Thursday 28 July 2016

After Stieglitz

We were watching a BBC Imagine program on the artist Georgia O'Keefe and of course her famous nude photos, taken by her lover and later husband Alfred Stieglitz, were shown.

We thought we'd have a go at reproducing two of the more famous ones.


I used a Neewer studio strobe head with a shoot-through umbrella, and my Fuji X-Pro1 with the Fuji 56mm f1.2 lens.


PP was in Lr and Ps CC.


I'm very pleased with the results.





So, the second pose was a bit easier to reproduce.


For this image I again used the Fuji X-Pro1 and the Fuji 56mm f1.2, but used natural light, diffused with a window blind.

Sunday 17 July 2016

Saltaire Inspired follow up.

I was really pleased that one of the portraits of the artists I took at Saltaire Inspired 2016 was used on the artist's blog site.



Thanks to Paul for crediting me, his website is worth a look, especially if you like chemical based and polaroid photography.

I also had a play with Adobe Spark, I used the Saltaire portraits view the result here, I think its pretty impressive tool.

Magazine shoot

Autumn 2015 I shot some images for a magazine article.

The article appeared in the Feb 2016 edition of Babel Magazine.



I used my Canon 5D2 on this shoot, the double spread used a Canon 100mm f2.8 USM Macro, the insert image a Canon 24-70mm f2.8 L.

A Canon selection

Back out to the same hayfield this evening in an attempt to catch the really long shadows as the sun sets.
Unfortunately there are some trees on the very edge of the field that diffuse the shadows and then block them altogether.

Images all looked a bit flat when I took them off the 5D2. However a bit of tweaking in Lr with my usual preset resulted in some images I was pleased with.

Canon 5D2, Canon 100mm f2.8 USM

Canon 5D2, Canon 20mm f2.8 USM

Canon 5D2, Canon 20mm f2.8 USM

Canon 5D2, Canon 70-200mm f4 L


Saturday 16 July 2016

Fuji X-Pro1 - Poor man's Leica Mono?

Its pretty well acknowledged that the Fuji X cameras produce superb jpg files straight out the camera.

I normally shoot jpg and RAW, and usually end up processing the RAW file to my tastes, using the jpg as a proof.

It is also well known that the Fuji film simulations are also excellent.

This evening as a try out I shot some images with my Fuji X-Pro1, the Fuji 14mm, Fuji 35mm f1.4 and Fuji 56mm lenses, shooting jpg only in BW with Red filter film simulation mode, could this be an option for the dedicated BW shooter?

The images below are SOOC with just re-sizing for this blog.

SOOC BW+Red filter Fuji 14mm f2.8

SOOC BW+Red filter Fuji 35mm f1.4

SOOC BW+Red filter Fuji 56mm f1.2
I'm rather impressed with the tones and exposure.

Here is one processed in Lr with my usual preset.

SOOC BW+Red filter Fuji 14mm f2.8 with Lr preset
In my camera Billingham I also had my Canon G10 Powershot; this a camera that has greatly impressed me, up to 400ISO the images are very usable. I particularly like this camera for event photography of groups, set to Face Detection and sometimes with a Canon Speedlite attached in ETTL mode, it is less intimidating that a DSLR and people relax more. Today however, I tried it on some landscape using the Landscape Mode and in aperture priority mode (Av).

I shot jpg and RAW in Av mode the camera reverts to jpg only in its preset modes.

RAW processed in Lr with my usual preset.

Canon G10 80ISO Lr preset from RAW