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.

image courtesy of the bbc

Im sure you are by now all aware of the current situation involving Jonathon Ross, Russell Brand and Andrew Sachs (who starred as Manuel in Fawlty Towers along side Prunella Scales and John Cleese) on Brands radio show.

If you haven’t, the basics are that Ross and Brand left several foul mouthed derogatory messages on Sachs answer phone regarding what Brand got up to with Sachs granddaughter and pretty much spiraled out of control from there. Even to the stage where the pair talked of Sachs’ likely suicide over the messages.

Now, unless I’m very much mistaken (which I doubt) thats illegal. So what do the BBC do? Clear the radio show to be aired.

Its since come to my attention that both have been suspended. 

Oh how awful. That’ll hurt them. Ross’ £2million contract suspended. By my count hes already earned himself about £1.7million this year already from doing pretty much sod all! The BBC’s biggest asset (how tempting to remove the ‘et’) is suspended. Even if he was fired you could be sure Channel4 would come knocking before the BBC’s boot had left Ross’ derriere! ‘Suspended’ is little more then a slap on the wrist compared to what others who arent sleeping in a mountain of money receive a criminal record for! So why no criminal record for Ross?

As for Brand, well, hes known for being controversial. Hes controversial as a person. Its what makes him him. Its what he does. 

A serial killer kills people. Its what they do. After the 5th or 6th kill, do they get hit with a slipper at speed and told not to be naughty? Not that I’ve heard! 

So why is no formal action being taken against these two idiots. As this photographer and monologist sees it: both should be prosecuted for what is ultimately a crime.

Brand can be expected to be an utter cretin. Surley someone of Ross’ stature would have at least a little common sense, a little more class, a little bit of respect for a 78year old man!!!

Apparently not…

Witness my first foray into photographing smoke!

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)

And here we have it: The Photo of the Week!!

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!!

Lets call him/her/it: Jester.

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.

For now, adios!

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!

Stay tuned for more photos from South Shields, daily at http://www.jrmarnie.wordpress.com.

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…