Tuesday was pub quiz night, a serious thing. I have to say they aren’t really my strong point. but it was a good laugh anyway, on the way to the quiz though we had a bit of a long wait at Shoreditch over ground, so I spend the time having some fun with sow shutter speeds, its basically where you let everything go blurry but things that don’t move stay sharp.
Its good because if you have all the settings right you can catch the right amount of light to really bring out the photo. I think that street photos look good in Black and White, it adds this extra feeling to the photo and its hard to have a snap in colour and still have the same effect. Thats down to the fact that street photos always have the feel to them imperfection being perfect to capture the moment, which transfers to B&W photos so much easier. Deep Stuff.
Something I think is important to slow shutter speeds, is still capturing the fact that things are still moving in the photo, if the shutter is too slow you’ll lose that and if its that little bit too fast it will just look like a blurry photo, I had my shutter around 1/6 with F5 and ISO 400 .
So for now I’m just going to have all my street photos in B&W, but I suppose I might give colour street photos a try soon. but for now, heres my photos.
– I like the movement that blurry photos give you –– it helps to give a sense of things running around –– I like this one, amy once again being used as a model, if I was going to do it again I would have amy stand still and completely in focus –
Last night I was in that situation were I need to take three photos but all im doing is going to Sainsburys to buy a wok and some rice noddles. Lucky amy was doing the double demin look, apparently thats were you wear a denim top and jeans. So I asked her really nicely if she would let me take some portrait snaps.
I watch that documentary on the photographer Platoon the other day, and it got me all rev’d up to put some energy into portrait photography. if you haven’t seen it head over to Netflix and watch the series called Abstract its unbelievable. its basically about this guy called Platoon, who takes portrait photos of some of the worlds most influential people, including the legend Barack Obama and the Russian dude Putin but its more about his style of photographs, give it a watch I promise you wont be disappointed.
Any way, yea I took some cool photos of Amy last night on the way to Sainsbury’s, but if theres anyone else out there who wouldnt mind me practising my photo skillz on them, let me know. I want to get better at it!
heres my snaps from yesterday.
– Amy “hurry up and take the picture –– I dont know how the snap turned out this way, but I like it –– her face after my sunglasses just went flying across the park –
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.
– before the Preset is Applied –– 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 –– before a filter is applied –– 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 –– Before a Preset is applied –– 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! –– Before a Preset is applied –– 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.
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.
– that looks like proper food –– shes not sure on the cheese –– for some reason I just like this –
Theres is bar in spitalfeild market called Beadles, it this small wine bar, with a massive collection from all over the world ive been there a few time and every time I go, I try a proper wine, none of that house wine that you get in a pub. I still have no idea about wine, but this place is making me want to learn more.
I had a famoso, which is an Italian grape which is from the region of Romagna, it basically disappeared for years before being brought back to life by some new producers, who believed it was time for the grape to make comeback. apparently the grape gives a pale strew colour, which didn’t adapt well to the market until recently and is becoming more and more of an essential for the wine connoisseur. so if you see it, buy it and give the stuff a try or head to Beadles Wine bar in Spitalfeilds and drink it there.
incase any of you are wondering, I literally typed the name of the wine on google and this was all the information I could copy and understand, so thought I would share it with you.
All these photos were taken on the Iphone SE
– I should of taken a photo when we first got the drinks, sorry I forgot –– no sure what wines these are, but they look good –– famoso wine is on the right, look at that “pale straw” colour –
Yesterday was all about the rain, it literally chucked it down for the whole day. it was like a monsoon an english monsoon, but still a monsoon. The highest rain fall was in recorded in Kenley with 44.8mm of rain thats 1.78 inches!! when you compare that to places like Thailand where they get an average of 170mm of rain, things anit so bad, but I still go completely soaked on the way home.
One thing I love about the rain in London is seeing how different people deal with it, some put plastic bags on there heads and run around, some use a new paper and others just dont care. its the people that don’t care about the weather who make me smile, they anit letting the weather beat them, from the ones wearing a t shirt in the rain, to the guy who’s reading the newspaper while getting soaked (see my photo below), its all about beating the weather and sticking two fingers up to those pesky rain clouds. i think those are my favourite kind of londoners.
– perfect place to catch up with the evening standard –– something pretty cool about london in the rain –– getting home quickly –
today was meant to be a straight forward travel day, spent the day on my sofa then catch a train this evening up north. a few diversions later and im standing a new castle train station waiting for a taxi to finish my journey off. this isnt a complaint its a big observation, it happens, I just wish it didnt happen on my straight forward travel day.
Im trying to keep this as something thats based around photos, but on days like today, where im a bit hungover and just sitting on a train, its just about trying to take the best possible photos from an adverage day, which is kind of fun because you end up trying to frame up everything you see and make something not so interesting, interesting.
anyway its late on sunday, i’m nackered so heres a few photos for today. in other stuff the hotel im staying in for the next few hours is really nice, if you’re ever in Hexham, then stay at the Beaumont hotel. They will actually show you to your room! not sure what breakfast will be like but just gimme coffee and its all good.
– New castle has some crazy sunsets –– for some reason I like this photo –– GERAY –
Last night, we went up on my roof not like climbing up on it, but going up to the communal roof terrace. I don’t have a fob for the roof, so knocked on a neighbours door, the amazing women called paula, opened up. shes this really cool lady whos lived in this block for nearly 32 years, making her one of the oldest residence. ( she also has a number of classic motor bikes in the underground car park) making her a legend.
Well she came out on the roof with us, not because she didn’t trust us, she just know that Sandra our building manager, is watching at all time. we love sandra, but she scares me. Anyway, Paula was telling us about the time that the libertines threw a massive party on the roof and would pee off the side 50 meters up on the pavement below and how she regularly saw pete in the lift. Ive heard this story before from random people in Bethnal Green, but this confirms it. The Libertines are the ones to blame for us not being allowed to have parties up there, because they took it to the next level. it kind of makes me happy that they did this, even though I wasnt there. I know my parties could never of topped that and its nice to know that if these walls in the block could talk they probably talk about the time the band threw a massive party and played some absolute bangers while Pete Doherty pee’d on the pedestrians walking below.
Anyway heres a few pictures from Amy and mine’s adventure to the roof terrace last night.
-you take that snap girl –– view looking away from the city –– this could work –
This week I’ve been in a place called Allendale. Running about filming stuff. After a proper curry last night at a place called the spice mill, we are now driving the 5 and a half hours back to London. I don’t know why the curries relevant but I thought I would meniton it anyway. As it was a pretty good curry.
I’m looking forward to getting back to zone 2 life, but at the same time kind of think it would be cool to wake up in the countryside every day, chuck on a pair of boots, wake your dog up and jump on a quad bike and work on a farm. But for now I’ll just have to head back to London, and the fresh air of the underground.
Here’s a few countryside snaps of Allendale. – can’t beat a local parish –– another shot of a field –– this is also a field –
Some days you walk around for ages and dont see a single thing to take a photo of, yesterday was not one of those days. shoreditch had quite a few great moments and all I was doing was walking to and from a sport massage. I wasnt even out with the intention of taking photos, I just had my camera with me. But after I saw the bull dog lay down and refuse to my while his owner was clothes shopping, I knew saturday was going to be a good day. after that I was walking down the road and noticed a pin up girl standing at a window and BOOOM. But the photo that takes the win for today was when some one parked a car on a yellow line on Bethnal Green Road and spray painted the words “cheater” on the side. Someone had a very very bad day.
check out these snaps.
– someones having a bad day –– girl got style –– I know how this dog feels –
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