This Planet Is My Resting Place
Many years ago, before i came to Spain, I took some therapy ( i needed it at the time) my therapist and i did some Astral Planing, i had to find my Spirit Father, he was a little guy who looked like Gandi, dressed like Gandi and spoke like Gandi- i found him !!!! Before reaching his little cave up in the highest mountain, i had to spend some time resting in the perfect place that i wanted to be-i think this is the place!-OMG I´ve only just discovered it years later,or latterly last weekend! The only thing missing is the birds singing, the insects buzzing and the song “ this Planet Is My Resting Place by Karma playing in the background! And oh yeah, the sound of water trickling over the rocks from a small stream closeby!
Bernia| Canon 5D MKII|f/18|1/25sec|ISO-400|Tamron 28-75mm@30mm|SOOC
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Trans-Africa Land Rover
Here´s a shot from my friend Jon´s land rover, as you can see it´s all kitted out for the adventure holidays he organizes throughout Spain and Morroco.
Canon 5D MKII |f/4| 1/500 sec| ISO-640| Tamron 10-24mm@15mm
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Sunday morning On The Sierra Bernia
We´ve spent the weekend camping with some friends, at a friends plot of land close to this place. Sunday morning i left the folks back at the campsite really early and took a drive to the base of the mountain and then “walked the Walk” up to the Bernia. I´ve been to this mountain many times, as it´s a favorite of mine, but never at this time of the year. This view is of the port of Denia in the distance. There were quite good atmospheric conditions, not too hazy,which was suprising at this time of the year.
I cut my equipment down to two lenses and my Giottos tripod as it´s quite a stiff walk and was glad that i did!- although it was still fairly heavy stuff to lug around! This is a three bracket HDR. I added a little bit of Saturation to the sky before merging the RAW files in photoshop, then added some Tonal Contrast using Color Efex Pro software and cropped it “Pano” style.
Canon 5D MK II, f/18, 1/800 sec, ISO-200, Tamron 18-24mm@24mm, Color Efex Pro Tonal Contrast filter
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The Wolfgangsee, Austria from Strobl
A very busy week doing product photography means i have´nt had a chance to get out and about with the camera- and i miss my blog! So i´m putting this up from the archives.I´ve really missed not being able to post on my blog, so i´m taking time out from product photography post production to stay in the loop and tomorrow´s another day- everything can wait ´til then!
This was taken last year from Strobl overlooking the Wolfgangsee, (See, in German means lake and it´s a big one)! This was taken from a very cool restaurant high in the mountains (we were attending a family wedding reception). I added some adjustment layers in photoshop to the lake and to the foreground and then CEP´s Tonal Contrast for everything else.
Canon 50D,f/4.5, 1/640 sec, ISO-100,Canon 18-200mm@18mm.
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De-Sanctified for Renovations
This shot was taken thru the window of the local church in Tormos, the next village to our village Sagra.The light conditions were very challenging. The church is closed to the public at the moment, due to renovation work being carried out. It must be one of the smallest churches i´ve seen to date, any smaller and it would be an Ermita! I added one of Shadowhouse Creations 2012 JPG Grunge Brush Texture set,to this, and you can visit Shadowhouse Creations here, if you don´t already know it.
No photography this last weekend as i have been looking at a great Facebook online HDR workshop called HDReate. Luis Tamarit is a great Digital Artist in this field, although for me, not all the content is what i would choose view,(some of it is a bit “Lara Croft”) but technically brilliant. I like HDR but not to the exclusion of all other photographic styles, but if you are an afficianado of HDR, you may want to check out HDReate facebook page.
This weeks posts are going to be a little erratic as i have some Product Photography to do for a friend who´s launching a Vintage website soon-and i promised to have the first batch ready for Wednesday!
Luckily my weekend shoots leave me with just enough in reserve for downtime. Tommorow morning, nose to the grindstone!
Canon 5D MK II, f/5.6, 0.6 sec, ISO-160,Tamron 28-75mm@28mm, handheld, CEP filters and textures.
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Waiting For Parents Can Be Such A Drag
Today´s post is inspired by David Williams latest post, see it here.
I took this a month ago on our camping weekend in the mountains, got the tent, an icebox well stocked with food,my Swiss Army Knife,sleeping bags Etc. But where are the tent pegs and Mallet?
It took us half-hour to find them, poor long suffering Sophie, sitting patiently in the car! I took this picture just as Silvia was locking the front door and we were on our way. Tonemapped in Photomatix and some Photoshop work. Love those eyes! I can´t remember if i used flash on this but it looks like it, no flash info on the metdata which is due to Photomatix i think.
Canon 50D, f/5.6, 1/40 sec, Tamron 28-75mm@28mm, Photomatix, Photoshop.
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Europe Day
As an unashamed European i thought i´d knock something up quickly this morning to celebrate Europe Day. This is a shot of the mother´s day gift my wife bought herself on my behalf because i forgot to!
The pink bit is´nt really pink, it´s a drab off- white, so i added some Hue and Saturation in a layer to cheer it up a bit.
I used my faithful 50D and Canon 60mm Macro for this.
“Feliz Dia De Europa” everyone!
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Call Out The Pumphouse Crew
This is from our trip to the Marjal in Pego a couple of weeks back, the pump on the right was spewing water all over the place, i wonder if the maintenance guy´s know about it?
I wanted to get the base of the pumps in shot but the pumping system was in a wire fence compound and with the lens right up against the fence i could´nt angle the camera without getting a piece of wire fence dissecting the view.
Canon 5D MKII, f/5.6, 1/640 sec, ISO-100, Sigma 70-300mm @300mm.
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On the way home
We were on the way to the car after leaving the Help Africa concert and this was the last shot of the night.As i did´nt have my tripod with me, i could´nt do a bracketed HDR , so in PP i added some Tonal Mapping in Photomatix and then converted to black and white in Silver Efex Pro.
Canon 5D MKII, f/2.8, 1/8 sec, ISO-4000, Tamron 28-75mm@28mm, Photomatix, Silver Efex Pro.
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Xalónia-a weekend of festivities
f/5.6, 1/1250sec, ISO-100 Tamron 28-75mm@75mm, Flash enabled
F/13, 1/200 sec, ISO-100 Sigma 70-300mm@119mm, no flash
f/5, 1/80 sec, ISO-4000,Sigma 70-300mm@190mm, no flash
f/4, 1/80 sec, ISO-4000,Sigma 70-300mm@86mm, no flash
The town where are gift shop is, hosted a weekend of activities to promote the town. The activities came in three components over the two days, starting late Friday night through to Sunday night. Today´s post is from the Saturday day and night. The main image is of a friend´s son, Connor, doing his BMX thing at Fira Xaló Obert (Xaló Open Fair) and the others we´re taken at a location just out side of the town where the music bars (and our shop) are located.
These were from the benefit concert of a local charity organisation “Help Africa”.
I´d wanted to get more shots of the people there- the punks and grungie´s with their dreadlocks (meant in the nicest way as some of them are my friends too!) rather than just the bands but it was around 1am and little Sophie wanted to go home to bed!
I find it quite amusing the reaction you get from people when walking around with cameras and equipment.( I´m a person who does´nt feel self-concious about taking pictures in public places, however my wife cringes!) and the whole weekend i had complete strangers asking me where they could view the pictures. I think i´m going to need some visiting cards made up with my blog and 500px address on, writing them down on the back of flyers you´ve just picked up off the floor looks bad!
A guy with a big shock of frizzy hair like an Afro, asked me if i was going to take some shot´s of his band who were next up, as we were on our way out i had to apologise and promise to get some of his band next time around, he looked really disappointed- i felt terrible!
All these bands are local and play in the fiestas in the villages around the area during the summer, so plenty of opportunities for band and concert photography this summer and although the music is´nt always what i would choose to listen to, it´s a great vibe and cool when they come up to you after their set and shake your hand!
I want to master handheld lowlight photography, so band and concert photography is a great way to hone my skills in that particular medium-while having a good time!
All todays images are SOOC, taken with the 5D MKII and Tamron and Sigma lenses handheld.
