Photo Noir

Back to some portrait work this week. I took advantage of a visit by Reuben to grab some shots of him in the garden and have another crack at the 'photo noir' stuff using one studio light against a black velvet background. All in all I was really pleased with the results.

The black and white conversions worked really well. I used a couple of photoshop actions I downloaded for the outdoor shots, Lightroom took care of the indoor stuff. Photographing a one year old was quite an experience. They don’t stay still for long and move really quick. All good fun though.

Photoshop Actions

Having spent the last few months following the PhotoTraining4U Photoshop tutorials I've become quite wrapped up with the programme. I still use lightroom for my initial RAW processing but I'm now using Photoshop for everything else. As part of that process I've made a few of my own simple actions for speeding up my workflow but I've also just discovered the vast amount of free actions available on the internet.

I've just spent a few hours this afternoon downloading a few and running them through some pics. Some are good, some are not so good but its amazing what's out there. It's also quite good to pull them apart and see how some of the effects have been achieved. I've no doubt there must be an action for just about everything, I'll continue my search for some cool portfolio borders.

Ducklings

After spending most of this year developing my skills in the studio it was really nice to go out on Saturday and get back to what I enjoy most. That's going out with the camera with a rough idea of what I want to get and seeing what happens. With that in mind I decided to call into where I work, the Police HQ in Portishead and try to get a few shots of some ducklings which are currently being reared on a small pond we have set in amongst a group of offices.

I got lucky when we got there as mum and the ducklings were sat out of the pond and resting in the warm sunshine. Using my 2xSigma converter on my 70-200 lens I was able to get in quite close without upsetting them, they're quite used to people but still wary. I tried to sell the converter last year as at this time it was manual focus only on all my lenses. In fact the only Canon lens it will autofocus with is my new 70-200. I'm really glad I hung on to it now, especially for this sort of stuff. It makes for a heavy combination on the end of the camera but combined with a higher iso in reasonable light it works really well.

There's still quite a few ducklings in the group. Most of these will be taken by crows in the next few weeks, sad but just the way it is.

Animoto

I signed up with Animoto last week after being more than impressed with the video service they provide. It’s an excellent concept and I’d produced my first effort with fifteen minutes of joining. Here’s a short example from last Saturdays shoot with my sister and her family, make sure you switch the volume control on: