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Getting there now, still working hard on the farmhouse and meadows but now getting a day a week in to get snapping and uploading again. Full strip down and rebuild of the Rotavator planned for this week, Briggs Stratton 3.5HP cadet for those that may feign an interest, I may take some snaps......... Now, I'm really just doing some pretty straight forward image library shoots at the mo, 50mm lens, not trying to do anything other than get my take on all this new material over here in France. I do have plans to produce commercial/retail images but those can wait for those winter months when I'll be spending lots of time in front of this machine. Big problem for me is the amount of dust I'm getting on the camera sensor, I'll be addressing that next year when i go for a complete overhaul of my gear but for the moment I'm hoping that Amazon can get a big box of swabs to me so I can ease off these monster chunks on the sensor. I'd rather be shooting than retouching blobs all over images...meh...come on Dominique...for he is the very local postie here...get those swabs into the post box. Most of the stuff I'm doing is a bit...ehhhh...how shall I say...good record shots!!! , so not much to fire up the creative juices this is a smattering from a pile that have headed off to Getty images this morning, all 50mm full frame in this rather wonderful quality of light that wafts about us in Brittany Centre Aquatic Morlaix, Architect Marc Mimram
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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
..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... 
Well if you don't buy a ticket...there's me being all cynical about competitions and the probability that the advertised prizes may just be some construct on this digital plain that I wander around on and then...I get an email asking me for my shipping address and to brace myself for a bag of swag. Okay it's Christmas , chances are that I won't be seeing anything until the New Year but I can wait... so not sure of what's coming, things were being added... but there was a rather nice 'metrosexual photographer' man bag and a dollop of software so I'll take up position now by the front door with a view to grabbing anything Postie thrusts in my direction. This was all part of the 2013 Worldwide Photowalk that I ran in Manchester back in October and as leader I had the chance to enter the comp for best leader shot...okay no first prize but a top ten finish, przes may just pay for all the time I used on organising and answering emails... worth it though. Should be out and about doing some more 'creative' stuff this week, looks like there is a chance of it not raining tomorrow and I need some contrasty light to make the next bit work...it may involve multi in camera exposures and ND filters... straight to the 'Marmite ' pile then... I also have in mind some mono work but long and wide open.also back to the slog of uploading to Image libraries again this week...keywords, keywords....lots of search engine friendly keywords. So busy week all in all and I'll post stuff to show you if any new experimental work avoids being sent to the recycle bin..  Sunset in the higlands. Wide angle panoramas chucky...from Camera Raw to Photoshop and let the software do all the work for you.....you'll end up with stuff like this....  This is how to do synchronised fettling of your files before flipping them over to Photoshop and then letting the software do all the hard work.... back home, well for the moment, lots of images in the can but at the moment not a lot of time to get them organised and sorted... I'd forgotten how much I love Brittany and it's varied coast and countryside. Lots of meetings and looks like next year is going to be a bit of an adventure over there in France, so I have a lot of planning to get through over the next few months which will mean reactivating a lot of dormant brain cells, may be too late for some of them. I'll start posting stuff later but went to a 'local' sculpture park..it was quite breathtakingly bonkers...the North and South coasts..lovely Huelgoat and Morlaix and bantered up and down the N164 turning left and right occasionally..loads of fun, met lots of nice folk and a a few brits as well... expect a bit of French to start creeping into the blogs as well , ha, my old french teacher would be looking up to the heavens and zoot aloring until la vache came home...yep...long way to go..... 
Peche
If I didn't have my little creative bursts then I wouldn't be able to cope with all the'mundane' images I churn out for Image Library consumption. At the moment I'm playing it safe with correct verticals, clean, well color balanced and nothing that might frighten the horses. My creative side though is probably something that would indeed scare the animals and give some folk the vapours, so I guess at the moment 85% of my time is spent cleaning , cataloguing and keywording whilst I give my self 15% of my working week over to some marmite based barmcakiness, heads full of it by the way so I won't be stopping soon so you've seen these I put up last week and here are a couple from yesterday...    So these are shot using a Daylight balanced light with a Nikon 105mm at f4, I like widish aperture portraits especially when they end up as barking as this. Got some book cover work to do this week so expect axes and billhooks and maybe some 1940@s based stuff and then it's off to France.......wooohooo.....
I take a lot of photographs and you could classify 90% of them as ermmm........ a bit boring. What !! !!! I can see you rubbing your eyes as I type, well yes, well maybe not boring(oh yes they are) but probably a better way of describing them is sensible, correct verticals, realistic colour balance, nothing to frighten the horses or even make anyone get the vapours but they are part and parcel of how I try and scratch something of a living out of this world of photography. We are talking about Image Library shots, records of what is around us and which I post to Libraries for them to seek out buyers and hoover up the dosh for them Now things dribble along, I do a shoot, bring back the keepers, fiffle faffle Lightroom to Photoshop to FTP and there you are online and glistening in their glossy lovliness...but sometimes, sometimes stuff happens and that's where Mr 100% steps up and has a tweak of your sidies. 100%...that's the screen resolution you must do all your final dust/ chromatics/ balance retouching at. If you work in Lightroom or Camera Raw to fix your colour noise problems you'll get a warning message...'Work in 100%....' 100% and now I also do a double take on my files, touched up and corrected and then I'll come back to them the following day for another look over. Now I can see you lolling back into your wingback armchair scoffing at this overt pampering of my image files......well, i just had a large batch rejected, failed..cast aside because one file had a blob of dust on it, so QC failed the lot and I had to wait a month before uploading any more. Okay when I looked the piece of dust was like the scene in Armageddon when they first catch sight of it hurtling towards Bruce Willis...at 25% it really wasn't noticeable..100% and it was 'Yippy cayee, we're going to need a bigger drill' So , if you have aspirations to sell to online libraries fill that screen with 100% of lovliness and flick away with your content aware spotter. 
ZZZZzzzzzzzzzz....Flint Castle...move along...move along...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
..well for a short while and then it's off to France for a long week, get through Christmas and then off into the hills of Spain.. there is a purpose to all this which hopefully will become clear to me and then you by March next year, it's all very exciting, well for me anyway but first trip out of the way so time to check in and report about some snaps I was taking. Light was great whilst I was there, stayed in Gibraltar but wandered across the border into Spain and the edible delights that La Linea had to offer..got stopped at the border, I know, my dodgy looks gave me away but all they found were lumps of well abused camera gear..er did Almeihda gardens, walked the Med steps which really did almost kill me but had great views from the top of Morroco and the vast tonnage of boats waiting for some business...er Wide angle panoramas, some more famous animal pictures, and lots of odd bits of 'The Rock'..could I live there..no, so claustrophobic and even worse when the Med cruise liners dumped their contents into town. So lots of lens swapping so I'm making a guess that I've got dollops of dust on the later images but that's what your PP software really is there for. So for me a few day's of smacking these images into shape with the bonus of some images being accepted for book cover publication whilst I was off on my jolly, now to find where I filed the original layered fles... well gives me something to do. here is a selection of things that hopefully will be appearing in a Waterstones near you soon (truth be told all my book cover stuff is for overseas publication so I've yet to walk in to a Waterstones and go all misty eyed at the sight of my images being mashed together with some text)... so here are a few new ones to look at. ..40 years ago...yes 40 years ago that I dropped out of that Lorry on the M6 at Wednesbury, staggered up the road under the weight of all my worldy possesions gathered together in a US Navy drawstring kit bag and turned up at West Bromwich College of Art to begin my education in all things Photographic.. There was a studio of all manner of folk wiffling about with these strange wood and brass contraptions with what looked like the inner parts to an accordian swaying about in the middle..... and so it all began. Really I suppose it's only these last 5 years that I started taking it all seriously again(intervening years had galleries, picture framing and a crazy spell photographing anything traffic and pedestrian related around Greater Manchester) and it was all started off by entering the 'Britain in Pictures' competition run by the BBC .. you had to enter things through their flickr group...what the chuff is a flickr group I remember thinking so I joined and blow me out of the 100's of thousands of entries I actually got 10 in the top 100 and 2 in the top 10...blimey I thought this is great!! So I ended up, still wet behind my digital ears, being exhibited at the National Media Museum in Bradford...okay they were tucked away in the cafe but..heck... it was all new, shiny and a bit bewildering and I suppose I was hooked from there on. So here we are, on the verge of another Worldwide photowalk here in Manchester. We are at the Victoria Baths and all its crazy detailed and hopefully photogenic fixtures and fittings..there will be a model, there will be some death defying 'live' demonstrations by me...yep, it'll be alright on the night.....and hopefully 50 photographers will have a good time, meet new people, maybe learn something and possibly in 40 years time look back and remember the moment that photography was worth immersing themselves in. Hey TFI Friday looks like a day uploading to redbubble once I've stuck down a pile of textures and cut up some bits of material...oops giving it away here's one from my new Glasgow gallery 
Early morning Autmnal sunlight at Glasgow Botanical Gardens
...and a big thanks to Diane Seddon at Oaktree as we now have a great model to photograph https://www.facebook.com/mrslauranorrey?fref=ts had a nice chat with her last night and we look set for a great day at the venue...inside as well so this cacky autumnal weather will be held at bay.. I've just had a cancellation so one place has opened up on the walk just go to the worldwide photowalk page and register....servers are down as I speak but be patient. should be a good day for one and all. Great mix of folk coming and levels of experience. So I have yet another busy day getting the final prep together for the walk, last Photographic club talk of the season at Frodsham where I will be looking at the Urban landscape and from my point of view it's many iterations, so lots of camera technique and the thought behind some recent projects...should be a good night.... I'm all set for a play with the sparkly 105 F2.8 Micro that has been in customs for the past 2 weeks but now released back into captivity..I really have got my eye on some 300mm F2,8's that are on ebay...even with the carriage and customs charges it does work out cheaper than a Europen sourced one...seriously If you are thinking of buying something non EU then here is the checker I used to work out import duty... http://www.dutycalculator.com/ Right back to all those 'sleepers' that are dozing on one of my old (old means about 2009) Freecom hardrives that is stuffed with shots yet to be seen by the public at large..... 2009 and I'm on the Welsh coast in the sunshine.... but oh my the D700 was pretty new then but all those oil specks on the sensor..praise be to content aware spotting.....  Oil and Gas industry on the North Wales coast.  ..one of the image libraries that sells my images to keep an eye out on sites such as amazon and it's various iterations .de .it .fr and so on to see if publishers are using images licenced for one territory in an area where they havn't coughed up for the fee... so as I was meandering around the web last night and for want of something better to do I started searching..and well I found one of my images in places that, have yet to be officially authorised...or have I? Could be that my agents have ...er...not been quick in informing me that they have been actively selling or it could be something in the licence I'm not aware of...either way missive sent off to my agent for a bit of 'clarification' could be nothing but fingers crossed it's fee paying, trips to Spain, France and Gibralatar coming up over the next couple of months and I've run out of children to sell... Here's a link to one of my book cover images... amazon Busy working through lots of 'hard drive sleepers'...those images that have been filed (okay I'm using filed in it's loosest sense) so 2009 and 2010 being given a work over by Adobe's finest and slowly but surely uploaded. I'm really keeping the PP to a very basic minimum, clean, straighten and lens corrections is about the sum total as I nudge things past the QC bots that live on image library sites...for me it's the greatest restraint I've shown in image post processing ever.....ever... lordy they could almost be film..... until the next time....  On the coast at Point of Ayre and it's leaning lighthouse. This time next week we will all be joshing and jostling ready for the start of Manchester's take on the Worldwide Photowalk as I type it appears we have an opening of 1 place.... Just finding out if the model is coming along as well and we should be all sorted...I'm running through 'my bit' which will be some live demo's of some techniques some of the photographers may want to use.... You'll start seeing the fruits of everyone's labours soon afterwards.... I'm giving this place a bit of a once over with a big feather duster, some new pages on here now Piers , Salford Quays and Footbridge I'm also putting links on to all the libraries and retail sites you can download and buy from...yes it's all getting a bit joined up. So short one today but full of stuff to have a wander through... I'll leave you with this today 
Slightly modified the site so pages look a wee bit better but I'm also adding and upgrading pages as I go so worth having look at this one and maybe this one as well. Tidying things up as I go as well as putting project work under my behance site roof. Been a really good week as I seem to have come to terms with the QC bots at alamy and Getty have come calling for another batch of images. So just in time for the autumn chill it looks as though I will be sitting here keywording and uploading until despair overtakes me and a lie down in a dark room beckons.. Only one week to go until Worldwide photowalk day looks like half of you have opted to do a bit of model shooting, tomorrow I'll be testing out the 'analogue' bit of my stuff to include on the day and I'll be doing some impromptu tutorial stuff as we have a wander around, requests for WAP and ICM have been duly noted... So sun is out and it looks like we have an Indian Summer on our hands...don't sit there reading this drivel get out there ...get snapping... oh..TFI Friday... 
I only use primes, well 2 mainly a 20mm f2.8 and the 50mm f1.8 and for the last 9 months or so that's all I've used mainly because that's the way I wanted to see things but things are about to change. First to arrive is a Nikon 105Micro f2.8..I had one last year and I hardly used it but now there's a lot of stuff i want to do in the macro genre...and last night I bought a Nikon 300mm and a TC 200 2x convertor because there are a lot of areas I want to explore at extreme distances that will give frame filling compression so expect my 'slightly different way of looking at things' to start rolling out next week, suppose I need a bigger bag now. Sold all my old 120 roll film on ebay last night and I think it all went for a very fair price, stick them in the post today to those lucky bidders. Touch wood I seem to have overcome Alamy's aversion to my kind of images and it's algorhytmic QC section...well basically I will be shovelling all the bog standard straight as a die stock images onto there from now on that is of course until the QC chickens have a good pecking at my files and give me the reject slip... they must miss out on tens of thousands of 'creative imagery' files...ah well their business so I'll keep anything overt away from them, How about a Manchester Montage to end today's drivel...  If you are on the Creative Cloud or have a legit copy of Photoshop and Lightroom then you will have been notified that it's upload time again 3 updates yesterday Photoshop CC and CS6 and RAW and today Lightroom 5.2...but do I really need 819mb download to update a couple of sliders and add some new camera/lens models in.... one thing to check is your adobe folder..see how many models and versions you have of Photoshop CS and Lightroom in there and you might want to bin a lot of the old stuff to free up some valuable space on your HD.. just a bit of housekeeping to keep that drive spinning freely. If you are in education or thinking about Post process work and want access to all that Adobe can throw ar you have a look at this I love the creative cloud as you not only get the software but a behance pro site, 20gb of online storage and an Adobe Revel site... no, I don't work for them but it really is a bit of a no brainer... On other matters Getty Images have come calling for more images for the 3rd time this month which is....nice... I'm watching a new lens track it's way from Japan only to see it parked up in customs at Coventry for the past 2 days, good to see it on the way but frustrating that it is so close... All the 120 film I have on ebay ends tonight and most of it will sell so I'm going to invest it back into something I have never had or used before..a stonking big telephoto with maybe a tele convertor...heck this summer I stood on beaches around Scotland looking at all manner of wildlife through Binoculars and I think it's time I gave nature snapping a try...yes.... 
So now it's official, one will be working in a studio from October 1st. I will be bringing my way of seeing things to the Portrait, stock imagery and commercial market which to most will be similar to how you perceive the merits of Marmite.. It's the stock imagery and model portfolio work I really am a wee bit excited about and I now have the facilities to do all the portraiture projects that have been rattling around in my head for the past 3 years.... Training days as well with the emphasis on 'Light it, shoot it, retouch it' and looking at Photoshop CC and Lightroom 5 training. So lots for me to get stuck into and not forgetting that it will soon be Worldwide photowalk Time , there are a few places left. Just register and get involved. So expect some of the pages on here to change as I hide away inside over the winter months and put all those studio flash heads to good use. Big response to the keywording blog from the other day so I think we may have a look at metadata, templates and asociated stuff in Lightroom and Photoshop over the next few days. Must crack on...until the next time.... 
It's Autumn...it's official...when I get up to unleash the chickens in the morning, (that isn't a euphamism) there is dew on the grass and a nip in the air so time to change things around. Training courses have been mothballed ready for release in late spring, thanks to one and all who ventured forth.. Changes as well on here, no more mount cutting or image and print sales off this site, got to say I've had a few nightmare moments with the postal system and have come to the conclusion that moving image files about the planet to clients and libraries is far less stressful and at my age a pipe and slippers approach to business dealings will win every time. I do have the remains of a lot of framed and mounted images that are going to go out for less than cost...I'll announce it here first. Maybe hang on for the Christmas market to start. I'm also converting a lot of under used gear back into things I will definately be needing, photographically wise, again watch this space. So as ever lots that will keep me from watching daytime TV. If you have read my last few posts I did go on about taking Photographs just for the love of taking them...don't stop if you never get comments or faves, blimey you can always hop into the 'bling ' groups and post one fave one thingies. From reading a lot of forums and blogs I get a feeling that folk are not as happy as they could be...hmmmmm..still the same image if it has 1 fave or 99+..have confidence in your self and what you take photos of........   So if you saw this image posted on the internet you'd probably assume that it's either a Lensbaby, smeared vaseline over a UV filter or a bit of Photoshop faffery or even now with LR5 some work with radial filters...well it's not. This is shot with a standard 50mm f1.8...the difference being that the lens is not attached to the camera...that's right...removed and held in front of the gaping hole in the centre of your SLR. This image was shot at the Dig It festival in Manchester and at this point I found out just how tricky this technique is if you don't use a tripod and using the tripod free's up a hand to do the all important exposure work with the camera. Now I've been working in Manual...setting the aperture at f2.8 ..here's a trick to keep your lens set at the aperture you want to use. In the Nikon in your Set up menu if you scroll through you will have in your Set Up menu a Non CPU lens menu item, don't forget you are disconecting your lens so your camera has no idea what f stop your are using..... set up a variety of F stop settings in this menu. Now this only works if you have Nikon lenses that you can physically alter the f stop ring. So set the aperture on your lens..say F8 go into your non CPU lens menu and set F8 and all you have to do then is use the shutter speed and EV dial to get the exposure correct, Now there will be light leakedge which adds to how these images will look so compensating with your shutter speed, ISO and EV dial and leaving the chosen aperture alone. This really is where sitting your camera on a tripod comes in, you need one hand for holding the Lens and another for adjusting your camera settings..or an assistant or a 3rd hand.... Now you can go a bit more extreme with this and start using non standard lenses..I've used the 80mm off my Bronica S2a to great effect, just like above you can set the aperture and then use the non cpu lens menu and make sure your only variables are going to be shutter and maybe a bit of EV... give it a try.  Okay, dear reader, I know you are now wondering why there isn't a big dollop of free lensing images appearing..but something else from left field... well with the bustle and hustle jiggling a lens and camera whilst trying to compose a shot on the streets of Manchester was a bit more tricky than I first envisaged...tripod needed , free's up one hand for other camera tickling whilst other hand jiggles lens...so out with a tripod next time...it actually does make more sense....so...I've brought forward something else I had a mind to do and that was in camera multiple exposures..... Yes..lets go all a bit wibbly wobblly timey whimey and go back to the good old days when a double exposure on my Leicaflex just meant holding the film release button on the baseplate whilst forwarding the lever to cock the shutter again for another exposure on the same frame... piece of thingy... now though it's a delve into the menu system and on the D700 and a lot of other Nikons it's right there in the shooting menu...multiple exposure but...here we go again...it defaults back to normal shooting once you've done the exposure ..so you have to go back in again...blah de blah...boring!!! But, those dear folk at Nikon have the 'My Menu section' where you can add you're most loved functions and menu items....just go to dd to my menu go back into the shooting bank add it and well...hey presto, easy to use, just take the shot and then hit the OK button with the item highlighted and off you go again.....I knew this old menu stuff would be handy...alright I also have the commander menu in there as well but that's for another time..... so... here's a few shots from a quickish toddle around Cottonopolis this afternoon..downloaded into LR5 for a quick waft and then on here..no layer work or Photoshop tomfoolery, straight out of the camera (if you ignore the LR5 bit) and onto here..... So all 'In Camera' with the merest whiff of Lightroom..you can be off and having a look at things differently...this is only a small selection I'll be putting up a full blown gallery in the Galleries section at some point but these will do for now....any questions???? Get stuck in then.....
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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
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