King Charles rural estate in the South West of Scotland. Still on shooting square 1x1 format in the Nikon Z6ii with a 50mm F1.8 and the feint slap of a Lightroom preset which is almost akin to giving them a 'Toy Camera' look.
​As most big country estates, the gardens change with the seasons, so here we are in early spring when nature is just about waking up to another season of growth.

Who knows how long it will take me to process all of these image files????? Great 3 weeks down in New Zealand, grand tour around the South Island with base camp being Nelson on the South Island coast...so where to begin. Most of the shots will end up on Image libraries but here are a few to get started.

You know where this is going...this is just generative expand in Photoshop...no skill required.... the small ones are the original files...but you knew that!!

He famously used a Leica and 50mm lens but I thought I'd see what images he could have created with a 50mm anamorphic lens. It's all witchcraft by the way

Being out in the wilds of Ayrshire means I really haven't got  a lot of new 'reflection' based images to play with but I do have plans..... So here is one from Manchester daze...

First image is as shot, light on a shop window with buildings reflected, second image is the reflections wiped away in Camera Raw...I know...CAMERA RAW...who uses that???? So it has an intensity slider which allows you to move from the full reflection to no reflection to what actually is in the window display...and that is what the 3rd image is, you can just about make out the glasses in the first image on the left hand side.
I will put my diminishing mind to working on a project for this...Glasgow city centre will be the destination...this could be fun

​#reflections #cameraraw #photoshop #adobe

Modern life eh?? Do we need cameras anymore?? What is real??
I have a marvellous Sirui 50mm T2,9 anamorphic lens, which for me is great as it's like stepping back quite a few decades to manual focus, keeping all the planes at right angles and really having to think about frame filling content.
But what if you just want to keep the kit lens, all the in camera assistance from your state of the art black box? Top image is shot with an old 20mm F2.8 Nikkor via an adaptor, I kept shutter and aperture fixed but enabled auto ISO to take up the slack and all of course...manual focus.
Bottom image just the same but image area expanded to anamorphic proportions in Photoshop and 'Generative Expand' clicked..the software does the rest. Have a close look, it's an anamorphic image but created by AI. I allow my images on Adobe Stock to be used as reference images by AI and it brings in a meagre amount of cash,but I've not had to invest a huge sock of cash to get a full on anamorphic lens. Maybe now we just have a 50mm F1.8 and let generative fill work the rest out for us....maybe not long until it's all done in-camera...it's the future...I've tasted it.

....and that's nearly a wrap.... this last year has mainly been feeding the Getty monster with all manner of Scottish landscape images as I trek around in the camper van in all the weather that Scotland decides to launch in my direction.
 Still, time for a bit of personal stuff (yes I know...it's all personal stuff) and mono is always there at the forefront. I was musing the other day that I still have Ronnie the Bronica (S2a) and maybe he should have a runout this year as it's....drum roll...... 50 years since we met across a crowded room or was that the ads section of the local rag..hmmm. Tanks , chemicals and a dobbing great Durst 600 enlarger and maybe a red or yellow filter. Different days and masking usually entailed a bit of cut out cardboard or twisting your hands into origami esqu shapes...calmer, quieter days as each frame cost real money, so you really took some care before hitting the shutter release.
So the image above is what I have found interesting when converted into Black and White..all these toys in Lightroom, I can imagine me talking to my younger self from back in the day trying to explain how taking an image has changed...wouldn't know where to start. Voice activated AI enhanced is probably not that far away in exchange for a monthly subscription, you may find that you want to talk to your younger self from 50 years in the future explaining how tricky Lightroom was and thank God for the multiple brain implants that allow you to 'imagine' imagery on a screen or possibly floating in space and roll your eyes at the thought of keyboards and monitors.

​Oh well done for surviving 2024, here's to 2025

​Sitting here keywording is and can be an onerous task..mind melting even though 'keyword suggestions' does ease the need to be creative with you keywording. I run a 2 monitor system so work on one screen, play on the other. Could be sport, news or at times training packages.
So as the 'Latest Updates' Adobe youtube videos played out one caught my attention...

'What's that you say? Get rid of reflections without a Polariser, Just by the click of a button??????' Well yes, but at the moment only in Camera Raw, just enable technology updates and then restart Camera Raw and click on the retouch icon and a panel will appear at the bottom...and that's it really.

You can alter the strength of the remove from the reflection itself to no reflection at all. okay early days and I'm sure it will be tweaked before it's added to Lightroom. Image above is the 2 extremes with the original file in the middle...I think there is a Street photo project in here somewhere.

​So this is just one image file, top one the 'reflection' in the window, middle the image as shot and bottom most of the reflection whisked away by the magic of Camera RAW...Witchcraft

I've been informed that I am a Beta tester on Adobe Firefly Video...text to video, this could be fun. 

​Lots of new images on Getty

#cameraraw #removereflections#adobe #photoshop #rawfiles

Actually up here in a vain bid to search for some snowy scottish landscape.....which for once I found. Firstly up on the edge of the Cromarty Firth near Kingston on Spey on a wild weather based jaunt.
Old Skool snapping as nearly full manual (auto-Iso enabled) 20mm f2.8 on the Z6ii via a connector, Zone focussing, in camera focus peaking, f11 set, zone focus manual set from infinity to .5 metres...and fingerless gloves...BN conversion in Lr ...... wysiwyg so really point and shoot manual...bend those creaky knees and get snapping.

Well it is that Autumnal time of the year... an oldie but turns out to be goldie from outside kelvingrove in Glasgow from 2012.....2012...I could crouch down on damp grass in those days and no eek, oohs and ahhs when trying to get up again. So the great and the good image buyers out there in interweb land have downloaded this 28 times in the last couple of weeks which financially means i can have a cake added to my usual 'getty paid for' hot Chocolate...if this had sold in those numbers back in 2012 I would be planning a holiday but such is the market of Royalty Free imagery as opposed to Rights managed  then things are now as cheap as chips....still it's all passive income of sorts.
​ Click the link here to all the new stuff I'm posting on Getty

Well there you go, sign up for something not expecting anything in return and.....kerching...result!
I signed up through my Adobe image file library so they could be used for incorporation into Firefly created images. They would be only partial fees as bits of images would be used in the creation of new image files. To be honest it is not a huge amount of money for this month but it's the start of a new way of revenue from my image files. It has inspired me to upload more images to Adobe rather that the well trodden path to Getty.

Back all those years ago when social media was still in nappies and the way to get your stuff out there was 'Photo Sharing' sites, I started with a Shutterchance site and , as is they way of things, started getting noticed by the great and the good (and the odd), why not have a Flickr account  one of my contacts said...maybe a 500px site.....and so on....throw in the lightroom/photoshop learning curve and all your time is suddenly dedicated to feeding the monsters and getting those all important likes.....
​Lets chuck some back history in here...I've been taking photographs and more importantly to me creating images for over 50 years now...50....what happened?? From 10 x 8 cibachromes to half frame to point and shoot onwards to the digital revolution and finally Full-frame digital, it has been fun...and this is where a problem starts to rear its head...is your motivation to create an image to be liked, for that important thumbs up and gushing comment????? Is your creativity curbed by the need to feed your ever increasing group of ardent followers? Would you run back to conformity if your most recent image had the Tumbleweed treatment? (lot of question marks in this post)

I binned my first flickr account...it was out of control...world-wide reposting of images..comments likes, questions, companies wanting to use my work as " the exposure would be beneficial to me" which meant no cash was forthcoming of course...so I had a rethink...new flickr account, do things that I found a challenge and start my own site, hop onto Image Library sites and let the paying customer decide if my image hits the mark.

​So to now and Instagram has become a video site, facebook the home of inanity (is that a word)? but if you are not at all bothered by likes then there is an option....Google Maps...you get the views without the guff. Phone or camera...it doesn't matter really, just images relevant to where you are and you can add places as well.

​Okay lots of drivel to read through but I find it so much better than sharing sites and social media and then of course there are the views of your images.... thanks for getting this far everyone

Oh and on average 42,000 views every month from all my postings....no cost, no hassle, no brainer.
​                                                      #maxblackphotos #maxblack #bugleblog.

​Best selling image....but why?? I've mentioned this 'walking' panorama of Oxford road before and  how it's been on a world wide journey and now it's been picked up by Microsoft publishing.....and Time publishing....if only the income it generates would pay for more than a tin of beans....if only

#oxfordroad #gettyimages #bestseller #manchester #maxblack

​Well I'm quite used to having all the seasons here in one day, West coast of Scotland has always been that way, green for a reason!! But we had another storm which followed a frosty night which then developed into an all day thunderstorm that, on the following day, was almost spring-like!! So a selection of Anamorphic images that will give you an idea of what a difference a day makes.

​

Although we have weathered the storms of recent times it looks like the Jet stream is about to head south, hopefully bringing clear and crispy light....we hope. So for the moment we have this grey duvet of fug hanging around but that was never a reason not to want to go out and capture images.

So here I am in Helensburgh on a grim grey day supporting various family members at a Christmas designer fair. I've called into Helensburgh many a time but just to see Rennie Macintoshes amazing architecture but this time a quick wander around the streets until folk start to pile in at the event, which they did, well done Helensburgh!.
​So some snaps from a wander, you may have noticed the imagery has been more than sensible with the Sirui anamorphic...it may be about to change.

​500 keepers to work through still from last week up on the Moray Firth with this small batch from the coast from Lossiemouth across to Kingston on Spey. Some of the paths flooded this time thanks to Babet and Ciaran and the coastline has had pebbles hurled all over the place.
So looking into Lightroom to see what i've ignored in the past...Colour Grading being one of them, although I have been spending time in the perspective and lens correction panel. more of that on another post. I found a mix I liked and copied and then pasted the settings into the other files...I think it's called workflow ! Anyhow concrete and pebbles from the far North.

Was it only this time last week when it was clear blue skies and a hint of warmth up on the Moray coast??  Meh, it's Scotland so don't forget your coat. Now Brodie is a National Trust property so these could never find their collective way onto any of my Image Libraries so they'll have to have some sort of life here on the blog. Everything closed, even the Enormous White Rabbit but the light was good and the skies were filled with a huge amount of Wild Geese. 

​Now this format is 'Social Media ' unfriendly but I will post a 'square one' later.

Kingston on Spey, one of my all time favourite beaches, often overlooked as it is on the 'wrong side' of the River Spey, if you are into Dolphin watching that is. The recent storms have really churned up this part of the coast with most of the footpaths that run behind this pebbly beach flooded.

​#kingstononspey #beach #moray #anamorphic #sirui50mm #scotland #seascape

Out for a wander into the edges of the Galloway Forest which is a mile and a bit from where I live. As per norm at the moment it's the Nikon Z6ii and Sirui 50mm T2.9 weightily attached to it. manual mode still, shutter at 1/80th, ISO on auto and a very short twiddle of the T ring.... oh and focus peaking switched on to give these bleary old eyes some assistance. I seem to be in the groove now and have found all manner of weird barreling that can be induced from how the camera is angled against planes and verticals.
​The light was a movable feast, mainly overcast with brief interludes of sun. The leaves on the trees from flame red to deep green.
Processing follows what is becoming a well trodden route, into Lightroom, de-squeezed in Photoshop and back for a whack with the Lightroom bat to round things off. Now there already is a full colour gallery under The Letterbox above, but I've taken it a bit further. The processing is using the Lightroom B+W Infra-Red preset and nipping off to adjust the exposure/contrast/highlight balance...and this is what it looks like. Off to The Highlands so lets see what damage can be done up there.

The Tik-Tok hype around the Fuji X100v has done a couple of things...drive up the price of this little thing and also make it as scarce as an honest Cabinet minister, but it's one thing to have the 'must have' point and shooter, the other is to wring out all the juice inside this compact and complex machine. 
So I've had mine for 3 years now, the initial learning curve was a steep, X-trans files and Adobe not being the best of bedfellows but there was the amorphous mess of Capture One to get to know, maybe I was too much of a newbie to that package of software but it seemed to me to have an intuitive bypass...anyhow Lightroom has now moved forward considerably and, at last, makes a good partnership with the X100v....I know beginning to ramble.
So, I have being using the X100v for stock shooting, Getty seemed to get on well with files but Adobe Stock always threw them back with a 'Technical issues' rider attached...arghhh.
Nikon Z6ii hove into view and all issues solved so for the last 18 months , when I've had the time, it's been out and about with the Nikon with the feint whimpers of the Fuji being heard from a zipped up camera bag so as the question at the top says, 'But what to do with the X100v ???
Because it's internal processing is exemplary I have decided to shoot just Jpegs and there are formidable film simulation apps inbuilt and an array of doohickeys to enable, not forgetting I have ND1000 and CPL filters to chuck into the mix. So a quick wander shooting in 'Social Media friendly' square format and just the Toy Camera function enabled, I also set the aperture at F8, shutter at 1/60th and let the ISO automatically square the triangle, next time will be different but for now this is what I saw.