Bugle Blog - maxblackphotos.

Photowalk update..

11/6/2013

So well done to Matt , still think it's better than half of the top ten ones but he does get a name check and honorable mention from Scott Kelby and RC Concepion If you click here and scroll forward to 8 min 15 you'll see his great shot from the day. Still think it should have ben up there as a top tenner...ah well. So the leaders comp opened yesterday and I sent in this one, full of wackiness... probably 'too much' to be a winner but you never know, if you don't buy a ticket you'll never win the raffle... it's got a few more views overnight so someone is watching..
Well the weather looks like it will be whipping up the channel into a frothing maelstrom...bugger, getting the overnight from Plymouth to Roscoff and it's 8 hours in the dark... still will plop off on the other side for a coffee and croissant before stopping off in Morlaix at the market,, I love Brittany to pieces but have never had a decent camera to give it a going over, we'll skate over the Fuji S3 as I changed lenses on the beach and sanded up the sensor good and proper...doh!!!! So unless there is some wifi freebie going on over there then I'll be just concentrating on snapping for 10 days...hmmm autumn in France...leafless Poplar avenues..hmmm empty Chateaux... probably pleut tojouring as well but will be fully wet weather geared up... now then back to youtube and the next part of conversational French for Dummies...

Mirror Mirror...on the banks of the River Clyde.

A wander

9/24/2013

Well after that brief brush with Siberian winds last week we seem to have stumbled into a spell of Indian summeryness. So I took the new to me but battered Nikon 300mm out for a stroll along the Pennine way yesterday and then around Bilberry and Digsley reservoirs before traipsing up to Meltham...it was hot sunny, I'd gone layered up as it was grim here in Manchester but halway thorugh the walk summer returned and that lens...it weighs a lot more than a nifty fifty...anyway good walk, grappled with the 300mm and in the next few hours , will see what the depth of field and sharpness look like. Didn't try out the 2x convertor but maybe of Thursday.
if you look on my new images page you'll see the latest ones from Newcastle/Gateshead. I've given them an a apocalyptic mono tickle..so have a look. Did a montage for flickr with a dinky Sage colour as I just montaged the Sage on the gateshead side of the river...yep I know, no need to explain.... if you missed it here it is.

Corruptus in Extremis..

9/13/2013

I enjoy the ability to push the boundaries in Post processing, it's a learning process, yep I could slap on the same old same old but there are so many other possibilities to explore. Now the image above started off as an ICM shot of the Lowry and as I'm a wee bit over caffeinated I went off on a Photoshop CC wander. So texture layers, inverted copies, color lookup, hue sat a bag of blend modes..were all invited to the party.One of the tricks in doing these is laying out a trail of breadcrumbs,,if you want to replicate you'll somehow have to remember what on earth you got up to so I save a full layer stack back into LR5 from PshopCC..it's there for me to go back and see what layer did what to whom and why. Now I think this is one of the best ways to learn Photoshop, get your hands in and rummage around until it hurts...but always always...if you discover something great..leave a trail of crumbs to follow, you never know when you might need to do it again.

Experimentation

7/20/2013

Okay a quick post from todays faffing. Plastic mixing bowl, a bit of material...Nokia 925 and you get this sort of thing.....

So it looks like layer work in Photoshop but just a bit of left field thinking with an old mixing bowl and a piece of gauze borowed from my much better halfs stockpile.

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

Developmental

12/3/2012

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

Compositing

11/13/2012

No it's not sticking weeds on a pile and watching it rot, although there could be a bit of rhubarb involved...compositing, bringing together photographic elements to make something new. Now I've done some in the past which look like they have been given a once over with the 'iffy' duster so I thought I'd get my head down and see what I could drag out of my library of image files and nail together in a new convincing fashion. One good thing already is that it is increasing my skill base again, always good news, and the other is that it is giving some of my lesser known images a chance to have a run out into the sunlight...albeit in a mashed up uber faffed way....
So first comes the idea and then a, sometimes, annoying trawl through the thousands of image files I have to pluck out those that I can nail together and create something that looks new. I know there are a load of 'photographers' out there that go to the cheapo image libraries , buy a few files and cobble them together...well I'll be using all my own stuff thankyou..gives the whole thing a bit of provenance don't cha know... I may even go out and shoot things to add into these composited montages...regular follower(s) will know that this is the time of year to get into that big pile of image files you've stored away for the bleak winter months..so I will park my carcass and cobble in Photoshop until my eyes rebel or until Masterchef comes on the telly, so the front page of the site now becomes the Compositing page land of my make believe although feel free to give me some verbals if a man in a bowler hat holding an umbrella turns up in one of them at some point.......

Sky from Cromarty...field from the Black Isle and Lighthouse from New Brighton run through the Photoshop Blender attachment

Peachpit...

11/9/2012

Well after all the organising, chivvying and prodding of Manchester Photowalkers I not only get my reward in Heaven but a Lightroom 4 e book from Peachpit.... lots of stuff on the Peachpit site look really useful, have a browse if you have the time. I chose John Lees as the winner who should also be getting his e book soon as well. So I can now draw a veil over the Photowalk proceedings, I probably took on far too much with the tutorials but I think most folk had a good time , not forgetting my appearance on BBC Radio Manchester during the walk.... So I think I might be doing a smattering of mash ups over the next few weeks, something I've done in a half arsed kind of way but after a bit of work I think I'm now capable of knocking out something that dosn't look too shabby.....any how have a good weekend, I'll be getting over excited in York Railway Museum tomorrow, must dig out my old Ian Allen books to see if there are Museum pieces that I saw working back in the '60's.... TTFN