Bugle Blog - maxblackphotos.

Well

3/29/2013

even though Di is in hospital she left me a little pile of Easter egss...so I had them for breakfast..hey the wild and crazy batchelor life for me at the moment...later I'll be potting on tomato seedlings...living the dream folks.... anyway photographic stuff but first..I hope the easter Bunny has delivered all you wished for..I've wished for Blackpool to beat Blackburn today..not much to ask for I thought..
On the new images page is a quick photo essay I've done into the shuttered and closed world of Stockports retailing face...it really is grim. It's a straight point and shoot and straight onto here thing, no post work on any, I just wanted it to be as it is. All shot on the super easy to point and click Nokia Lumia 920 that , if you are a blog reader, will be heartily sick of hearing about.it..it's going back by the way but you can get your hands on one and have a faffle about...Nokia connects get your hands on a Lumia...and yes I really like it as a street snapping quick and easy point and shoot machine..I will be upgrading from my (I like it but it's stupid) Nokia N8 when this contract runs out...here are some street monos..straight off the camera desat black and whites...

Looking at the data it seems to be a constant f2.0 with auto or some fixed point iso settings the usual flash settings and either a 16-9 or 4-3 shooting crop. The only thing it needs is a quick +3 in either Lightroom, Raw or Photoshops lens correction setting to get over some barrelling...There are macro, backlight and a host of 'stuff' that can funk up your shooting from the apps store. I did my hardest to get the ND filters working with it but it always tried it's best toi get that shutter open and closed as quickly as possible..hmmmm... I didn't have a sim that would fit this so i couldn't unlock a lot of features but as a point and shoot handsome brute of a camera..well it's so nice and easy to use..you can put all your thinking into the composition and content..personally I'd like a RAW or Tiff option but I'll live with a jpeg...oh and Ferrari Red..oh yes..vvvvv nice. Right those tomatos wont pot themselves..

Cream Crackered..

3/28/2013

Apologies for the late posting, I promised links and I've only just managed to sit down now....got in at 11.30 from Lancaster Photographic Society thanks to Christian and all the others who made me welcome and sat through 2 hours of me wiffling along...you all deserve medals and probably at some time in your lives get one.... and then I had to be up and out at 6 to get Diana to Hospital for her Hip replacement op....she went in at 13.30....blimey NHS thats a long time for someone not to have had eaten or had a drink...any way I'll go back later so it's time for me to catch up with all the internet gubbins stuff....
I promised links and here they are

ExposurePlot
http://www.cpr.demon.nl/prog_plotf.html

Joel Tintjlaar
http://www.bwvision.com/

Rescuing a Pigs Ear landscape Shot
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDfs9HMHl3Q&list=PLA453D6CE005DCE09

Right lots to do. Another chat to polish for next week...what happens if you are confronted with the same material to shoot all the time...well time to put your creative hat on and change your style....that'll be at Poulton Photog Society next Thursday

here's another barking one....

Frank 'Warhol' Sidebottom.

Talks...

3/25/2013

2 different talks to put together for this week.
Off to Lancaster Photographic Society on Wednesday to give a talk about Black and White. Lots of tips and processing tricks as well as how I shot various projects, what gear , settings......lets hope the weather dosn't get worse and shuts the M6 and then Poulton Photo Soc to give a talk opn Blackpool promenade...?? oh yes it's about seeing the familiar in different ways...the kitchen sink of styles is getting chucked at this one.......
Small matter of my better half getting a new hip replacement wedged in the middle and finalising all the stuff for Manchester Castlefield artisan market as well as still running th Nokia Lumia 920 creative testing....this is not a whinge or a rant btw....just up to my eyes in it at the mo... Most impostant thing is staying warm and can i ask...where the chuff is all this snow...Stockport, nothing, nada, zippo...just cold....

Stockport-Shut for business....

...and I've got to cobble this shoot of all of Stockports shut shops, boy that was a downer, but did find some small specialist shops giving it a go..

Nokia Mash up

3/21/2013

I know , you're probably thinking 'When will this camera phone stuff stop....' well soon but not before we have a look at a Nokia Mash up...

So I've printed this off as an A3+ and I 've got to say..that little lens packs a crispy punch. Just to help things along I do a little high pass sharpening masked and then selectively painted back in...yep...CS6 bollocks....but for a jpeg original it suprisingly takes the sharpening without looking naff. I have a hard light copy layer run through the High Pass filter at 1.9 pixels...more CS6 bollocks....mask it out paint it in and then use the opacity to fine tune...it's quicker doing it than typing..... I've also got to thank the nice folk at Nokia for retweeting my Nokia Gallery...big billy booster on the viewing stats...thankyou. Today will be about finalising a couple of talks I'm giving and then finish off all the images for my artisan fair appearences.........

Black and Whites

3/20/2013

with the Nokia 920 are really good quality. Jpegs are a bit tricky to load into Photoshop, mainly as I'm missing all the Nokia Software and am dragging images off the phone by using it as an extra drive on my computer. There are problems with the blue areas in that if you push them they do get that granular over processed 'jpeg' look. Having a RAW option would be nice but what the heck, we are talking Point and Shoot here, the simplest way to take an image, half press, wait till it focuses and blam, on the card. As a city street snapper this is quite a good machine, most people don't bat an eyelid as you hold up your phone as opposed to poking a stonking big SLR straight into their chops would induce scurrying and head turning. in many ways it makes or helps you become a more honest photographer, non of this 'shooting from the hip' stuff that seems to dominate street shooting at the moment. In fact there is no hiding place for this big Ferrari red shiny block of a machine, I found that once you hold it up to take a shot more people actually look towards it. So as a 'hiding in plain site' street shooting camera I'd say that this is a good one. So some black and whites from the other day, just given a wafty once over in CS6. If you want to see what the results of a 2 hour walk around Manchester look like...well then here they are ......Nokia 920 Manchester wander.
So on to test the Nokias low light capabilities, it seems to be one of it's strengths.....

On a processing note... +3 in CS6's lens correction filter will sort out most of the distortion that the 26mm Carl Zeiss gives....

First Shots..with the 920

3/18/2013

It really is a very easy to use piece of kit...well seeing as there is no sim card and my Nokia sim is too big I will be using this as a point and shoot and as such it does a really good job.
Autofocus is snappy although I blew it's brains a bit by shooting into the sun. Good range of ISO settings although for point and shoots sake I'll leave it on auto.The image you've captured swipes off screen, good reminder that you've taken a shot. The large bright screen is nicely saturated although I found, for my taste that a gentle tickle in CS6 popped the images a bit more. Shoots in a default 16-9 format which looks great on the screen
As I can't download the Nokia software I've had to go on a convoluted route to get the images into CS6. Dragging from the Windows image file into CS6 just won't happen, neither does clicking to open in bridge...for a start it dosn't recognise the file type and I had the same problem with Bridge in that the file type wasn't recognised. So...open in Windows Viewer and then in the drop down click open in Photoshop...click off the 'windows drive' screen and , after a pause it's there in Photoshop...okay if you have a sim card and are fully connected this will not be a problem, it's just how I've had to sort out getting images off the Nokia by treting it as a new drive. Odd that Photoshop dosn't recognise the file type.... Now there are a lot of toys available once you can access and download from the nokia app site but this will be point and shoot, got to say it really is a lovely, but big piece of kit and in Ferrari Red...hmmmmmm..I like it. Okay here are the first snaps from a walk through the Heatons shopping on saturday...

A walk to the shops using the Nokia 920

It's here

3/16/2013

That there Nokia Lumia 920 has arrived, mine for 2 weeks courtesy of those nice folk at Nokia. What a piece of uber smooth lightning fast lovliness it is, feels like one big chuck of high quality tech. So I will be stretching it's legs over the next few weeks, I'll stick a special page up so you can see what I've been getting up to. So a day of printing the remainder of my mash upa and then off out shooting next week for some new ones. have a good one this weekend, I unfortunately have to watch all the Rugby..it's the law apparently. see you on the other side.

Well..

3/15/2013

thanks to all you new folk for popping in and having a look at my Manchester Mash up images and for the retweets over there on that twitter.
Today I will be mainly show casing my artisan woodworking talents as I jimmy up a display 'area' for all the images and stuff that I've been filling the spare bedroom with. It's got to be collapsible and not bigger than the back of the new motor..a Kia Soul tempest...I know, I'm far too old to be seen driving one of those but hey, if it's good enough for a hamster and LMFAO...well it's good enough for me.
So after going to bed listening to the cricket I already feel cream crackered but as ever ..must crack on Oh almost forgot I answered a tweet the other day, as you do, and I thought it was one of those spam/wind ups but awesomely it appears not to be... Nokia want me to get all creative with one of their Lumia 920 phones...yes..mad...I will of course be wringing the bejesus out of it..well just had an email from DHL saying it's on it's way....funny old world this virtual one we all live in, ...anyway the stuff I do over the next few weeks will all be nik nakky nokia based...I for one am looking forward to it.

The Home of Football

Manchester Mash ups....

3/14/2013

I know ...the bugle has been a bit neglected of late...Just producing images by the bucket load and trying to figure out a way to best show them. This all takes me back to the early 80's when I first did craft fairs around Manchester, things when mad then and it wasn't long before I was doing the big consumer shows at Harrogate and Birmingham..that's not going to happen this time. I'm keeping it small, well me and close family but if the image styles work then I have so many cities that I could transpose this type of imagery onto...no I've not been on the mushrooms again...just the aspirin, but I'm already liking this step back into retailing again. Right , I have a pile of A5 art cards to print and if i don't do them...well no one will

Needles...images from the Northern Quarter.

Today...

3/5/2013

..I will be mostly knocking bevel edged holes out of the middle of pieces of card... perching stool at the ready...Voltarol on my shoulder..customer spec sheets to hand...

Yes for those of you who didn't know...I cut mounts...any size, window, circles, square...rectangular...with cellophane bags.... send me an email to [email protected] and I'll give you a breakdown of costs.. I'll also be mounting up a fair few of my images today and bagging and labelling.this is turning into a proper job....lawks. I'll give you the dates of the artisan(?) shows I'll be doing in Manchester later on, lots of ready made mounts, metric and imperial for your photos...anyway must crack on...some sort of soccer

So Dark

3/4/2013

that all I needed to get some daylight long exposures here on the North sea Coast was a widdling little ND3 and 30 seconds was enough as the sea was crashing in onto these limestone outcrops

More of these on the New images page...

Lots of new big multi window images being made over the next few weeks with the slant being on Manchester and then print more cards and get my head around display systems...busy then... hope you all had a good one last week