B134 – shes a monster!

Sundays are all about chilling out and not stressing, so thats what happened. we just went round to my sisters and chilled out in the garden with the monster aka my niece. becuase it was a pretty hot day, a decision was made to get the crazy daisy, its basically this fake plant that you attached a hose pipe too and it shoots water out round the garden, kids run around it nomrally and get wet. Not my Niece, she decides its more fun to point it at people and get them wet… made for some cool photos though.

Apart from that it was mainly chilled, the niece then decided to have a go on my camera and take some photos of her foot. shes got skills.

Heres a few snaps from yesterday.

B134-1-2
– she got us good –
B134-1-4
– the foot shot, waiting for the paddling pool to fill up –
B134-1
– we actually sat and watched flies eat our picnic –

B133 – This is what I think: SleekLens

The other day a company called SleekLens got in touch with me and asked if I would try out there PreSets for Light room and let them know what I think. Long story short it’s a quick way for you to edit photos on Lightroom, without having to adjust the exposure or contrast. This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while, is it a way for me to save time editing photos, will it help to improve my blog?

SleekLens asked me to try the Presets on Landscape photography, so the best thing for me to do was head over to Hampstead Heath early on Saturday morning and see what I could capture and see how good these Presets are.

Sleek Lens sent me the Through The Woods Presets, which are aimed at Landscape Photography. I wont go on any more, Ill let my photos do the talking.

_MG_7264
– before the Preset is Applied –
TtW|2-Exposure- Darken Shadows-1
– using the TtW|2-Exposure- Darken Shadows-1 – I’m pretty happy with the colours of this photo, but my favourite part of this photo is the shape of that tree, it looks like a proper tree. if you get what I mean and the colour helps to define that –
_MG_7477
– before a filter is applied –
TtW|1 - Base - High Dynamic Range 2-1
– using the TtW|1 – Base – High Dynamic Range – my main focus was shooting in photo with a high aperture, to help bring out the cloud in the back ground, then because im shooting RAW, i will be able to bring the the tree up i n Lightroom, and was basically me testing to see if the Presets could do that and I can tell you that they can –
_MG_7521
– Before a Preset is applied –
TtW|1-Base - Monochrome Fantasy-1
– using the preset – TtW|1-Base – Monochrome Fantasy – I wanted to see how good the black and white presets were and what better thing to test this preset on than a white focal point, with dark shades in the background. Im happy with this, but I think black and white presets are a difficult thing, because B&W always looks good to me , but when I shoot stuff like this I want to bring out the grass in the middle of the photo a bit more, make it more defined, I think it looks a bit blurry and could be a bit more sharp, maybe I was using the wrong preset, if you know a better sleeklens preset, holla at your boy! –
_MG_7479
– Before a Preset is applied –
TtW|0_All In ONe - Warm Shadows 2-1
– Preset used: TtW|0_All In ONe – Warm Shadows – this was a bit of a wild card photo, I wanted to snap something that had a busy foreground and also movement in the back of the shot. I wanted a  Preset that used the clarity tool on the leaves to help define them a bit more, while at the same time not distorting the people in the back, I want it to be quite a shallow depth of field and not do anything to crazy, just highlight a few colour, I would say this has done this pretty well –

I’m pretty happy with the outcome of these photos and think these presets are going to be a really handy tool for when I’m doing these posts. Will I use it everyday? No. probably not, I enjoy editing photos and the process that I go through to get these posts online, but when its 1 in the morning, I’ve been working all day, and just want to get to sleep, these presets are going to be a life saver.

They could also be a valuable tool in learning how Lightroom works, choose a preset you like and then work backwards from there, how did the preset use the clarity or White balance to get your desired effect? To finish off and not to sound like some rambling on blog, look into these presets and figure out how or when you would use them, I think they are something every photographer should have in their inventory, but not a necessity.

Overall I would say Sleeklens is an 8/10 and definitely has a professional feel to them, Heres a link to their website go check it out and see if they are any good for you, if you have any more questions about this, let me know and ill be happy to answer any questions, or if you think i’m completely wrong let me know too.

Check out these links to SleekLens and also some of the stuff they get up to, its a great idea and is a game changer for when you need photos edited quickly and without losing that professional feel.

https://sleeklens.com/product/landscape-lightroom-presets

https://sleeklens.com/product/professional-photo-editing-service

https://sleeklens.com/product-category/lightroom-presets

 

B132 – this is food porn

if you dont know of this place then you need to know. Londons Brough Market is food porn central, it literally has this massive selection of food from all over the world. I was walking around london yesterday getting some errands done and taking pictures of London on a Friday, and just ended up in Brough market, its the perfect place to take photos, everyone has this massive excited look on their face and just wants to try everything thing they see.

Brough market for this reason has always been on of those places I’ve wanted to photograph but for some reason never have, well yesterday I just ended up there and im glad I did, if you just go there and walk around maybe try a bit some tasters or just look at all the foods, youll realise that most Tesco’s and Sainbury’s are terrible for food choices.

When you type in London Brough Market on google, the first thing that comes up is the attacks there a few months ago, if you scroll past that ( I dont mean it out of disrepesct, I just mean theres way more to Brough Market, than the actions of a few confused boys) and just type in facts, you’ll realise that this place dates back to 1014 and was created by the Danes as a medievel market to stop off at and buy some stuff before heading into London. Its also the place with annoyed the authorities because it was just this little market which under cut all the City of London’s own traders.

So what did the city do, in 1444 it brought the Market off the people and chartered it as part of the city of London, which then lead to a 3 day riot. but its all good because in 1550 Edward the VI, sorted this problem out by officially selling southwark and the Brough Market to the city for £1000.

I could go on here to tell you about another thousand years of history, but if you’ve read this much already and still not interested then you probably don’t want to know.

so anyway here some foodie pictures I took yesterday.

B132-1-7
– that looks like proper food –
B132-1
– shes not sure on the cheese –
B132-1-4
– for some reason I just like this –