Bugle Blog - maxblackphotos.

Maximise

1/31/2014

Still sounding like a bad impression of Darth Vader with Bronchitis..thanks for asking...it'll pass or kill me....meh..
Anyway Getty and Istock shooters have you had the call yet ????.....had mine this morning...so they want me to up mobile phone shots to Getty Image moments...yes mobile shots...lets just have a ponder..... world's biggest image libraries wanting to market and make money out of mobile shots...well whoopy doo if they sell any of mine but surely an overstuffed market of images will have it's seams sorely tested by something like this, jaded picture buyers and editors screaming 'ENOUGH.....' dedicated SLR shooters tossing D800's into the bin and studio managers mothballing gear...okay, it's not the end of the world and if I was a big image library I'd want as many good selling images on my books as possible, for them it's a big no lose situation, regular image suppliers will see this as a way of clawing back sales and picture buyers will look upon these images as being, (besides stealing off the net) the cheapest way to get some images into their online content... so does that make everyone happy???
Well maybe it says more about the rocketing upward curve of quality available from a phone, I still salute and am in awe of the quality of image produced by the Nokia 925 that those folk at Nokia gave me to play with and with all the Post production toys available in phone or on a computer it's relatively easy to 'stylize' an image so is this the tipping point...is this along the lines of when George Eastman introduced the Kodak Box Brownie and the democratisation of photography was born, an explosion of images and, as a bonus, all the peripheral business that expanded with it, mounts, labs, competitors, frames, retailers and hadware.....

Here's link to the app...apparently you have to have you're Getty log in details to make it work but have a look as this could be the future of Online Image Libraries... Moments

I started this off with Maximise, and that really is what I try and do with any shoot these days, so from Spain, I had the holiday snaps which are now on Snapfish, the 'arty' stuff which goes on here, the stock images which will be on alamy later and the book cover images that will be off on their way as soon as i finish this. So when I'm out with the camera I'm always on the look out for images that will fit into certain areas, which is all about maximising your time, your camera time, give it a try...here are some Book cover shots about to go off...

Working it.

1/30/2014

So I made an exec decision and I'm going mono with the shots from Spain, that include some of the multi exposure stuff as well so without further ado, oh the chest infection you ask, getting there but get your cagoule on if I start hacking.....

Salt caked.

So longish lens shooting into the sun with a 6 exposure in camera multi shot, just remember that the longer the lens the less you have to 'move' the camera during your exposure run. This one babove is 6 shots working downwards until I ended up shooting the sea, remember that the last frame you take will become the dominant part of the image...lots of ship movements around Algeciras.....

Playground

Boats again but the technique modified to achieve this result, very slight movements during the seperate exposures, this is all in camera btw, only conversion work is todo the mono. One thing you have to look out for is dirt and boulders on your sensor...6 exposure multi's means that much more spotting out later so keep your sensor cleaning regime up to the mark. The one below is Vigin Atlantic waiting on the apron which looked like it might work as a multi shot whilst I had a sandwich

Virgin Atlantic

...and to finish off one from the beach...it was 18 degrees...I thought it was hot!!! Locals didn't

Safety

Keen eyed viewers will have noticed the re-emergence of the 16 x 9 crop format on the landscape format shots, if you hadn't then ...er... you've just been told...

Now

1/29/2014

don't come too close and whatever you do try not to lick any emails from me....for I have a chest infection that scares horses and makes toddlers burst into tears..7 days it's been with me know and as it's a viral one , no anti biotics.......grrrrrr.....so I have to let it run it's course even though , to the casual observer, I look as though I'm melting inside my clothes and auditioning as a bird scarer....well that's not the only thing I brought back from Spain
Had a great time, thanks for asking, up in the hills at Gaucin and Ronda....crazy towns perched on rockfaces, even crazier tiny roads with no discernible right of way....loved it, so fresh and clear and of course a plethora of photo opps....
Now just before I went off my graphics card coughed and expired on it's perch and I won't go through all the grisly details but for chuffs sake AMD, if you provide driver software can you make sure it works!!!!!! I've been running on VGA so went back in and did a custom install and waheeeeyyy...super gl smooth enhanced graphics.... nice..... coughing as I type....so cream crackered with this that I watched daytime telly yesterday...dear God, the horror, the horror, was it Thumpers Dad that said 'if you aint got nothing good to say , don't say nothing....' I could be wrong on the quote but you get the gist.
Okay in a quandry, do I do this first lot of shots in mono or leave the inispid winter med sunlight in them??????

I'll stick a colour gallery up first because I have a lot oferrr....'quirky' ones to show you from vertical panoramas to jiggy sea shots..... more pills and fluid and I'll crack on......

On Tour

1/16/2014

..I can hear the collective sigh..look I've not been on a trip since France in November, which reminds me there is a big dollop of images filed away somewhere...hmmm okay off to Gibraltar and then into the hills of Spain overlooking the Med, all batteries being charged as I type, I'll give the sensor one more waft..I use this stuff now Eclipse, probably outlive my camera, loads in the bottle and very good at wafting away the nodules. Taking the polarisers as well as the ND's there will be a smidgeon of stock image shooting and probably a lot of me wafting wobbling and shaking the camera and I'll be packing all 600mm of my cream crackered but oh so sharp Nikon tele as we saw lots of Eagles and Storks last time but they do look a wee bit crap shooting on a 50mm..so unless I can think of anything else I'll catch you on the other side in about 10 days... some of the alternative stuff I've been doing for some libraries recently, done wearing one of my many other photography hats... TFI friday for tomorrow and get out there and get shooting.

Google +

1/15/2014

Well I think I need to go on an online training video but I seem to have got the hang of the basics of sharing. Okay I've had a 'presence' on there for a while but that was all to do with the Photowalk stuff from the last 2 years and as we are into a new year I thought I'd see what happens with this aspect of photo sharing social media. So I joined a lot of photography groups yesterday and made a beginners mistake by leaving the group notifications on, if you like a full inbox then do that, so quickly reversed the notification thing and have stumbled through the next phase of learning which is the 'sharing' thing...I know I'm on the cusp of old dufferdom but it really isn't intuitive, I'll go and look at some training videos with a strong cup of coffee and try to absorb some of the finer points...surely it must be simple...if not I'll just sit there until something sticks.
On other news I updated to Windows 8.1...colours a bit brighter and snappier icons but I'm struggling to see what the difference is, probably due to my imminent dufferdom and lack of intrest in the whole thing.
Sent off another file of book cover photos ( photos used in the loosest sense) and let the caffeine and creativity wander off into areas anew...have a look at this one...mildly barking I've got to admit but as ever, most of these are dotted along the learning curve so if they get rejected, well at least I've learnt something new in Photoshop....
Oh you'll find me here https://plus.google.com/u/0/+DavidJohnsonphotography/posts

Load of Cock

There are Good days

1/11/2014

and then there are exceptional days, yesterday was one of those photographically speaking. Yahoo asked me if they could use some of my 'creative' images on some of their main pages, yep no money will change hands but I hope the exposure will take care of that...er sold a sackful of International licences for Book cover images..okay all European this time, still no UK sales and the ISBNs are not on Amazon yet but I'll link things so you can have a look, Swedish, French and Italian this time.... one of my American retail sites sold some stadium sized canvases of Harleys and V dubs which I just got the statement for..er money to follow but not soon.... now 99% of the time I get emails that go straight in the bin, the tumbleweed blows through my retail sites and I check the 5p jar upstairs as a 'just in case...'.... Now I get asked 'How can I make money out of my Photographs online?' Truth is it does take years to build up a big enough Portfolio of online images, the competition is intense and fierce and there are no guarantees that you'll sell anything and as I type, more and more images go online. So it's tough, my attitude is that it's really just like any Pension Plan...by the time my eyes and creativity go I'll have x thousand images out there, they may not pay a living wage but they'll most certainly earn enough to supplement things in retirement if you want to see what's out there go and have a look here BAPLA
now these are just British Image Libraries..have a look around Europe, then America and Australia...then you have all the retail sites.....hundreds all willing to sell your images...it's a lot of competition..but if your image(s) is good enough then you might find a buyer..but it may take some time.
I really need to get stuck into some book cover images but I'm running with this multi image stuff at the moment have a look here at the new Dovestones ones. What I had planned to do is on the back burner but I've got a clock ticking and I need to have got through as many of these ideas as I can over these next few months.
Oh just one more thing, I took down the training page as the weather has really been awful, okay it's not stopped me going out..but there are a ton of searches going on (I can see how many are looking through my site stats page) especially these last 3 months...got to say I won't be doing any organised training but please ask if you arn't clear about how things are done or want to go for a wander and pick up some tips just email me or use the comments boxes....right..still need to empty the cellars..hmmm although the rain has stopped and the sun has come out.......

Grim

1/9/2014

That's how I feel..spent all day yesterday emptying out one of the cellar rooms, bit damp but i found a trunk full of stuff from my old Photo college days..not sure if it was handling that stuff or working in the damp spore ridden atmosphere but I've woken up with aches in all my old sporting injuries ...and there are a lot of those..so pain killer, a boil in adeep bath and some double strength caffeine based beverage and I'm off out into the hills.
I want to see how this in camera multi shooting looks when using long focal length lenses, why you may ask, well, because I can. When I started typing the sun was bursting through scudding clouds but now it's all gone a bit fuggy and grey...trip to the BBC weather forecast to check out what is going on. Here's one from yesterday, box of old dolls that are now off to Gorton tip, actually the mood of this looks a bit like I feel at the moment..where's that caffeine???

Distracted

1/8/2014

Plans were for some woodland and landscape imagery to take up most of my time this January but as ever serendipity has swooshed into view and the in camera multi exposure stuff has taken over some what, keen eyed viewers will have noticed there is already a 2014 Galleries page up and running which of course will be added to as the year progresses. I'm also up to date with my processing, a first, so what I shoot will now almost...almost immeadiatley appear on here...yeh right.. so here are some wet pavement stalker images.

Now you may think I've either been on the giggle juice or had a bout of macular degeneration with the next lot but these are the actual colours. The fountain has a light show built underneath it and if you time things right with the multi exposure shots you'll end up with shots like this

Apologies also go out to the Photographer with the tripod who had to put up with me standing in the fountain whilst he went for his killer shot...sorry..you can always 'shop me out. Right lot to do, I'll crack on and I've not even sniffed a coffee yet

Shooting in the Wet

1/7/2014

There are cameras and phones out there that are sealed up, can be used down to 5m below the surface, heck my brother in law used to drop his olympus into his pint pot as a party trick...but what if you just have ..well..a camera. Now I was out last night in the rain and at some points in time standing in the dancing water plumes of Piccadilly gardens fountain.. So I have 2 ways of not soaking the old D700. i have an small water proof bag from Ikea that can accomodate the camera and lens and more importantly has a big flap on the top..flap open camera out shot camera back in flap flipped.. okay it dosn't stop all the precipitation so on those occasions when tipple becomes torrent I have a large sandwich bag, a selection of elastic bands...go to live view, camera in the bag and where the opening is put one or two lazzy bands around part of the lens barrel that arn't designed to rotate...so total cost about £3.95 excluding of course the meatballs and coffee you have at Ikea when getting the bag...get your Cagoule on and get out there and shoot in the rain, wet streets shiny pavements, motion, movement...it's all there in the wet. Here's one from last night stood in Piccadilly Fountain whilst the water shot up and the rain trickled down
Just been emailed that I'm on redbubble's front page again...Metrolink http://www.redbubble.com/found?utm_campaign=published_to_found&utm_medium=email&utm_source=RB

Blue Hour shooting

1/6/2014

Oh the Weather outside is frightful...but...just right for street reflections, scudding cloud and messing about. I was in Stockport for some test shooting during the Blue Hour...something I've ignored for most of my photographic life (Blue Hour not Stockport). Not now though as I think it opens up a lot of opportunities and I'll try and exploit them and I think there are a lot of techniques that can be used to exploit those conditions, here's a couple..

But I'm starting to populate the galleries with them so here are some more

So a trip into Manchester later after I've cleared out more junk from the cellar, 3 car loads last week and another 3 or 4 today...quite therapeautic...

There are 3 new images in the Solute gallery right at the start

A walk into Manchester

1/3/2014

Time to get fitter at the Max household as I walk myself fit, the drinking plan seems not to have worked yet again. So mega walk into Manchester from Stockport(and back again) so why not take the camera along for company.. I'll put up a gallery later on but here are a few early shots, just to say that for once I got out the kitchen sink and threw as many techniques at some of these shots as I could organise mentally so although the walk is progressive, the genres of shooting are anything but.

So there you have it, one walk and a bagful of different ways of recording what I saw. So Mirrorwork, panning, wide open aperture, multi in camera work walking multis and some other stuff i havn't christened yet...get out there and get snapping.

It's another Year...

1/1/2014

..well , dear reader, here we are 2014 and all that, don't know what you lot have planned but by early summer I'll be putting all my planning into practice..I'll be enigmatic and not mention it again...hmmmm life changing I think...
Still there's lots of images to create and lots of boulders to scrape off my sensor..I've ordered a big bottle of fluid off amazon, plenty of swabs just need to get in there and do some dislodging...
Photographically very busy towards the end of last year, lots of project based stuff and hoicking stuff up onto image library sites, check out my New Images page for all the latest, just letting Lightroom pull in a load of shots I did in Bath on monday, lets see what comes out and I may post later today, full day of footie action to listen to whilst I process and later on all the neighbours in for drinks and things and New Year cajoling. Off out again tomorrow as the BBC is saying 'sunshine' I hope they didn't have their fingers crossed behind their collective backs.... so one from Sunday to finish off with... fairly wide with the 105...