RidleyandGiles.com : Launching new stock photography website
Posted on | January 22, 2010 | No Comments
I have been taking stock photography for the last few years, and have always just had it represented by Alamy Ltd, the largest stock photography agency in the world and have had very good results so far. Over the last year, I have spent quite a lot of time photographing with a good friend, Will Giles (More here) – a leading botanical expert on exotic and tropical gardening. He certainly knows his onions, or bananas I should say, he has a regular slot on BBC Radio Norfolk, has a weekly double page in the Eastern daily press newspaper, writes for many of the leading botanical magazines, published his own books and many other things – as well as travelling round the world lecturing on exotic botanicals.
So we have now amassed quite a large number of stock photographs between us over the years, and now the time has come to combine forces and launch a dedicated stock photography website, primarily will be focused on exotic and botanical stock photography, but will also include my existing commercial and editorial stock library as well.
By stating our own stock photography agency we can keep all the photos in house, as well as being able to offer better pricing as there will be no middle man, we hope to have the largest independent exotic botanical stock library by the end of the year. We currently have over 2500 editorial and commercial images on there, and our botanical selection is growing by the day, as fast as my upload will handle it!
We currently have at least 5-6 thousand exotic botanical images in our offline library, so these will all be added over the coming months.
If you would like to have a look at the botanical and commercial stock photography library please click here.
Thanks,
Chris
Tags: botanical stock photography > exotic garden > exotic stock photography > sstock photography > stock photography norfolk > will giles
Book review: Black and White – Michael Freeman (Digital Photography Expert)
Posted on | November 27, 2009 | 1 Comment
Buy it here on Amazon
Black and White by Michael Freeman, which is in the Digital Photography Expert range of books. “The definitive guide for serious black and white photographers”
The reason I bought this book was because I never felt that my black and white photography was anywhere near as strong as it could be, and it was something I had always planned on learning more about but just never got round to it. So I relished the opportunity to work my way through a few books on a trip to Germany in August, and this was on my hit list.
To give you a rough idea of what the chapters contain:
Chapter One: The language of Mono – Different concerns, visualising in mono, the complexity of landscape, contrast, silhouette, the essential graphic qualities, the problem of skies.
Chapter Two: Colour into greyscale - Basic colour conversion, The traditional filter set, Using channels, Aids to help conversion, Individual channels, Practical channel mixing, Using an adjustment layer, Appropriate proportions, Mixing to extremes, Hue adjustment, Channels into layers, Layer masks, Third party converters, Drama in the red channel, Yellows compromise, Blue’s atmospheric depth, Luminious green foliage, Flesh tones dark and light, Fine tuning dark skin, Fine tuning light skin, Thinking colour, Colour’s perceptual weight, Environmental reflections.
Chapter Three: Digital black and white – Maximising the range, Shadow detail, Preserving highlights, Targets for calibration, The zone system, Placing a tone, Adjusting tonal distribution, A different approach to tones, Gradient mapping, Dodging and burning, Multi exposure composites, High dynamic range images, Refining the tonal range, Noise control, Upscaling, Copying in black and white, Scanning negatives, Scanning positives
Chapter Four: Image editing and effects – Mood and atmosphere, Defining the mood, Toner effects, Analyzing traditional tones, Mimicing film response, Duotones, Manipulating duotone curves, Tones to suit, Stylized black and white, Posterisation, Adding age, Hand colouring.
Chapter Five: The Print - Desktop printers, Contact sheets, Printer calibration, Ink and paper, Mounting and display
Phew, that was a lot of detail I probably didn’t need to write, but hey as long as someone finds it useful it’s all good! I don’t know why I even write book reviews, I think it’s just the fact that when I look for photography books I like to have a quick five min scout around the web to see if it’s worth buying as there are an awful lot of rubbish books out there too.
Anyway, as mentioned before I bought this as I was never happy with my understanding of the black and white digital / film workflow, and this book seemed like it would have the right level of info for what I wanted. This book certainly didn’t disappoint.
One of the best things for me about this book is that Michael talks in great depth about differing ways to do the same thing, to get similar effects and styling. There is a good mix of both technical and creative thinking, so if you are willing to read each chapter and take a little while thinking about it until it’s properly sunk in, I really think you can learn a great deal about this book. Personally I think this is one of the best modern books on the black and white digital workflow that I have read or seen so far. I’m still working slowly through the Ansel Adams range of books too – but they certainly take a great deal more time to work through!
I would recommend this book for any photographer that wants to push their black and white photography up a notch, and he certainly has lots of case studies and things to try for yourself so you can really work out what’s going on in each chapter. All great stuff.
A strong 4 out of 5 for this book, another great book on photography – we are certainly blessed with having some amazing authors in the photographic field!
Other book reviews I have written on this site:
1. Book review: Michael Freeman – The Photographer’s Eye
2. Book review: 500 (studio) lighting hints, tips and techniques by Rod Ashford
3. Book review: (Basics Photography 2) ‘Lighting’ by David Prakel. Studio Photography Lighting Techniques
4. Book review: Lighting & the dramatic portrait – The art of celebrity & editorial portrait : Michael Grecco
5. Book review: Black and White – Michael Freeman (Digital Photography Expert)
Tags: black and white > book review > books > freeman > review > workflow
Book review: Lighting & the dramatic portrait – The art of celebrity & editorial portrait : Michael Grecco
Posted on | November 26, 2009 | No Comments
Buy here at amazon
Right, time to catch up on some book reviews, I have been meaning to do them for a while now, but as I have some more on the way I thought I’d better do these first. I must point out that I have read every book I review, cover to cover. I can’t get enough books, especially when really good ones come along!
This book is called “Lighting & the dramatic portrait – The art of celebrity & editorial portrait by Michael Grecco, a somewhat long winded title to write but there you go.
Here is a brief overview of the topics cover chapter by chapter:
Chapter One: Cameras – Formats and lenses, shutter + aperture = control, selective focus, plastic cameras.
Chapter Two: Illumination – Grecco’s Laws of Light of Light, Grid spots, Fresnls and Optical Spot Lights, Shadows, Strobes, Continuous Light, Lighting it!, Finding Light
Chapter Three: The Medium – From analog to digital, Your colour palette, Getting the colour you want
Chapter Four: Creativity and Conceptualisation – Collaboration, Storytelling, Locations, Studios and sets, Props, Wardrobe, Makeup and hair, Letting Go, Taking Risks
Chapter Five: The Connection – The subject / photographer relationship, Posing, Shooting egos, Shooting strangers
Chapter Five: Case Studies – Ironies and Humour, Celebrities, Music, Business and corporate, Nudes, Advertising, Sports, Drama.
Personally I got quite a lot out of this book, I think you need some experience of photographic lighting, even having just used a 2 or 3 light setup a few times, I think that without this you will miss some of the creative ideas that you can only really ‘imagine’ once you have been in that situation. I don’t think this book is aimed at people who have never thought about lighting, or even just starting, but certainly a good buy if you are serious in improving your creative approach to lighting.
For me, more than anything the best thing about this book is that the author shows you the exact lighting setup diagram for every images, which is really useful for improving your own shoots, or even just giving you creative inspiration for future shoots.
It’s not massively technical, more on the rough usage of lights to change the look and feel of a portrait, and styling it to give it a sense of emotion.
I think it is a must have for a photographer interested in portrait photography, or even just people who have a couple of off camera flashes they want to use at the next level. I got a lot out of this book. I can imagine I would have this almost as a close to coffee table book, rather than a ‘tech’ book hidden away on the bookcase somewhere.
I think it’s well worth the money, I think I paid about £13 for it off amazon (Try looking here)
Overall I would give this 4 or even 5 out of 5, a good addition to my library, and something I would certainly recommend to others.
Click to see it here on Amazon
Other book reviews I have written on this site:
1. Book review: Michael Freeman – The Photographer’s Eye
2. Book review: 500 (studio) lighting hints, tips and techniques by Rod Ashford
3. Book review: (Basics Photography 2) ‘Lighting’ by David Prakel. Studio Photography Lighting Techniques
4. Book review: Lighting & the dramatic portrait – The art of celebrity & editorial portrait : Michael Grecco
5. Book review: Black and White – Michael Freeman (Digital Photography Expert)
Tags: book review > books > grecco > portrait > portrait photography > strobist
Blue hour photography at the Exotic Garden
Posted on | November 3, 2009 | No Comments
My good friend Will and I were chatting last week about talking photo’s in the dark, with selective flash on certain areas of his exotic garden, and we decided we’d give it a go this evening. So using a tripod, a shutter speed of about 10 or 15 seconds, at roughly f/8 or f/11… and a bit of messing around with my external flash… and dodging the rain… I got a few shots I quite like!
Trying to time it right to make use of the ‘blue hour’ - which is basically half an hour after sunset.. while the sky is a brilliant blue before it turns black. So I walked around and manually popped the flash, highlighting bits I wanted.. and the last few shots I was playing around with coloured gels to try some different effect. I also used my trusty Maglite torch to pinpoint areas also. All great fun, want to try it again this week!
Tags: 480ex > blue hour > Canon > gels > night time photography > nighttime > selective flash
My awesome new business cards
Posted on | October 26, 2009 | 1 Comment
Finally got round to sorting out some new styled business cards, I didn’t skimp at all this time, and just go the ones I actually wanted! I decided on some awesome spot laminate to highlight the shape of my logo, overlayed over the top of the logo. Has come out really nicely – better than expected. Pricey, but worth it I think. It’s made worthwhile when people take the card and the oooh aaaah’s start!
Wedding Photography with the Constants | The Dress
Posted on | October 22, 2009 | No Comments
Couple of images from the Constant’s wedding, at a great venue in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire.
I love the texture in the dress, I really like the details of the fabric.
It caught my eye and I thought I would share!
Tags: freelance photography > photographer norfolk > photographer norwich > wedding photography > wedding photography norfolk > wedding photography norwich
So now it’s Winter and I’m dreaming of the tropics
Posted on | October 21, 2009 | No Comments
Couldn’t help it, after walking in the drizzle all the way home, I needed a reminder of what the real world is like this time of year. I want to be back photographing the Seychelles!
Tethered shooting with Lightroom and Canon 40D – How To
Posted on | October 21, 2009 | 1 Comment
Canon tethered to Lightroom tutorial.
Having not used a tethered setup in a while as I usually work on location, I had to double check everything was working correctly for an upcoming project. I thought I would compile my thoughts into a ‘How-To’ for other people who might have problems setting up tethering.
How to shoot tethered with a Canon 40D and Adobe Lightroom.
Install Canon EOS utility for your canon camera, in my case I was using the Canon 40D, I found that the EOS utility from the Canon XTI worked fine (I think it’s the same program for the majority of Canon models). You’ll need your existing software, as only the updates are available on the Canon software website these days.
First of all, i’ve plugged my camera straight into my laptop via usb, turned it on, and fired up Canon EOS Utility.
1. Open EOS Utility and go to preferences. You can see that the camera is attached, and ready to just work normally – we now need to change the preferences to make it work properly tethered. So once you have opened the program, if you click on the “Preferences” bottom left, it will take you to some options.
1. Fire up EOS Utilty & Click on preferences
2. Configure your destination folder that it saves to.
On the destination folder tab, I have selected the destination folder, which in this case I have put on the desktop for testing purposes. I have ticked the boxes; download images, remote shooting and monitor folder. You can see here that it makes a new destination folder as a subfolder – based on the shooting date – this folder must be empty before it will work.
2. Specify destination folder
3. Set to save to memory card.
I have chosen to save the images on the memory card, because it serves as an instant second backup, and also if I shoot quicker than the write speed to the computer, it’s still saved regardless.
3. Set to save to memory card
4. Configure Lightroom. Now that the Canon EOS Utility is set up, you can now start up lightroom.
Go to File -> Auto Import -> Auto Import Settings, not forgetting to tick the Enable Import.
4. Set to Auto Import
5. Configure import settings. You can see here that I have specified the watched folder, which is pointed to the new subfolder in the folder structure (You’ll find if something doesn’t work for you, it’ll be the subfolder selection that’s been missed, I did it myself!)
I have chosen to copy my file from the desktop into my usual lightroom file structure, which is on an external 500GB drive. You can just choose the destination folder you want, or wherever your file structure dictates.
5. Configure Import Settings
Now you are ready to shoot, so try taking a photo with your tethered camera, wait a couple of seconds and you will see your ‘Import’ button bottom left in lightroom click on and off – and the image will appear in your Lightroom window!
That’s it, there is very little to it.
Let me know how you get on.
Tags: can eos utility > Canon 40D > canon 40d tethered > canon eos file utility > canon lightroom tethered > canon tethered > lightroom tethered > shooting tethered > tethered > tethered shooting > tethered shooting how to
In the hands of an botanical expert…
Posted on | September 14, 2009 | 2 Comments
A close up of my good friend Will’s hands, a professional gardener extraordinaiire – after looking at pollen in the garden. The hands tell it all.
Droplet of water on Arundo Donax
Tags: 24-70L > 40D > Canon > canon L > close up > exotic garden > hands > will
Proposal in the treehouse…
Posted on | August 26, 2009 | No Comments
I was having a look through my photo’s today and I had meant to make a little post about this before..
I proposed to my beautiful lady about a month ago in my friend Wills treehouse in his exotic garden..
Candles, Champagne and a ring… and a beautiful treehouse.
I had my camera and self timer on standby… of course!
Beautiful place up in a massive oak tree.
Hidden away in the sky
