murphyz

Relax

murphyz — Fri, 24 May 2013 08:21:14 +0000

This women was sitting at St Pancras International train station when a few of us went in there to grab some photos.

I imagine she was waiting for a train, and found this nice comfortable spot to listen to some music, check emails and perhaps play a little Candy Crush on Facebook.

Quite liking the scene, I of course took a picture – though wish I had gone ahead and switched from my 14mm to something with a bit more zoom. I cropped a lot out of the image to get what you see here, and I think a different lens with different compression may have made the subject stand out a little better. I ended up moving the couch off center as well so that I could get both plant pots in.

In fact, in the future I think I may not only change the lens, but attempt to get in there and change the location of different items in the scene as well. I guess that would lose some of the spontaneity of it though.

Meanwhile, I’m off to Berlin today for what looks to be a rather wet weekend. Hopefully I’ll get some breaks in the weather; though photography will be taking a slight backseat on this trip it would be nice to capture some of the iconic stuff out there. Have a good weekend all.

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Wenhua Hall

murphyz — Thu, 23 May 2013 07:28:21 +0000

Wenhua Hall is in the Forbidden City in Beijing, China.

I understand it used to be where the emperor’s heir would discuss political issues. Not sure what it is used for now, other than a background to tourists taking their picture, resulting in a long wait for me to get a shot without people in it.

It’s odd. If I point the camera at a group of women they look at me as if I had just invaded their privacy and offended them greatly, yet point the camera at a building and they’re happy just to walk into the scene oblivious to the fact I’m there.

I’m not sure, and I think I need to conduct further research into this, but I think my camera must therefore be some sort of invisibility cloaking device. I think if I simply point it at a subject, say a bank vault, then I must immediately be invisible to anyone nearby. It’s only when I point the camera directly at someone intentionally that they will notice me.

I reckon could probably get away with stealing the Eiffel Tower using this method.

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Museum

murphyz — Wed, 22 May 2013 08:09:40 +0000

The Natural History Museum is a stunning building, with some great architecture which is very Harry Potter-esque. Unfortunately it’s a busy as Hogwarts is, making it hard to take a photo without people in it.

That’s why it’s best to get in there and take photos after hours, when the museum is closed to tourists, the staff have all but left, and the big dinosaur from the main entrance sneaks off for a game of poker.

If anyone has out of hours access to the museum and can verify that the above happens or, better still, get me into the building, then please do get in touch.

For now I will make do with having to use my ingenuity and brain smarts to get around the people. Or Photoshop…whichever.

This image is from two exposures and was handheld. I had to do a little bit of cloning here and there [insert your own cloning/dinosaur/Jurassic Park joke here] to get rid of a couple of people who were standing around, but not too much at the end of the day. I love images that are symmetrical because you can take an extract from the opposite side of the image and horizontally flip it over to use on the other side. That’s when you really find out that your image isn’t as symmetrical as you might like to think.

It works in this situation though.

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Splitting Time

murphyz — Tue, 21 May 2013 08:19:01 +0000

This was the last image I took while out with with Jim Nix last Monday night….though boy that feels like a long time ago.

After meeting at the Eye and moving on to the usual spot opposite the Houses of Parliament for sunset I opted to cross over the bridge for a little light trail action as the hour turned blue.

Normally the light trail shots are done from the opposite side of the road, but as I hadn’t really ‘done’ this scene since getting the 14mm I decided to stay on the left side of the bridge and see what I could get into the ultrawide frame…it seemed natural that the bridge should be used to create a leading line straight through the image.

It took a couple of attempts to get a bus coming by at the correct speed to offer up the most interesting light trail (I’m still waiting for that day when a couple of fire engines come whizzing by), but I’m happy with the results.

After packing up and heading crossing the road to search for food, Jim spotted Deb Sandidge also taking shots on the bridge (and probably cursing those two guys opposite who are standing around in the shot) – so if we end up in your final images Deb, I’m sorry.

I delayed in posting this last week as every time I look at it I’m convinced that the bridge is not central…but then when I check it out in Lightroom, it is. I’m either comparing two different edits, or the lack of features over the water in comparison to those on the bridge, as well as depth difference between river and pavement, are playing tricks with my mind.

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1fab

Wrath

murphyz — Mon, 20 May 2013 07:23:28 +0000

Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula in Brussels, Belgium.

I was recently given a reviewers copy of B&W Effects 2 by Topaz Labs, but having been busy for the past 6 weekends, and mostly travelling, I haven’t been able to actually put my thoughts on this software down on paper – until now. I’ve also recorded a video of myself working on the above image, so feel free to check that our also; it’s 18 minutes long.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’ve tried a couple of black and white plugins previously…but have never really got on with any of them. However, I find that I’m consistently returning to B&W Effects 2 when processing my daily images, and it’s now become a part of my workflow. I had only really used Topaz Denoise previously (on 90% of my images, to be honest), so this is a welcome addition to the collection.

First up, the interface is nice and simple and easy to use – it was pretty intuitive to just dive right in there and start using it. It was natural to start at the top left of the screen where I could select a ‘collection’ to work from; follow that down by selecting a preset which is part of the collection, and then when I’ve settled on one of those simply head over to the right hand navigation panel to tweak the image how I require. Simple.

Simple and intuitive interface

Preview the presets before applying them

However; there were a few too many options for me when it came to the final tweaking. I’m used to doing many things in Lightroom and CS6, so features such as dodging and burning or curve adjustments just didn’t seem necessary in a plugin as far as I was concerned.
I’m rather short sighted, however, as I have no idea what other image hosts may have as features, and it may be that you require these additional features from directly within the plugin.

Adjust curves and many other settings

Refine your images until you’re happy with the results

My biggest issues with the software are that it needs to generate previews of the image each time you select a collection, and sometimes it can appear to be a little unresponsive – mostly because it’s catching up on a previous action before moving on to the next. If that’s all I have to complain about though, then that’s not a bad thing. The former can be overcome over time simply by adding your most used presets to your ‘favourites’ collection as these will all load at once and so it’s likely you’ll only need to load the presets once.

Preset previews load with each collection; an unwelcome break to the workflow.

I didn’t use the original B&W Effects so can’t say how this one differs from the previous version, but I’m happy enough with the features this one does have, and the control it allows you over the final adjustments.

Pros
Convert your image to black and white in under 30 seconds
Intuitive design
Large selection of presets available
Ability to finely adjust selected presets
Apply finishing effects from within the plugin
Reasonable price point ($60)

Cons
Preview load times are noticeable when they should be instantaneous
Cannot be used as a standalone application

Summary
A versatile package with a vast array of presets which will suit many images. Topaz B&W Effects 2 has become a part of daily workflow, allowing me to create a new look to my images within seconds.

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Riga Sunset

murphyz — Fri, 17 May 2013 08:12:28 +0000

Here’s an image of the river and one of the bridges in Riga just as the sun has gone down.

Being their Independence weekend it was a really vibrant place while I was there, and one that is quite picturesque also. Though I spent the majority of my time walking around and complaining about the cloudless sky, I was fortunate to have a little bit of cloud cover at this time which certainly adds a little bit of interest to the image, and prevents the sky from being a single gradient block.

You can see the lovely Vanšu Bridge crossing the river Daugava; I love the suspension cables that hold the structure together.

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend ahead of them

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Al fresco

murphyz — Thu, 16 May 2013 07:50:38 +0000

A cobbled street with outside seating on a nice sunny day; it’s a typical European scene.

This was down a lovely set of passageways behind the back of St Peter’s Church in Riga, Latvia. It was pretty busy with tourists so I had to wait for quite some time before I was able to get this image without any people in it. It’s also amazing just how slow some people can walk.

This day was pretty sunny, with harsh light and a bright blue sky. One option in these conditions would have been to process the image in black and white; however that’s why I love some of the filters that are available to photographers. Here I used one of my favourites, and certainly one of my ‘go to’ filters, which is ‘Autumn’ within Perfect Effects by OnOne Software. This filter works awesomely in harsh sunlight, adding golden tones and a nice soft glow to the scene.

I used the same filter on my Prague image last month…and many others before that.

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The Following

murphyz — Wed, 15 May 2013 07:55:30 +0000

An underpass with a light at the end and people walking through it in silhouette form – how could I resist to stand and shoot this?

Of course…it was a busy underpass so getting something I wanted without people walking in and out of the frame immediately around me, and having them for some sort of sense without overlapping too much at the end, was pretty darn time consuming.

I was pleased with this though, especially when I saw the family of three holding hands on the right hand side of the frame.

This underpass is quite close to the central train station in Riga, and is one way in which you can get across the busy road (other ways include simply walking, a jetpack, sitting atop a large frog or making use of a really large catapult…perhaps).

For processing I used the Urban Sickness filter within Perfect Effects by OnOne Software to create the green tinge at the edge of the light.

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GoldenEye

murphyz — Tue, 14 May 2013 07:46:04 +0000

I hadn’t really paid attention to Jubilee Gardens since they opened at the end of October last year. In my mind, I am still used to the grassy field that was there beforehand, with hard patches of soil poking through and a few hobos sat around drinking cider from a brown paper bag. As such, I have walked past this place many times since but never really stopped to actually look at it, and determine if I like it or not.

It’s certainly an improvement on what went before it.

I headed to the Southbank for sunset last night and grabbed a few long exposures here while waiting for Jim Nix to rock up. We didn’t get a great sunset in the end, but the golden light that was coming out just before the sun went down was really quite nice, and the clouds were moving at a steady pace, so it was nice to stick on the black glass and get this shot. It’s probably the first London shot I’ve taken this year that makes me think of warmth and summer.

It was surprisingly quiet down here also, so it was nice to get the image with only a couple of people in it – and these were simply ghosts by the time they had walked through the exposure.

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13ad

I’m lovin’ it

murphyz — Mon, 13 May 2013 07:40:28 +0000

There are a lot of old, empty buildings in Riga. You can easily turn a corner and be faced with somewhere that is boarded up, falling apart and covered in tape as a warning not to cross the threshold. I imagine if you were a local you would be able to spend some time finding entry points to some amazing places.

I had taken a walk over the Stone Bridge to check out the library which was in a lovely looking modern building, but which is unfortunately in the middle of having some sort of renovation work done so getting images was not really possible from close up. I continued my walk down the river and turned a corner to find myself with a building as mentioned above, boarded up, falling apart, and a line of tape over the doors and windows. So I started taking a few detail shots and noticed this McDonald’s cup lodged into this space.

I doubt that removal of the cup would result in the structure falling down, but it was the immediate thought that ran through my mind. It was a very sunny day with pretty harsh light, but I liked the shadows being cast and used a vintage filter from Perfect Effects to take add a softer edge to it.

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