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 –
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.
– she got us good –– the foot shot, waiting for the paddling pool to fill up –– we actually sat and watched flies eat our picnic –
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.
So yesterday I didn’t take any photos, literally not one. I spent the day sorting out all the photos Ive taken over the past 128 days, the plan is to create a portfolio of all my best shots, so you don’t just see them for a day and then thats it. My portfolio is now up and running and has loads of my favourite photos on it. the whole thing is actually pretty hard, ive never made anything like a portfolio before, so Ive been checking out some of my favourite photographers and see how they have done it and getting some inspiration. Ive got a few ideas, so just need to work on it. check it out and let me know what you think, you should be able to see a new tab at the top of the page called “my work”.
So for this post, here are three of my favourite photos thats Ive posted these past 128 days!
Today is also 13th anniversary of  Donald Duck receiving the 2,257th Hollywood star! congratulations to the best Donald I know!
– SHOREDITCH HIGHSTREET –– from a few weeks ago, Victoria Park –– the m25, when it was actually summer, not just a rainy august –
Todays going to be short and sweet, its been tough and problem not the best day, but got a few good photos, Im going to keep this one shorter and sweeter than most days. im basically in Northumbria filming for this week, so SHOULD be good but probably really busy as usual.
I want to write more but would rather hit the pillow and get some sleep.
– starting the day at chancery lane –– driving up north –– arriving up north –
Yesterday was my sister birthday pic-nic, the big 30. Jesus. down at this place called the warren in Hayes, I literally feel like I just ran around the whole day and didnt really take any pictures, apart from a few of the birthday cake and trying to get  cool photo of the Nerf rocket coming towards the camera thanks for the help meg! but that didn’t work at all and I only ended up either missing the rocket or it just being out of focus.
but I think we can all say that the cake was pretty impressive, it was designed to look like a Mulberry bag, (my sisters favourite type of bag), I haven’t tasted any of it yet, but Im hoping someone saves me a slice. Esme if you reading this, please please please save me a slice.
anyway, its currently 6:30 Monday morning, I feel like Ive ran a marathon yesterday, so I’m going to keep this short and sharp. enjoy the snaps.
– Es’s birthday cake –– the cuz taking a selfie –– my photo of a nerve gun –
today I thought it would be a good idea to go out early morning around bethnal green / hackney and practice my sun flare skills, its my favourite camera technique and something that I really want to get prefect. obviously, using something like a 85mm prime lens really takes a sun flare shot to the next level and I’m hoping to get my hands on one of those next week, but for now my 24-105mm will have to do the job. I know you can add lens flare in photoshop but I want to learn how todo them in real life first before I use computer software.
my plan is to watch a tone of youtube videos on lens flare and see how I can improve, but for now heres a few photos I took this morning. I want to show these ones and then maybe tomorrow ill show you a few more that Ive done after watching some youtube tutorials.
-I’m liking the over exposed look –– hackney road. 7am. –– the sun raise was perfect this morning –
right I think we can all agree that tuesdays, should be a day of no work. its the one day each week, where you forget about the weekend you just had and still to far off to think about the weekend you have coming up. they’re just a day where you work, go home and get ready for Wednesday. I always try and mix a Tuesday up, to give it something a bit different, but yesterday I had nothing. I just worked, had a mini shoot half way though the day, which was a bit fun. So on my walk home, I decided to take some photos of cool shadows, that mix it up abit. see what weird shapes I could find, that normally you would just walk past, but with the light being so SICK in the summer, I wanted to use that to my advantage.
Heres a few snaps.
P.s my camera is still broken, I stuck the lens in a bucket of water to take some underwater pictures of crabs and now its got water damage, im hopefully buying a new camera on Saturday,
– the door to get out for my work, the beginning of my walk home –-some alley way near bethnal green road, it looked cool so I stopped for a snap –– I have no idea why I like this, but it does look pretty cool with the orange –
A bit of a tough one for Saturday, it was literally just a day off, going out for a meal and then grabbing a few pints in some country pub in Norfolk. Literally spent more time in Norfolk this week than in London for two completely separate reasons, but it is a pretty cool place so I can’t moan and nothing beats a English country pub in the rain!
West Runton isn’t just any Norfolk town this place was once home to an amazing music venue, which was host to some great musicians including chuck berry, the clash and the sex pistols! But unfortunately they knocked this sick little piece of history down in 1986 but it has made way for a cool little country pub.
This weekend is all about eating food and doing nothing.
– Amy on the way home after a few gin and tonics –– the pub when it’s raining. Nothing beats it –– what a legendary place, in a unsuspecting place –– the pub now on the spot were chuck berry and the clash was took over –
joshfspear.com 