After an aborted trip to Chatsworth to visit this year's Beyond Limits exhibition (aborted because of the overflow carpark being open and the tens of coaches in the car park) I went to Dove Dale. Unfortunately the dale was over-grown, it being September, and the light was poor. The river, however, was in spate, the stepping stones half-covered in water. Climbed Thorpe Cloud for excellent, distant, hazy views. Curiously the only water available to drink at the little shack at the car-park was Highland Spring Water, from Scotland, in the English Peak Disrict.
I've photographed two weddings recently: one by invite, and one because it was at the church across the road from me, and I wanted the practice. The former, Alex and Dave's wedding, was very very wet, and in a location which offered no protection from the rain, no arches, or trees, that could be used to provide shelter. During the whole day it must have stopped raining for no more than five minutes. We did the group shots indoors which came out reasonably successfully given the lack of available natural light; the barn upstairs having very few windows. We also struggled a little with the candid shots since the marquis was white walled and white roofed, confusing the camera's exposure meter. At the second wedding conditions were much more favourable. Interesting to watch the invited photographer work. The steps of the church make the obvious place for group shots, however, on such a sunny day it may have been better to use the shady area to the right of the church door. Secondly, when taking the group shots useful to close the church door otherwise you end up with a very cluttered background of church notices. The 'best' shots were those taken between the formal shots such as when the bride was sat on the steps outside the church, or when the groom was helping the bride into the carriage.
Two events last Friday (Crafty Kids Fundraiser and Graeme's 50th Birthday) both pushed the camera to limits of its capability. Both events were about people and people move too quickly to be able to use a shutter speed below 1/60 of second. That figure is also the limit of pictures that are hand-held - anything slower and a tripod is required. However, in low-light 1/60 means an aperture of 2.8 or lower. I tried 2.8 and found it wasn't sufficient to provide the right exposure so I changed to the 35mm with a 1.4 aperture. This provided the right level of exposure but the depth of field was so shallow that anything other than individual shots were a little soft - depth of field for a 40d with a 35mm lens at f/1.4 at a focal length of 1.5m is 10cm - not alot to play with. Bearing in mind this this 10cm is 5cm in front and 5cm behind the focal point any group shots where the peoples heads weren't in the same plane were soft. The final option was to set the ISO as high it would go - 1600. The resulting pictures had a little noise in them, especially in the dark areas. I've used Noise Ninja to remove the noise. One of the drawbacks of noise removal is a slight smoothing of skin tones, sometimes this isn't a drawback. Selective masking worked well. As does not removing the noise at all, just blurring the background 3px to improve the bokeh.
We've now added canvas printing to our capabilty for photos A3 and larger, and A1 and A2 prints on glossy paper. We're using a two step method to ensure quality. Firstly we upsize the image using Photoshop CS3 using Bicubic Smoothing, using a number of iterations to ensure the highest quality is achieved. We then Sharpen the image, applying different amounts to different parts of the image, where necessary. The results allow us to take 3000x2000 pixel images and print them at A1 without a noticeable loss of quality.
I downloaded Lightroom 1.0 Beta when it first came out, around January 2007, before using any photo software, and became very fond of it. However, when Aperture came out my allegiance to Apple won me over and I became a fervent user of Aperture. I wavered when I bought the Canon IPF6100 printer. I undertook a number of tests and found the printing in Lightroom easier - the IPF6100 is not the easiest of printers to get the best from at the best of times, and Lightroom interface was simpler, more understandable and, as a result, the prints were better. There are more reasons why I eventually defected. The Lightroom crop shows the thirds. I know I shouldn't be so obsessive as to need to see where the thirds cross but it helps seeing the lines on the screen. Lightroom's sharpening is also a revelation. By holding down the ALT key in a 1:1 zoom you can see the mask. Clever, and very helpful. I was also drawn to its integration with Photoshop; seamless. I also, and this is very subjective, like its raw conversion better than Aperture. I believe Aperture and Lightroom's functionality will converge with releases making the difference between them minimal but having converted to Lightroom it is unlikely that I will change.
I've always been reluctant to watermark photos but it is necessary to avoid photos being downloaded from the website - the purpose of the website is to sell prints. Adobe Lightroom provides for adding a watermark based on metadata to the bottom corner of the photo. The photo is easily cropped to remove the copyright information. I was exporting to jpeg from Lightroom then importing to Aperture which allows for a watermark to be placed across the whole image, having created the watermark as a .psd with a transparent background in Photoshop CS3. This isn't as onerous as it might sound given that the exports from Lightroom are jpeg, around 150k, the whole process of importing and re-exporting took a couple of minutes. However, Aperture is not suffiently clever to resize the watermark. If the watermark is square and the photo 3x2 then the sides of the photo have not watermark on them.
The solution is to use a Photoshop 'droplet' which is called by Lightroom once the files are exported. The droplet automatically opens the exported jpeg in Photoshop. I created an action that opens the watermark file, copies it to the opened jpeg as a new layer and then saves the jpeg with its original name, flattening it in the process. The 'droplet' then closes the file. It does this action on all files exported by Lightroom making it a seamless 'one click' process. I've used a watermark with 'www.twentytrees.co.uk' repeated over the photo to ensure all parts of the photo are covered, albeit at 25% transparency which, hopefully, makes it less obtrusive.
I've spent the last couple of days, whilst the weather has been so changeable, incorporating a simple php order form into the photo pages so that visitors can order photos through the website. I had previously generated html pages using Ruby. The running of PHP script requires that the file suffix should be PHP. Changing all the .html files to .php would have resulted in the Google indexes becoming out of sync with visitors being redirected to my homepage. The solution, as described on my hoster's FAQ, was to include an addtype statement into the .htaccess file which tells Apache to treat .html files as if they were .php files overcoming the need to rename all the files. Simple, but not particularly well documented on the web.
Having received a couple of commisions from a local school, and for my first wedding, I needed a way of providing galleries with password protection (the school commissions will be issued on cd). Having looked into various solutions I rejected Javascript since the .js file can be loaded without being run exposing the passwords contained in the code. PHP offers a much more secure solution since the server side cannot be opened remotely without being run - the code is not visible to the client, only to the server. Having programmed in many languages in my past life PHP was relatively straightforward although somewhat tedious with the $ for variables and the ; at the end of each line. Ruby is far simpler albeit not as quick and not supported by my web hoster oneandone. Having sorted the password code I threw together a quick comments page so that people can voice their opinions of my photos, and the web site. I'm considering providing a means of leaving comments on individual photo pages, and maybe a rating system, so that the highest rated pictures are shown on the homepage.
At midday the rain lashed down soaking the Marple Memorial Ground. Umbrellas were no protection as the wind blew the rain in all directions. It didn't bode well! At two o'clock, however, the rain stopped and the Parade commenced dry albeit grey and overcast; not ideal conditions. The Marple Parade takes a very long and circuitous route around Marple, taking some hour and a half to return to the Memorial Ground, including some residential areas where the Parade stop starts - huge fun for the spectators and paraders alike. Given the length of the route its not surprising that the Parade managed to collect a few additions on the way, including this bride. The dalek and the Scout's very very long snail were particularly good.
Perfect weather for sitting outside in big hats studying the form whilst drinking Pimms; very good canapes. Graham, as usual, organised the perfect event. Profits to charity. Particularly pleased with this picture of Russell studying the form, looking very dapper.
Photoshop offers a far wider range of image editing options than Lightroom. For fun I edited one of the pictures from the Chapel Carnival to see what Photoshop could do. The original and 'improved' version are here. The primary changes are: removal of very minor skin blemishes, shadows, softening or smoothing of the skin, bringing out the eyes and lips, restoring the lipstick and overall sharpening, particularly to the eyes and hair, improved colouration, and contrast. Some of the changes aren't particularly 'finished'; they are a little harsh. Further work required.
Damien Hirst from an interview in a book produced for an exhibition at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Napoli: "As an artist one thing that people forget is that you are making an object for an individual to stand in front of; and you only really have one viewer in mind when you make an artwork. You just imagine one person in front of this thing and how you are going to affect them."
I received a phone call this evening from a parent who, whilst complimentary about my photos, expressed his concern that I was able to photograph and offer for sale photographs of his daughter at the Chapel Carnival. The position I have always adopted, as he and I discussed, is that there are no legal restrictions on photographing people in a public place. There are restrictions on private events, such as at a school, in which case, when invited, I publish to a CD which I provide to the organiser. Whilst the law appears unambiguous about public events I do try to respect peoples privacy by, for example, not using the subjects name or any other personal information and placing a watermark across the image. I have always, as I said during the phone conversation, been happy to remove photographs from the web site if people express a concern.
After three years of photographing events, no-one has ever asked me to remove an image from the web site. The photographers position is difficult. If we didn't take photos of events there would be no historical record of these events. I do, of course, sell a few of the photographs, primarily as a means of recovering the costs of the equipment and software necessary to achieve what I hope people agree is a high standard of image. On the positive side, notwithstanding today's phone call, I receive numerous favourable comments such as the email received yesterday from a mother who described the photographs of her daughter as being 'great' with one being 'particularly outstanding'. To re-iterate, if you want a photograph removed from the web site please email me.
When printing a few samples from the Chapel Carnival I discovered the print settings on the IPF6100 have changed in Lightroom. Formerly when printing A4 and A3 the printer required a half inch border at the foot of the page, presumably for paper handling. Today, when printing from Lightroom, the borders on both A3 and A4 are even all the way around: 0.30 and 0.12 inches respectively. This makes for a print which is much easier to frame given the common border size. Must have been an automatic update. I also noticed recently that the Media Guide for the IPF6100 has been updated, with some of the papers previously listed now having disappeared simplifying a once over-complex guide.
I converted some of the Chapel Carnival pictures into Black and White. From Lightroom I edit them in Photoshop changing the Mode to Lab, removing the a and b channels and then converting to Grayscale. I add a number of Duplicate Layers using a Blending Mode of Multiply/Overlay, Color Burn, and Soft Light at around 30%, 12% 12% opacity respectively. The amounts vary depending on eye. Start at zero and work up down until its looks right. Try the other Blending Modes as well. When I'm done I usually click the layers on and off individually to fine tune the image. I usually add a Curves adjustment layer as well although sometimes Curves requires some care to retain the detail. Some of the resulting curves are untypical. The only change make in Lightroom is the crop otherwise all adjustments are in Photoshop. Examples here and here.
Photographs of the very good Chapel Carnival, and Parade, and Carnival Queen - see here. Sunny day, except just before the parade - it always rains on Carnival day! A Delorean in the parade, and decorated cars. An excellent breakfast at Morrisons followed by the Parade which went up the hill through the old town and under the railway bridge and then round to the park. Having only ever been to the shorter Hayfield May Queen parade Chapel's decorated cars were an innovation. Great fair; no mad rides. Annoying air-horns. Very good May Queen, or Carnival Queen crowning.
The expensive Haddon Hall has some very good gardens, most of which are inaccessible to visitors. Those which were available have wonderful roses and other plants whose name I have no idea of. I will, however, know a Knipfolia when I see it again. Very good restaurant. The Old Oak Tree beyond the car park is very fine. The walk over the fields to Conksbury Bridge is very good, especially the part upstream on the lower reaches of the river Lathkill before it joins the Bradford and the Wye and the Derwent, all within two and a half miles, continuing then through Matlock Bath, Cromford and Derby. Trout and nesting moorhens. From over Haddon, good meadows and views to Haddon Hall, with Stanton in the distance, beyond the river. Lots of Bronze Age barrows.