Bowland Fresh - A calendar Project

It's late november 2007 and I've just been asked by one of my best friends if I can pull together a set of around 40 shots for a calendar to promote his milk marketing business.


It's an honour of course, he's bought shots off me before to decorate the office, but we had time to choose those and I went out on several shoots to get the right shots. This one's requires shots appropriate to each month, killer shots that you'd want to adorne the walls of farm houses throughout Lancashire.


The thing is, I go to lancashire to see family and get drunk, not to take lovely shots - so most of them are of my brother looking bog eyed, dad pouring wine, John Conners doing Keepy-uppies with a foot ball or some calves licking my hand.


So I've been looking through the archives and there's a few of the shots in contention from the last 2 years. It's not easy - I've kinda got to a look and style that I want to promote with my lakes and yorkshire shots, but I've never really had time or the inclination (or the weather to be fair) to follow my usual techniques.



It's a tricky one really, the shots around Malham are right up there with my best, there's a fantastic wintery shot of the Tarn that would do for a winter month, but they're in Craven, not Bowland. Sounds a bit like Middle Earth really :-)



So these shots, are they giving that rural dairy feel?

Would you go for more cows?

Or maybe more recogniseable land marks?


It's a tricky set to get right - and with a day job that you get to in the dark and leave in the dark, there's no chance to go and get more shots.


Ah well - hopefully I'll get the 12 killers that I need, and the rest can fill in the gaps!

Thing is, this is far far more interesting than the day job... if I could only pay that mortgage doing it :-)

A photo book on Leeds....

Just stumbled up on a site called http://www.blurb.com/ which seems to do very nice books. I've seen similar ones on Photobox, but they don't look as professional - the paper in them is quite thin and you really don't get that lovely glosy finish to them.

Anyway, the thought of actually authoring a book... it's a little daunting, but I think for this one I'll probably let the pictures do the talking.

I've had a search around for Leeds and there doesn't seem to be that many of them out there. there's the usual stack of books with "Leeds from the air", or Leeds in 1890, but nothing really spelling out what's there today. I've been on a mission to get as many shots of the place as possible, using HDR as well as traditional, so I think I may have a reasonable original pile of photos to go at.

I've just got 95 useable shots, and have hundreds more to revisit - and a few days off work to go compile some more - just watch, it'll be dark and horrible tomorrow!

I'm pitching at the luxury end for starters - they aint cheap, £40 to get 1 printed etc. But I want something nice for my self and to show off to mates, so it's a present, if anything else comes from it, then I'll be happy. If it really takes off, there are bulk discounts.

Then again, I may get pissed off with the software that the site provide and just give up... or maybe I should really write it in Adobe Acrobat format so I can print it anywhere...

who knows, just quite exciting thinking of having a book with my name on it!

Making the most of the mundane

I'm sure many photographers don't bother getting their kit out unless they are in a particularly beautiful area, many are guided by the instinct to copy beautiful images they see in magazines or from photo-sharing sites.

In fact, on such sites I've grown tired of seeing the same images done over and over again, one "pioneer" has seen a shot and taken a beauty of a shot, then droves drive to that spot, find the holes where the pioneer's tripod legs were and wait for the same light.

There's nothing wrong with this, it just means that you're being unoriginal and not really carving yourself a niche.

Leeds Olympic Pool

I've started to revist areas that I've walked past previously, taking a second look at what merits these locations have. This has been in Leeds, I've done the town hall and some of the more famous builsings to death now, so I've wandered off the beaten track in search of unseen gems.


All buildings, not matter how hideous, were designed by someone and will have particular merit - it's just a case of finding the right angle, the right light and right post-processing to get a unique image.

Office Block on Wellington Street

I'll repeat that...

Unique Image

Not something you find much of these days, and that's the challenge.

Or maybe it's the easiest thing you could do with a camera, take a shot of something mundane, something people walk past every day without a blink of an eye, and create something from nothing.

The easiest thing in photography is to copy a well trodden landscape, one of the hardest is to capture the essence of a personality in a shot, that takes a lot of practice and people skills.

Unknown Building in Leeds that I used to walk past each day



All I'm suggesting is to open your eyes to your surroundings, take shots of things unusual things, try HDR and distorting the image, or maybe a zoom burst, a long exposure to blur cars - there's a huge pile of new techniques to learn about - all of which can transform the mundane into the magnificent.

Darkness - Perfect for Photography?

I'm sure there are many outdoor photographers who lament the changing of the hour and the fact that it's dark before you get home from work.

True, you miss the sunset, you don't even get the long afterglow purples and blues, it's just black and thats your lot.

So hang up your camera bag, shoot macro or get the stuidio lights out till the spring?

You can do, or you can spend £10 and get some coloured Gels from EBAY, a flash and a torch and go outside and paint the darkness whatever colour you like!

It's best to go out in pairs, or more, for many reasons:-

1. safety - people do mug you for cameras
2. holding torches - when you're chaing lenses etc in the dark
3. extra lighting - 2 people colouring the world can be useful
4. emergencies - you are scrabbling around in the dark, you may fall or hurt yourself

The photos in this blog are from an abandoned petrol station we found in Yorkshire. It's truly derelict and full of broken glass, but also full of intersting shapes and objects to cast colour on.

A shot in normal daylight would just be a boring shot of a ruin, but when painted in progocative colours like red and blue, you get a different world appearing.

The top shot is looking though a carwash to Dave on the far side. I painted the majority of the scene with my Speedlite 550EX and a blue/red gel, then took out my Maglite and focussed it to a spot, and coloured Dave green.

This shot is a documentary of a shot Dave took - in the dark, you can move around freely infront of the camera, you'll make no impression on the exposure so long as you don't have a torch on or glowing eyes! Here I was stood in 3 positions, he then used his flash to colour me in each spot.

The technicalities....


Well we're talking long exposures, so you need a camera with bulb setting and a cable release to keep it open.

You need a tripod

Shoot with your lens reasonably wide open, if you're on cheap lenses, best keep them sweet at around F8 or 7.1, otherwise they loose sharpness. If you're on a decent lens, then you can open up of course.

Focussing... well some focus in infinity, but I tend to shine a torch on the thing I want in focus, use the AF to focus for me, then switch to manual focus so it doesn't change.

Once you're happy, then just put the camera in bulb and walk around with your gel over the flash, and flash away.

The main thing to bear in mind is that this is inexact - I usually do 5 or 6 minutes, then curiosity gets me

Have fun