Apologies for the brief hiatus from South Shields Photo of the Day.
But, I’m back with this photograph taken a few weeks ago near Westoe Village. This has had a fair bit of editing done to it, including some dodging and burning with a tritone effect to finish things off!
I havent taken too many photos as of late, mainly due to the weather which has once again been terrible. The only saving grace is that the newspapers havent found a quirky two word phrase to refer to this month as, such as their “Awful August”. I hate that.
For todays “South Shields Photo of the Day” we have an image from my back catalogue of the Merchant Seamen’s Memorial. The memorial can be found at Harton Staithes, next to the Customs House on the banks of the River Tyne. The image can also be found on my website.
I’ve used a ‘pop-art’ technique on this shot, which started life as a very basic, very boring, face on shot of the memorial. I learned the effect from Digital Photo Magazine, and used Photoshop to attain the desired results. I later did some creative cropping to give the final photo a more edgy feel and a sense of dominance within the frame.
I did this in the attic (aka the man room) using a simple lamp, an incense stick (which I loathed the smell off) and a kit lens.
A basic guide
To do this, all is needed along with the above is a some black paper or card a few feet behind the stick for the background. By simply lighting the stick and focusing on the tip of the stick whilst you blow out the flame, you can get some very sharp photographs. The easiest way to do this is by using a tripod with manual focus selected on your lens, with the lamp uplighting the smoke from one side but not enough to notice any light on the background. Of course, a fast shutter speed is needed so an ISO of around 400 will be required. Shooting in RAW is also very advantageous as the exposure can be amended at a later stage.
The above photograph is a collage of different shots taken in July. It was quite successful for a first attempt, especially considering this photographers lack of patience when sitting in a hot loft in the dark!
Thats something I’ll have to try more of in the near future. Although, that all depends on this photographers lack of patience when sitting in a cold loft in the dark!
I took this shot in late August in amongst the condemned buildings on King George Road here in South Shields. This photo was one of the many extras I had from my Condemned Gallery. I took the photo exactly as I found it. I dont really like to move anything around, or create a scene when shooting, it feels too fake to me. I much prefer to just look around and compose a shot around what i find before me.
This is more of a documentary photograph than an arty one this time around, keep things fresh.
My apologies to my *cough* dozens of fans for not uploading a photograph yesterday. I was very worn down from working stupid hours at my mediocre/degrading/pathetic job. The only time I was home was to eat. Hoorah!
For todays Photo of the day from South Shields we have something with more of a fine art feel!
The inspiration for this came from a recent photo competition in Digital Photo magazine in which the aim was to create a piece of photographic artwork. (Incidentally, I entered the competition with a photo from Arbeia) So, with this in mind, I edited a photograph of two oranges and an apple together on a plain white table. Here: this is the original which’ll hopefully make the Photo of the Day that bit better…
To get the arty feel, I then converted the image to a tritone then overlayed a texture of steel from an outdoor stairwell; lastly changing the layer mode to give a mildly transparent feel. (A weird combination, yes. But you don’t know if you don’t try… am I right?)
For someone with a notorious hatred of fine art, I’m actually very pleased with the result!
So there we go: South Shields Photo of the Day… with a twist! (wow - after that I could easily be the love child of Tony Hart and Neil Buchanan)
I took this photo on October 3rd on Hepscott Terrace, South Shields on the way to the Redhead Park! My finacee and I spotted him/her/it strolling along a wall so I took advantage of his charming personality (he liked my fiancee) and snapped a few shots.
Theres been a lot of editing done to this shot to get it exactly right. First off the original shot was under-exposed because I didnt want to increase the ISO any greater than 200 and I had to be quick in case he moved, so I took the under exposed shot in RAW mode (as always) and crossed my fingers I could save it in photoshop.
To do this, I increased the exposure slider as well as the black slider to bring in a bit of detail. Then I lassoed the eyes and edited the curves to get them looking crisper, clearer and a little more punchy.
The finished shot has been sitting in a folder on my desktop collecting virtual dust for a while but I decided to look at it (its pretty impressive incidentally as i could easily print this shot at above A1 size without any loss of quality) and view it actual size. When zooming out I spotted what would make an interesting crop, so back it went into photoshop; and voila!!
I took this bad boy in passing after a shoot in the west park for the sole reason of trying some quadtoning.
I used black for the shadows, teal and cyan for the midtones and yellow for the highlights which you can see… jeez… I was seconds from writing “in the highlights” there. Thats what typing whilst battling a bag of ginger biscuits’ll do to you!!
Im slowly getting the hang of the various toning effects. I like to try to learn new things; keep myself ahead of the pack (Note the insinuation that I’m already there) and develop my skills over a broader range of ideas and techniques.
It’ll soon be time for a ‘Photo of the week’ so I’ll have to get my skates on and get some shooting and editing done.
This photograph was taken on the South Shields side of the River Tyne on October 8th; the day of the QE2’s visit. Now, I know people’ll will be thinking: ‘Why take a photo of the ferry when there’s the bleeding great QE2 across the water?’ Well, thats because I always keep my eye out for a good shot; I have a very keen eye.
I should probably do this now:
Now, as you can see its the Spirit of the Tyne ferry, coming in to the South Shields ferry terminal. The only editing I’ve done to this shot is to slightly alter the hues of the foreground waves from the usual septic brown to a more pleasant blue.
I took this with my Canon Zoom lens with its image stabilisation switched on. You can really appreciate the clarity of the shot in comparison with a regular kit lens. Its like having a macro lens without having to get close and without spending £600!
Okay, so it isnt technically South Shields but it was taken a short walk from the Customs House on the eve of the QE2’s visit. I used my CANON EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS Telephoto Zoom Lens, mounted on a tripod with image stabilisation switched off.
I’d been wanting to capture a photo of the moon for sometime but, obviously, without the zoom lens I really couldnt. Now that I have it of course… we’re talking! Plus, I have my new E60 lens hood which, more than anything, makes me look a lot cooler!
Its not the most crisp photo you’ll find but for my first ever attempt, I hope you’ll agree its not bad! Let me know what you think…
Trying this triptych technique from Digital Photo Magazine, I used a single photo taken in the West Park here in South Shields of a wet leaf on the damp ground. I changed the image mode to greyscale, did a spot of dodging and burning, then did some creative cropping to get each shot.
The West park is a very good place for arty photographers, such as myself, this time of year due to the wealth of fallen leaves which make for the chance to capture some very high detailed shots. Weather pending, I’ll be out again soon.
Perhaps tomorrows photo will be a self portrait of your beloved photographer losing his temper at work for being underpaid… again… for the third month in a row…. thats creativity!!!
