maxblackphotos.
  • Home
  • Bugle Blog
  • Back History
    • 2021 >
      • Conversation Piece-South Shields
      • Glasgow Street
      • Sage - Gateshead
      • Kibble palace, Glasgow
      • Boat Museum
      • By the Clyde.
      • Waters Edge
      • Fairy Knowe
      • Largs
    • 2019 >
      • Landscape
      • Monts d'Arree
      • Brittany Coast
      • Manchester
    • Les Fleurs
    • By the Sea
    • Manchester and the Quays
    • Bonnets
    • Tours de Bretagne
    • Vallee des Saintes 2017
    • Maison du Fromage
    • Metal Men-Portraits from Another Place.
    • Solute
    • Shadowland
    • Tree Line
    • des images fixes
    • Out to Sea.
    • Victoria Baths
    • Scout Moor
    • Manchester
    • Bord de la Mer
    • Stockport Market
    • Locqueric Bay
    • Metropolitan Cathedral Mono
    • Glasgow 2014
    • Jeux
    • Beetle Juice.
    • Manchester Wheel
    • New Mono 2016- >
      • New Black and White
      • River Argent
      • Les Roches du Diable
    • Galleries 2013 >
      • Underground - Movement
      • Scotland 2013
      • End of the Pier?
      • Animalia
      • Fins
    • Breton Jardin
    • Barr Village
    • London 2020
    • Old Tractor Portraits.
    • Road to the Isles
    • Crown of Thorns >
      • Spiders in the Meadow.
    • Chateaux Trevarez
  • 2022
    • Found
    • Creative
    • Multi in camera imaging
    • Seascape

Another year gone.

12/31/2012

0 Comments

 
Well, quick as a flash it's almost time to say tata to 2012 and it probably goes down as 'different' rather than Wow!!!
Biggest change for me is taking a big breath and a hard look at Image Libraries and the dwindling returns for greater effort. Stands to reason that with the tidal wave of images going online and the static number of buyers out there that at some point something would have to give.... so my efforts are now being thrust elsewhere, which still involves photography but with the emphasis on using images I have in a retail way..so cards prints , posters and editions..
Today I'll be doing a shoot of all the mounts and board that are going into my shop..spent the weekend clearing out the funk of forty thousand years from the cellars..sorry spiders and other invertibrates ..it had to be done. Once there was chaos now there is order and things are stacked up in plastic boxes rather that the rag bag army of carriers and plassy bags...order...me?? whatever next?? So lots of space now and I need to knuckle down and get the products out there. Mrs M is coming on board so I think I'll benefit from here senior management and eye for detail experience
The one thing that really will change for me in 2013 is that now I've freed myself up from the need to 'feed the libraries' type of photography, then I'll be much more project focused and yes, I've had the photographic earworm come a calling and I've things to see places to snap.
So expect images to appear in more coherent galleries rather that my scattergun approach of previous years..along the lines of this
So if Santa got you some new gear do that crazy thing no one ever does...read the manual..practice and then naff on out and shoot like you know what you are doing...


I'll see you on the other side, big UP to all those who have been on one of my training courses as well and of course to all my customers for making this year...'different'...
Picture
0 Comments

Paypal

12/20/2012

0 Comments

 
Found out yesterday after the minimal amount of research , that you can create your own buy it now with drop down menus over at Paypal
Okay a wee bit clunky but a quick way of getting a selling option onto your web pages by just copying a bit of html code in... I'll be giving that a go later today. You may have noticed that some of the pages have a password lock on them...that's because I'm working on them and will get them all polished up in time for January.
if you are my eagle eyed viewer you may have also noticed that there are a lot more galleries appearing on here...Architecture   Tags and Graffiti  are just 2 and I'll be adding more as the day rolls on, although I'll be having a wee bit of fun with my latest Grandson...mwaaarh..xxxx during the day. So this old web site should be stuffed to the gunnels by the time 2013 turns up, providing of course today isn't the day we all end up under a Mayan apocalypse...this video may help you get through the day..I'll see you on the other side.
 

Picture
0 Comments

Gallery pumping..

12/19/2012

0 Comments

 
Yes, I'm pumping up the volume of galleries on here. I spent a while looking at a lot of online selling options from Shopify to Redframe and Squarespace and decide that I really should just keep it all in one place and that place is here. Okay the buy it now is a bit clunky and there isn't that swooshy HTML 5 experience ( felt a bit queasy after all my HTML viewing yesterday) but it's home and I think I can make the most of it. 
Launch day for all the products is the first week in January, just as long as we get through the apocalypse on the 20th. Some new stuff to cast your mince pies on....
Picture
Click on this and you should be whisked off to the gallery
same goes if you click on the one below
Picture
So 2 new places to have a look at new stuff and I'll be getting more on here as time allows. There will also be a page of Picture mounts, made to measure and off the shelf in both metric and Imperial with Cello bags, Self adhesive board, backs and stuff.... as well as the cards Limited Editions and mounted prints. I'll be busy , hopefully and I have a shop on Etsy that I'll be putting stuff on as well. As with all ventures the Twin Imposters will be floating about, I have to be realistic but I'm looking forward to it.....
0 Comments

Good printing on cheap paper..

12/18/2012

1 Comment

 
can be acheived, if not easily then with a little bit of work looking deep into your print dialogue box.  I let Photoshop handle all the colour when I'm printing and not the printer manufacturers settings. I know that ICC profiles are a sticky wicket to bat on rendered completetely useless if you go and stick some cheapo ink off ebay into your machine and if you use an incorrect colourspace and then not specify the right type of paper and finish....I know why people use labs...but even then you'll need a calibrated screen and have your files to be printed profiled to the printers....I can see why just having stuff online is so bloody easy.
Lots of companies have ICC profiles that you can download, so your colour space/printer/paper combo should be covered..here's what Hahnemuehle have provided .
I've been printing off bundles of photo montage images to stick in Christmas cards and it's only the cheapest of the cheap Tesco paper but I thought I'd just have a riffle through different colour spaces when printing.



Picture
So I let Photoshop handle everything in the drop down, then looked at what colour profile I'd saved the file in, found that in the next drop down and ended up with really good prints on crap paper...and this was on my ip6700 which is stuffed with ebay's finest inks so when i switched to my Pixma 9500 mk11 which has Canon Lucia ink, the results took another step upwards.
Conclusions, well get the right profile, use manufacturers inks, top quality paper and take time to get to know your print dialogue box and printing from home will become a pleasure not a pain....
1 Comment

All the gear is here...

12/13/2012

0 Comments

 
..so now is the time to get cracking and start making all the samples up and getting prints sorted. It's all going to be in-house...so that'll be me being busy then. For the regular blog reader amongst you you may have picked up that I'm moving more towards retail and gallery stuff with my images which will be online, to galleries, at shows and through local advertising. So I've spent a bit of time getting work into coherent galleries, now all the right gear has turned up...the only thing I'm lacking is space. The equipment I've now got is on the chuffing BIG size and I reckon at some point I'm going to have to look at a workshop/studio to accommodate things...but that's the future and this new venture will have to generate it's own income to justify that....I'm already using part of the cellars but I'd have to get an industrial heater if i was to work down there on a permanent basis.
Eagle eyed ones out there will have noticed that I have a new blank gallery called 'The Picture Shop' which will start to house all the retail stuff, although of course any image on here or here is available as a print...just pop me an email maxblackphotos@gmail.com and I'll get back to you toot suite...


Sun's out..good day for ICM shots, still got a load in the can from Monday in Manchester to have a look through but may nip out again for some snapping...
Picture
0 Comments

Stats...

12/11/2012

0 Comments

 
Not had one of these for a while but as I live on the web (for the moment, things change in 2013) but time for a heads up on who is watching, where they are from and WTF it means if anything....
So I have all this data that piles up in graphs and charts from all my sites and I'll tell you about this place first, well most of the traffic actually comes from online searching, there's me thinking that sticking links to back on here would drive a bit of traffic, hey, wrong again!!! Second in the table is Youtube, yes youtube where I seem to get new followers all the time and some wander across to see what that old fella has been wittering on about and linger for a while. Next up is Google in all it's national incarnations from .de to .ve the data is there and if I could speaka da lingo I'd thank them all individually....bumping along is twitter and propping up the pile is flickr....does anyone still think flickr is a viable and vibrant place for images???? It seems to be yawning it's way to oblivion, for gods sakes Getty do the decent thing and make a land grab now, ah flickr how bright shiny and vibrant you were back in the day...... so about 180 hardy souls bob in here on a daily basis which is okay and I'm hoping to eclipse that next year once the 'local' advertising hit's the streets....
Youtube how I love all that statistical data, charts, graphs demographics you've got the lot and it's time to big up the newest country to pop in for a nosy so as you might expect America is my biggest visitor with 68% blokeys and the dear ladies in at 32% with the majority coming from the 45 to 65 years old age demographic.....yes I'm getting bored with this as well. So who is the smallest country with the least visitors I hear you say through a stifled yawn, well that would be the Azores with one male in his 30's.....so exciting
Last is my Library site where I hardly get a peep from any UK visitors but loads from Japan, Russia, the Americas and Europe...totally different group than those that drop in here....so what does it mean...for me stop looking at the data and get those snaps processed, between 500 to 700 'unique' visitors call through in any 24 hour period across my sites and  if I could I'd shake you all by the hand and say 'Thanks for calling by...' which is what I'm now saying to you dear viewer.......
Picture
Bonnet-Curvy mono Vdub
0 Comments

The Fear

12/7/2012

0 Comments

 
Pretty late getting in to this Channel 4 Drama...now I'm not going on about the script or acting but really about the lighting, camera angles and use of colour and focus. Catch it on 4OD . Now I'd say it was shot on those rather nice Canon Digital Cinematic cameras that seem to be cleaving a path into the world of video. Here's a link from the director and very interesting that they used a Lensbaby on front of an £80,000 camera  here the Director talks through the shooting and I think they have used a bit of Photoshop in the PP work, especially the use of filmstock filters. So I used it as a very good extended youtube tutorial, lots of great use of angles and aperture and some great lighting, deserves some awards just for that, I'll catch up on the series when 'The Beast from the East' descends upon us next week. Get yourself prepped up for some fab winter shots. I'm off to give Santander a bit of a chirp in their collective ear this morning, not good enough chaps, I'm not impressed, hopefully a bit of face to face will sort out my burbling growl....

Picture
0 Comments

Doctor ...help me...

12/5/2012

0 Comments

 
taking Mr's Max to get on the red eye to London this morning my mind went off wandering about image making and I had another of those light bulb moments as some more 'creative use of camera' image making techniques lodged itself in my frontal lobe...Doctor...I need help...If you can just get me to stop thinking about new ways of creating imagery and just get me to stick with one thing then I would be grateful...what...there is no easy cure...I have to carry on until I'm completely devoid of any new way of using a camera??? meh...que sera.... 
I know great dollops of some of the stuff I do (attempt) are of an acquired viewing taste , heck some of the things I try I'm not even a big fan of, but I'll try, sometimes some of the stuff I do inspires folk to go and have a go at some waccy baccy stuff, which is good, so until the grey matter starts it's inevitable decline it looks like I'll be stuck in creative mode....
I'm not going to go on about my efforts to re-equip my mount cutting studio suffice to say that I have a reverse impression of a keyboard on my fore head from the barriers I am crunching up against..it's all very frustrating
There will be  a mount cutting, board, finishing, print section on here in the next few weeks, it should be now...grrrrr... but if the gear isn't here you can't use it
Right Chickens chipped off their perches, a few snaps of a Salmon pink sunrise and now to crack on with some work.
Picture
0 Comments

The Old Grey Whistle Test....

12/4/2012

0 Comments

 
...this weekend I'll be conducting one, I'll have a captive house full of non photographic creatives in the shape of needle-workers here for the day not to see me of course but having a days patch working. So I'm going to let them loose in my Photo library and see what tickles their collective fancy and open myself up for a bit of Q & A. I know what I like but as I've learnt from past outings in selling images, Joe Public may just want those Kittens in Brandy glasses and Puppies in socks on a washing line....
So A3+ is upon me, as I speak the laptop is whirring to the sound of a canon CD as it does a full install. I've gone for a Pixma 9500 mk11..I was dribbling in the direction of the Pro X 1 but £600+ was a bit on the fruity side of my budget and then i saw Park Cameras were doing Mk 11's for £399....bargain and then I thought I'd have a trawl on amazon and ebay and blow me I got one for £260.... with paper cables and all original fittings... I feel like a Yabba dabba dooooo... there, I've had one...so more budget to throw at the mounting and board side of the enterprise. Now as I now qualify for Village elder status ( could substitute elder with idiot) I'm going to pass on one of the things I've learned in this tough old world...yep...pin em back... if you are thinking of starting up on your own or even mounting an exhibition ask yourself the big question before you do it... 'How much am I prepared to lose' ? .  It's a big question, it's a good question. If you rent some space, get images framed and mounted, pay for some publicity, plough in a big dollop of your time the first thing you ask yourself is 'This will cost me £1200, am I prepared in case nothing sells? Can I afford to lose that much...do I have enough family members to give a framed piccie  at Christmas.....Retail is tough, I may even hand out a few selling tips tomorrow but after this weekend I hope to have a clear idea of what my target market wants, produce some product with a USP, convince then that this is what they want and give it to them with a dash of personal service...
Picture
0 Comments

Developmental

12/3/2012

0 Comments

 
I'm not the one to define where the boundaries of photographic art, photo journalism and photography blur and blend, do you tell folk that you are a 'fine art photographer' or expect that any reasonably computer and photographically enabled visitor has the ability to place their own definition on your work. In many ways the explosion of images on the internet have allowed us an uninhibited and un-blinkered look at how other folk with cameras  take a view of things and start an open or closed conversation using their ability to capture a moment.
Now quite surprisingly out there in the non virtual world are people who are not  savvy to the plethora of hardware and software that lies behind the creation of most of today's imagery. Not that they don't care, they don't need to, but most know what they like and certainly know what they don't. In the music industry they used to be the Old Greys, knew what they liked and ....er liked it.  Now as my one or two regular readers know I've owned galleries, stood there at trade shows selling images and frames, attempting to provide what is wanted  without knowing what was wanted, pre guessing, imposing on the buyer what I want them to buy...and this is where I am now, on the verge of selling to non photographic literates things that I think will have a resonance, be consumer friendly, be something worth owning.
And so the developmental definition of who I am in a photographic sense begins, fine art, experimental, mainstream, odd???? My own definition of how I think I'm perceived, well I'll keep that to myself, how the Old Greys will see me, well that is what I'm about to find out.
Well one from the experimental bin, the photographic earworm is back gnawing away and making me veer about a bit, I can already see the next phase of this type of imagery and so on this dull grey monday I give you...layered panoramas.....add salt to taste
Picture
Picture
0 Comments

    Archives

    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    February 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    April 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012

    What's all this then????

    An unyeilding torrent of Photo babbel full of unconfirmed facts and manufactured photo drivel.. take from it what you like, it won't change the world but may leave you feeling nauseous...

    Categories

    All
    Black And White
    Black And White
    Blackpool
    Blog
    Bugle
    Camera Menu
    Cameraphone
    Camera Raw Filter
    Competition
    CS6 Paint
    D750
    David Johnson
    Espana
    ICM
    Image Libraries
    In Camera
    Kernevez
    La France
    Lightroom 4
    Lightroom 5
    Lumia925
    Manchester
    Mash Up
    Maxblack
    Mirror
    Mono
    Multi Exposures
    ND110
    New Direction
    Nikon
    Nokia
    Nokia925
    Nokialumia
    North Wales.
    Painting
    Photographic Studio
    Photography
    Photoshop
    Photoshop CC
    Photowalk
    Piers
    Pontiac
    Portraits
    Portraiture
    Prize Winner
    Scotland
    Scotlnd
    Scottish Scenes
    Scott Kelby
    Selling
    Time Lapse
    Time Stacking
    Video
    Vw
    Wacom
    Wide Angle Panorama
    Working
    Wwpw2013

    RSS Feed

  • Home
  • Bugle Blog
  • Back History
    • 2021 >
      • Conversation Piece-South Shields
      • Glasgow Street
      • Sage - Gateshead
      • Kibble palace, Glasgow
      • Boat Museum
      • By the Clyde.
      • Waters Edge
      • Fairy Knowe
      • Largs
    • 2019 >
      • Landscape
      • Monts d'Arree
      • Brittany Coast
      • Manchester
    • Les Fleurs
    • By the Sea
    • Manchester and the Quays
    • Bonnets
    • Tours de Bretagne
    • Vallee des Saintes 2017
    • Maison du Fromage
    • Metal Men-Portraits from Another Place.
    • Solute
    • Shadowland
    • Tree Line
    • des images fixes
    • Out to Sea.
    • Victoria Baths
    • Scout Moor
    • Manchester
    • Bord de la Mer
    • Stockport Market
    • Locqueric Bay
    • Metropolitan Cathedral Mono
    • Glasgow 2014
    • Jeux
    • Beetle Juice.
    • Manchester Wheel
    • New Mono 2016- >
      • New Black and White
      • River Argent
      • Les Roches du Diable
    • Galleries 2013 >
      • Underground - Movement
      • Scotland 2013
      • End of the Pier?
      • Animalia
      • Fins
    • Breton Jardin
    • Barr Village
    • London 2020
    • Old Tractor Portraits.
    • Road to the Isles
    • Crown of Thorns >
      • Spiders in the Meadow.
    • Chateaux Trevarez
  • 2022
    • Found
    • Creative
    • Multi in camera imaging
    • Seascape