Although I’m still without an internet connection at home, I did manage to get my PC updated with Photoshop at a friend’s house and so the photography workflow can now continue I’m pleased to say!

 

I’ve recently been on a trip to Venice, which is an absolutely stunning place. Whilst wondering around, much of the time in awe at the historical architecture, I noticed the incredibly high number of Americans and Japanese who had come to see the wonder of the city. This reminded me as to how lucky we European folk are at having such incredible destinations right on our doorstep and this has motivated me to get further afield with my camera.

 

I spent a long weekend in the city and on the first day the weather was terrible, hot sun, blue sky with not a cloud in sight…what I consider to be the worst conditions for photography! All was not lost, there are in total 16 churches in Venice, many of which are plastered by some of the most amazing frescoes you have ever seen, by artists like Giovanni Bellini, Tintoretto and R. Harris, obviously I have stacks of photos from inside the churches which I’m sure will make it into the blog!

 

After undertaking my naked rain dance through the streets of Venice on the first night (facilitated by the Chianti) much to my relief over the next few days my prayers were answered and the heavens opened.

 

One of the main attractions in the city is the Rialto bridge which spans the Grand Canal. Whilst I didn’t actually take a photo of the bridge itself, I did get this shot looking from it, and which I believe is far more dramatic!

 

Best viewed big on black HERE

For those of you interested in the rain dance, I wasn’t kidding, a handy video showing the main steps can be viewed here.

Until next week!

 

The Severn Marsh

Hi Guys,

Just in case any of you were wondering, I am still alive!

I’ve been really busy trying to move all my gear back into my flat since it was flooded last July. I’ve virtually moved back in now and everything is almost back to normal, aside from the fact I can’t get my PC to work.

My PC and beloved copy of Photoshop are pivotal to my photography  and as a result of the floods have been kept in storage, up until last week when i was finally reunited with the hulking lump of grey plastic! After powering up the behemoth I was promptly requested to enter my windows login password.

Password I asked my self, password what the hell is my password. A cold bead of sweat ran down the side of my head. After a twelve month stay of absence I had totally forgotten my login details and ended up having to reformat my PC and undertake a fresh install of windows, thus losing all data stored on my PC. Much to my amusement.

Fortunately I have all my photos and software backed up on external disk drives so I wasn’t overly concerned, however my frustrations were soon to be compounded again! After getting windows XP up and running I’ve now discovered that my telephone sockets are still screwed from the floods, which means no internet. No internet means I can’t update XP to service pack 2, which means I can’t install Photoshop CS3.

…..AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think you get the picture as to how I felt at this point!

As a result of all this mess I’ve been unable to process any of my photos and thus ImageSpike has had to ground to a halt. All is not lost though, the saviours that are the men in grey at British Telecom are sending an engineer to fix the problem with my phone line tomorrow! Just as well too as I’m becoming swamped with photos that need processing!

Also, I’ve had a number of people contacting me asking for tips etc on my photography and post processing techniques, I haven’t forgotten you, as soon as my internet is fully functioning I will send out email responses. (Incidentally, for those of you wondering, I’ve come into the office early today to write this post!)

For reasons that should now be obvious, I can’t post any new work for the time being, and so instead I thought I’d use this opportunity to post one of my older shots from out of the archive. The shot below is taken at a favourite spot of mine in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire and happens to be one of my personal favourites!

Best viewed big on black Here

I have a few portrait shots that I intend to sprinkle across the blog in the forthcoming week which I intend to treat to a refined Dave Hill post processing technique so stay tuned!

Until next week….I hope!

Lovely Grunge!

Hi guys,

 

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to update the blog as regularly as I would like, first their were delays due to  the fact that I had just stared a new job at Alder King, now the delays are because I’m in  the process of moving back into my once flooded flat in Tewkesbury! At least all these delays are for good reasons, and so hopefully once I get settled the posting regime should return to normal!

 

The commercial aspect of ImageSpike is moving nicely, I’ve recently been in discussions with a local photography gallery who were really impressed with my work, so fingers crossed I may get a little bit of professional exposure which would be great, If anything comes to fruition on this front then don’t worry, you’ll be the first to know!

 

On the commercial front, below is another shot taken from a brief shoot I undertook whilst recently down in the ‘Big Smoke’. The shoot took place in a small chapel, which made lighting the shot a real challenge. In fact, by the end of things I abandoned the off camera flash and simply made use of the ambient light which was available, with the subject in the shot below being lit by window’s high above the wall to the rear. The Active D-Lighting on the D300 also came in pretty handy too!

 

I think I rambled on last week about a number of pro photographers who were pretty slick with the use of ambient light. One of these guys, Joey Lawrence, has also been subject to a large amount of praise with regards to quite a grungy look to his photos. This look has becoem really popular at the moment, and basically messes with photos to give them a real gritty edge, which I think looks kind of cool!

 

I decided to try this effect on thhe shot below, so just to make it quite clear, we weren’t shooting in a condemned building, the crack in the shot below is my little slant on the grunge look!

 

 

As I said, fingers crossed my life should be slowly returning to normal which is good as I have a stack of great  photos in the pipeline which I can’t wait to share with you all!

 

Until next week….hopefully!

The Satsuma

Hey folks,

I think I may have said elsewhere on the blog that getting hold of models can be a right pain. It’s so frustrating sometimes, you go out buy all the lighting kit have all the expensive camera gear and then no one will let you take their photo!

As a work around I’ve started doing a little bit of street photography, at the moment you’re free to take photos of anyone in a public place without consent (UK only) so potentially the amount of material to work with is infinite. If you’re going to go down this route then you clearly need to be sensitive with the camera, I don’t think it would go down very well hanging around a kids playground with a long lens, no matter how honourable your intentions. To get a basic idea of what you can and can’t do I suggest you read this guide to photographer rights in the UK.

Obviously if you’re trying to emulate the work of some of my favourite photographers like Dave Hill and Jim Fiscus, then you aren’t going to get anywhere close to their effect due to the inability to provide sufficient off camera lighting, but at least it gives you the opportunity to practice your Photoshop techniques, so when you do have the flash setup, you know that you’re going to be cooking on gas!

Despite the absence of a whole rack of off camera strobes, you can still get excellent effects shooting people using only daylight. One talented young chap by the name of Joey Lawrence has applied the principles of excellent Photoshop post processing to a whole array of subjects who have not been subject to elaborate lighting setups. For inspiration I suggest you check out his site here and pay particular attention to his portfolio on the homeless in Toronto. A highly emotive and provocative collection of photos which he has told me were all shot using nothing but daylight.

Anyway, below is a shot that I recently took whilst out and about in Birmingham, UK. Immediately after taking this shot something kind of weird happened. A woman approached me and asked if I’d be interested in taking a stress test?? So, ever the helpful lad, I accompanied her into quite a swanky conference building around the corner, and was promptly hooked up to a set of electrodes which measured my stress levels??

After being asked a stack of random questions she then asked if I had heard of Scientology (AAAggghhhhh, the trap had been sprung!). She then started to turn the screw, asking if would buy a series of books about the merits of Scientology and relaxation. On this note, imagine my glee when I whipped out of my back pocket a book on Yoga, courtesy of the Hare Krishna below. Totally priceless!

Best viewed big on black here

Until next week!

Gothica Girl

Hi guys,

For those observant readers out there, I’m sure you will have noticed that I didn’t make a post last week. The reason for this omission is the fact that I start a new job in a fortnight so I’ve been really busy tying up loose ends before I leave my current job. Very hectic!

Anyway, my new job will have me working down in Bristol, so at the weekend I decided to make a visit to the city and have a bit of a recce. As a town planner I’m always interested in architecture and the design of urban space. After wandering around the city I was really pleased with what I saw, with the parts of Bristol that I visited being quite impressive.

Being in the city I thought I would indulge myself in a bit of architectural photography. I did try and get a few shots inside Bristol Cathedral, but rapidly decided against it. With the Sunday afternoon service being in full swing my stealthy camera maneuvers weren’t going to be popular so I made for a sharp exit!

Instead I ended up at an attractive church in the centre of town called St Mary’s
Redcliffe. On a personal note I found the church to be more attractive architecturally than the Cathedral which I felt had a more somber look.

The photo below is a candid shot of the young girl. I decided to use selective coloring of the girl to bring attention to her in the shot as she’s a great little indicator of the scale of the building. Also, if you look closely you will see that she has a bible in her hand which I thought was rather sweet…aah!

This shot NEEDS to be viewed big on black HERE

Anyway, I’m back on top of things on the work front now so my posting routine will be back to normal now!

Until Wednesday!