Life's Bench-Mark (Self portrait)

A self portrait taken just before my wedding in Orlando

The colour of happiness

Incomplete

Lonely

Red for Safety?

Clearwater Sunrise

Memories of summer

Lady of the flies

This is one of those shots that needs to be seen bigger to get the most from the tonal qualities of the image.

fruit of the loins

I hadn't picked this one for the web, but my other half really likes it.

Shot yesterday at a nearby park, it includes my children, some friends kids and, when we counted the feet, an unidentified intruder!

Converted to BW, just leaving the children in colour to emphasise them.

Number 5

This building was on one of my randomised walking routes while on holiday. I loved the panel lines of the various patches that had been applied over the years.
The sun was setting in the background but was still far too bright to be captured by a single exposure. So I set the camera to auto bracket +-2 stops and fired away hand holding!

The image was then brought into PhotoShop and combined.

Mist

I grabbed this shot while on holiday in Northumberland.
The river near where we were staying was quite near the coast and it had these adolescent swans constantly patrolling right in front of me.
It was a very humid day, and each time the cold wind blew in from the sea a quite ethereal looking mist would appear almost hiding the swans.

I took this at 1/800th and F22 with two stops of underexposure so that I didn't burn out their white feathers.

Hong Kong

I took this photo on a Hong Kong street some while ago.

I loved the clutter of all the signs and so I went up a nearby multi-storey car park to get this shot.

In its original format there was simply too much information to take in. So I have converted it to black and white, just leaving a few signs in the original colour.

WIP

Just like one of the previous posts, this is a work in progress. It was a field of barley(?) being blown around in a strong wind. I used a slow exposure to get the blurred effect shown.

However, I feel that this shot required an (in)appropriatly dressed female stood somewhere in the field. Unfortunatly on the day I took this image it was FAR to cold, and I risked being beaten to a pulp if I had asked her to 'get changed'.

With luck the good weather forecast for the upcoming weekend should expose a little more flesh. Watch this space....

Harbour

I wonder how many people will recognise this harbour in East Yorkshire?

I haven't cheated, these are the colours as captured on Fujichrome film before I digitally scanned it in.
It was just before sunset and wasn't raining for once. I didn't have a tripod so I just put the camera on the harbour wall and hoped for the best.

The blurry image dead center is a small yatch leaving.

What - no naked woman?

I took a trip up to the North Yorkshire Moors yesterday to look for different location shots. After a short walk (anyone that knows me would be surprised I even know what my legs are for) I found this place and realised its potential when mixed with an appropriate subject. ie. a scantily dressed beautiful female.

Unfortunately the model wasn't comfortable with the number of people there, especially with what she was going to wear!

However - after a return trip I have now added a very respectfully dressed model. Hmmm, maybe I should keep working on this one!

Taken at 1/80th and F8 I also added a polariser to saturate the sky and create the dramatic clouds.

Angle of attack!

I took this from the scary end of a children's slide, using the unnaturally nice bank holiday weather as a backdrop.

I laid a large white reflector down on the ground to light up her face, but still added flash to create some catch lights in her eyes.

Not your normal portrait pose but very effective in capturing her relaxed and in play.

Path

This is a walkway running through the beautiful Forge Valley.

The day itself was awful, with the sky overcast and the no obvious opportunities until I saw how the wooden path disappeared up the hill.

I have dramatically increased the colour saturation as it was very dull and monotone.

I also reduced the depth of field and focused on the area closest to create the effect shown.

Hit and Run

Taken from the top of my classic Italian sports car (read: rusty junk) this image features one of my rare nudes.

The farmers rape field had a track running down the middle that I used to get my car into the center. I stood on the roof of the car to get this upside down image.

Taken on Kodachrome film and scanned. I applied a motion blur to the reflections and to the ground itself to make it appear that the car is moving.

This field was in the middle of nowhere with a good view in all directions so the model wasn't worried about being seen. However we didn't expect the small squadron of microlights to fly over!

Silhouette

Opportunist shot taken while on holiday in Spain. For once the model wasn't whinging about being cold, but was whinging that the rocks were sharp.

The sun still had a long way to go down, but I wanted to include it in the photo. So after making sure the front of the lens was immaculately clean I managed to get this image.

I had Fujichrome slide film loaded at the time, but still managed to meter it quite well.

Scanned and post processed to increase the colour saturation in the sky.

Cross, Channel, Swimmer

Taken at a leisure complex near Blackpool this one shows up the strong colours and shapes and of the building.

As soon as I got there, I liked the way that the centre channel of the wall leads the eye down. So I waited until the sun was just right and added the girl in the pose shown.

Shot on Kodachrome with my Minolta 9000 and scanned, this shot required no post processing at all.

The slide film makes the sky at the top of the frame behind the white handrail almost black.