New job, new property.

I went out today to visit a property we are hopefully going to be bringing to the market in the next few weeks. After 6 weeks of marketing with another agent he's hopeful that a fresh approach may help him and as normal I think he's right. The current agent has used a standard point and shoot camera to photograph his home and at a price approaching half a million pounds you'd expect something a little better.

Ideally I would've had longer to really make the most of the photos but as normal, I have other things to do so I have to be quick and then process in the evenings.

Anyway here are there shots that hopefully should help us win us the business :)

 

This is the only one I'm not overly happy with! The colours are quite out!

 

 

 

I'm hoping to have done the property justice compared to the current photos!

 

Anyway, Chow.

Glassjaw?

First of all, I hope you had a cracking christmas and a fantastic new years! It's now 2011 and one of my main resolutions is to take some more time for myself to do things I enjoy. This includes Photography so I set out this afternoon to try and be reasonably creative.

I've always liked the look of this glass head which my dad has had for years. It's always sat in pretty much the same place and for no real reason there is always a top hat perched on top. I thought I'd take it today and set it up for some photos in my garage. Unfortunately I do not have any decent backgrounds and couldn't be doing with hanging an old bed sheet so these aren't as good as they could be. That said I'm quite happy how they came out :)

 

 And a link to the set - Click me!

The winter nights go on and on...

I'm really not a fan of winter. Every morning I open my eyes and I just want to close them again and stay tucked up. I get up and immediately have to put on some warm clothes. Everything seems more effort and it hasn't had me in the best of moods. After sifting through a photography thread on a forum today I decided to stop being so miserable and head out to get some shots. Unfortunately.... It was too cold and I lost my bottle after a while but not before grabbing this shot as I was walking back to the motor.

 

For the first time ever I've had someone random comment on a picture on my Flickr. Which was a positive one about this picture. OVER THE MOON! When I got home I didn't really think much of it but the moor I have a look the happier I am.

A cold, cold day!

Today was freezing, and by that I mean PROPER cold. Our office was taking a while to warm up so I thought i'd grab the camera out of the bag and take a quick snap of my colleague Dan. He was pretty miserable as always and I think this comes across in the photo!

Some more Gritty processing.

I've been practising this Gritty processing technique for the past few days and I think I'm getting better at it. I'm going to be exploring some different types of photography over the next few weeks as I intend to do a 365 next year. 

Anyway here are my 2 latest offerings. I know the one of the girl is overly smoothed but I was just trying to show her how to achieve the effect :)

Upgraded MBP = New programs.

On Friday my mac book blew it's hard drive! After throwing a paddy my old man and a few friends pointed me towards some companies to replace them. On Saturday evening I had a new 500gb hard drive and a version of snow leopard. I got this all up and running on Sunday which meant I was able to install photoshop and lightroom. After making sure everything was working I searched about on-line for some processing techniques and came across this - http://www.scottkelby.com/blog/2008/archives/1094

After taking a quick snap with the help of the old man I got too it and came out with this.

Obviously it's nothing special as it was just the basics. There is some major haloing which needs sorting but I'll definitely be using the technique in the future!

The ultimate portable studio.

I came across this whilst scouring the internet recently and thought I'd post about it as I think it's a fantastic idea.

Not all of us have the luxury of access to a studio at all time. Be it a space in a pro studio or a large wood cabin in the garden so this could be the next best thing for the budding photographer! 

- http://www.ips-studio.com/ 

Taken from the Website - "The I.P.S. is an inflatable alternative to mid-afternoon sun, partially cloudy days (which can cause a white balance and exposure nightmare), and battling moderate weather elements.  It is intended to be another tool in the toolbox.  It was essential that is be compact and, most importantly, affordable.  It inflates in 3-4 minutes and deflates in 4-5 minutes.  Once rolled up it measures about 40" x 18" x 18" and weighs a mere 40 lbs.  Fully inflated it measures 15 feet wide x 20 feet long by 12 feet high."