Bill Brandt

One of my favourite photographers is Bill Brant, I love the almost graphic and high contrast soot and whitewash way his images are produced. 

One of his most famous images is of "The Snicket" in Halifax, once on a visit there I found the place where Bill had taken the image and here's my version ...

A link to the original is here ... all $22,000 of it

Pottering About

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of photographing Graham Taylor, a potter from Rothbury in Northumberland working and demonstrating his craft.

I tried to get a different angle on this by featuring his hands at work with a couple of shots.

 Spinning the wheel...

 Forming the pot ...

 Bringing it into shape

 After adding the handle, examining it for faults...

 A drop into the slip and decorating...

 The finished article...

Graham can be contacted on graham@pottedhistory.co.uk
his website ... www.pottedhistory.co.uk

Same Again ...

In one of my earlier blogs I talked about being at the same place to capture it in differing light, these images were all taken within a few hours camping near the beach at Bambrough Northumberland

A rainstorm moves over the scene

During the rain, a rainbow appears across the Farne Islands and Bambrough Castle

The first dawn rays light up the beach and castle

The WW2 defences catch the early sun, love how they have been painted to look like dice!

You can buy this and other prints from
HERE

Portrait or Landscape?

When shooting landscape images I sometimes, well most of the time shoot both a longways shot and an upright and then decide afterwards which I prefer. This is one of the massive advantages of digital as you can take as many shots as you have memory!

The shot below is the famous boathouse on Ullswater in The lake District one January morning and illustrates why its good to shoot bothways!

You can buy this and other prints from
HERE

Gothing About ...

I have just spent an evening in the lovely City of York photographing a Goth Festival, a few images of Gary Newman who headlined at the festival below

A few images of the bands in both The Duchess and Fibbers as part of the same festival

Going Back ...

Its always worth going back to any of your favourite places to take images, I love the village of Staithes on the North Yorkshire Coast and below are 3 images taken from the same spot at different times of the year.

Winter

Summer

And just recently a Midsummer Dawn shot

As you can see the light is so different in each shot

Another Place

This image is one of a few I took when I visited Liverpool a while ago, its Antony Gormley's statues on the beach at Crosby. Each of the 100 life size metal statues stands facing the sea and as the tide goes out they appear one by one from the water, quite a moving site.

Only this evening the sunset was one of the most dramatic I have ever seen

You can buy this and other prints from
HERE

A bit of musing!!!

For many reasons, people often believe that the bigger the lens, or the more expensive the camera, the better the photos.

Having better equipment can yes, improve the quality of a photograph in some ways but not all, of course there is Photoshop, but Photoshop should be used as a tool to improve images, not make a poor image a good one. ... remember ... a better fishing rod does not mean that you will catch more fish!

Learning about your equipment goes a long way to improving your photography, experiment with your camera, try out the controls in varying conditions, it costs nothing but your time to do this, the more you take then better you will become, 

Arnold Palmer the golfer was once told what a lucky golfer he was, he replied ... 

"Its strange that the more I practise the luckier I get"

Mastering techniques, skills, and other knowledge about your equipment can drastically change your outlook on gear you thought you had needed or wanted. By learning what each piece of your equipment can do, you can very quickly narrow down your style, what you enjoy photographing, and what to look for in new equipment. 

Any camera can take and photo, but learn your gear, and learn from different sources and colleagues and of course the internet
. 

Don't forget to constantly revue your images, are they what you wanted, if not why not, what can you do next time to capture the image you want ... practise, practise and practise more!

Before you know it, you will be up and running and capturing compelling, and dramatic images.

Some of my images from Bingley Music Live 2010 ... this year promises to be just as good
Turn your sound up LOUD!!
Featured are, The Buzzcocks, Kassidy, Dreadzone, PIL, Seasick Steve, The Enemy, Example, Prof Green, Reef, The Levellers, The Blackout, James and more... and a cast of thousands!


Bingely Muisc Live 2011

  Worth watching...

The Tall Ships Race

During August 2010 The tall Ships race visited Hartlepool, here are some of my images from the visit. At the moment there is an exhibition of images from the race at Hartlepool Art Gallery

You can buy a selection of prints from the event
HERE

The Tyne Bridge

The other day I went for a stroll about Newcastle Quayside and when crossing the Swing Bridge took this shot, well all 15 shots. This is a stitched image where I used a 50mm standard lens and starting at the top left took 5 shots in a row, then lowered the camera and took another 5 shots in a row and the same along the bottom of the shot. The final image was merged in Photoshop and came out at over 1.5 meters long!... so after a little bit of cropping and cleaning up this image will print at a metre in width with incredible detail

Rojor

Spent the morning with an old friend Rojor, a local musician and songwriter. The idea was to update his images in and around Osmotherly North Yorkshire, but the day became quite eventful as the turbo on my car gave up the ghost and i had to be dragged home by the RAC!... but here's the first image from the shoot

I decided to make it look like an old faded colour photograph using a couple of filters in Lightroom then added a film frame border in Photoshop, I think it works

You can find more about Rojor here on his website

This is a mono conversion in Lightroom with a film rebate added in Photoshop

The background image

The image at the background off this blog is one of my favourite images, it's of the jetty at Ashness on Derwentwater in Cumbria. It was taken early one October morning  as the sun was rising and the mist was rolling across the lake which was very still.

You can purchase a print of this image from my redbubble portfolio .. here

Willowman

This is Steve Williams the man behind the excellent Willowman Festival held in North Yorkshire every summer solstice, and a mean guitar player!

I was very close to Steve when taking this using the 10mm end of my zoom lens, I held the camera at arms length and kept firing away

This is Steve and the fantastic Elliot Randell, I have never heard anyone play the guitar like Elliot, and such a lovely man too

Elliot Randell

STOP PRESS ... 2012 TICKETS ARE AVAILABLE HERE

Cracking it ...

I was asked to capture an image that some other togs had had a go at and not got it right, one photographer had even stood so far back he was almost out of the room to get this shot.

I used a wide angle 18mm lens but put a clear filter over in case molten metal stuck to the glass, I set the shutter speed to 1/30sec so that we would get some movement on the sparks and used flash bounced off the wall behind me to fill in the shadows ... the difficult part was getting the timing right to capture the sparks...I think it worked.

Jonny Rotten

I've photographed the great Jonny Rotten a couple of times in the last year and I have to say he is perhaps the most animated man I have ever photographed but he never moved his feet!

The first shot is at Bingley Music Live in 2010, a festival worth going to, for details on 2011 click here 

Not only Landscapes ...

I also enjoy live music, and over time I have photographed quite a few bands and musicians, this band are The Hitchers based in and around Teesside, if you get the chance to see them please go along, you won't be disappointed

This image was taken using the "All the 8's" technique, set your camera to manual, the shutter to 1/8th sec, the aperture to f8 and the ISO to 800, if you can set your camera flash to fire "rear curtain" so that when you start shooting as the shutter opens the ambient light is recorded and just before the shutter closes the flash fires, try moving or zooming the camera while shooting for some interesting effects

Mr Stevens ...

A few weeks ago i bought a lovely little bright red Transit campervan. Paul the previous owner had called him Mr Spunky, so I thought new owner, new name, so ... Jan and I are great Eddie Izzard fans, well she more than me and there is a very funny lego animation around one of Eddies sketch's about the canteen on the Death Star which is run by Mr Steven's and of course Mr Izzard is a well know transvestite .. tranny!  

Mr Steven's at Bambrough Castle Northumberland...

Staithes Dawn

I spent the night of 30th June in my campervan "Mr Stevens" on the cliff top near Staithes in North Yorkshire, I have been trying to get the shot of the sun rising across the village for sometime. At stupid o'clock I woke and along with my faithful hound Peggy went the short distance to take the shot. On the cliff top I was attacked by seagulls protecting their young, what we go through as photographers!! ... well I got the shot

You can purchase a print of this image from my redbubble site ... here

This picture below shows the setup I used to take the shot, my Nikon d200 is fitted with a Sigma 10/20mm Zoom with a Hitech filter holder and a .9 ND Graduated filter, this image was shot on my Blackberry!

.