The Digital Contact Sheet :: Episode 5

I know I'm a week late with this, but I've had a lot going on recently and I wanted to give the previous post a bit of time at the top. I've selected a sequence of 25 shots that mostly aren't that amazing, but it shows that not every frame needs to be a great shot. But as I've said before, it can be more important to tell the story, and that can often mean choosing a lesser photo that's part of the overall story. Remember that some of these shots will reveal larger versions when clicked on. The digital contact sheet above, shows the photos straight out of camera (OOC). I have all my X Series cameras set to +1 Sharpness and the files are actually usable OOC. Add a bit of Contrast and a small amount of Clarity in Lightroom and the files really pop. Check out my buddy Patrick La Roque,'s test photos from the X100s HERE for some amazing examples of OOC files from Fuji's latest X-Trans sensor. Make sure you read his X100s review HERE

This is my favorite frame, but straight OOC it's as flat as a witches tit and a bit overexposed. The composition is a little bit too centred for my liking, but it'll be too tight if I crop it at the same aspect ratio. I don't want it looking like a 10x8, so I'll have to live with it. I love that I shot this so close with the 35mm f1.4 and the guy had no idea I was even there!

This is the edited colour version and to get to this point I did the following. I added my home grown Lightroom Preset '1:02. 20 Contrast & 15 Clarity' which does what it says on the tin. If you shoot with an X-Trans sensor Fuji and use LR4, it's a good idea to have a couple of presets that add about +20 contrast and a few variables of Clarity (+5, +10, +15 works well). I tend to apply these after import, but not on import, or you're stuck with them. I then added a Graduated Filter from the left with -1.82 Exposure to darken the uniform. I added a -30 Vignette (preset) and then boosted the Contrast up to +36 to make it pop a little more.

It still wasn't reaching it's full potential, the main reason being that the colour wasn't doing anything to enhance it. So if the colour doesn't do it justice, it has to go. I made a virtual copy and applied my own Contrasty B&W preset and reduced the Highlight Slider a bit. The preset had re-set the Vignette slider to zero, but had darkened the shadows via the Tone Curve. I then applied a -20 Vignette to bring the edges that little bit darker. So this is the finished edit and was included in my essay 'A Mute Reminder' on The Kage Collective website.

And finally, here are the other four picks from the contact sheet. The two colour shots at the top only have contrast and clarity added. They were actually usable straight out of camera. The shot at the bottom right was converted using my Contrasty B&W preset in LR4 and the one on the left was converted to B&W using my own custom preset for street photography in Nik's Silver Efex Pro 2.

So that's it for Episode 5. I hope this has been interesting and shown that a photo straight out of camera might only be half way there. Remember that everything I've done to these photos is the equivalent to what would be done in a darkroom. There's no Photoshop trickery involved, just film-like editing.

If you found this post useful, you might like Shooting Street Photography With The Fujifilm X100. My settings and method for shooting street.

PPOTY :: And The Winner Is...

I didn't have much expectation of winning Professional Photographer Of The Year, but as I was a finalist in the News category, I thought it was only right to go along and be a part of the awards night. At least it was an excuse for my wife Fe and I to have a day or two away. The night before the awards, I visited my dad at hospital after he had just gone through a kidney operation. He was in an enormous amount of pain and I wished the awards had been the following week, instead of the following night. But it made me think it would be really nice to win the award, because I knew that it would give him a big boost and it would mean a lot to him. When we arrived at the venue, there was an easel for each category that had a collage of the finalists photos on it. We had a good look at each board before getting to the news category, but  we were both surprised to see the other nine finalists photos printed there, but not mine. Maybe if I had engaged my brain I would have realised that none of the winners were included on the finalists prints, which were actually taped down to hide the winners. As the awards started, it was made clear by judge and compare Adam Scorly, that "if your photo isn't included on the prints, you've done pretty well!". So the penny dropped and I realised that, as mine was the only photo in the News category that was missing, it had to be the winner....dahhh!

Maybe it was an omen that earlier in the day, a pedestrian tried to re-inact my soon to be winning photo by falling in the street, which I shot with the same X100 (cue Twilight Zone music). I also took a few street shots in Brisol and Cheltenham and will be posting them on 35mmStreet this week.

For a change, it really was back to sunny Scotland. As we walked out of the airport, the sun was shinning and the shadows were long. A combination I'm growing to love.

So the little Fujifim X100 that I took the winning shot with, just keeps taking me to places I don't expect. It's been a game changer for me and many others, including my fellow Kage Collective colleagues, Patrick LaRoque, Paul Pride, Robert Catto and Flemming Bo Jensen. It was also great to talk to a few of the nice people at Loxley Colour who did a fantastic job of printing all the photos, including the large ones of the winners. I was really impressed by the resolution from the X100 print, which sadly, I wasn't able to take it on the flight home. But Loxley kindly offered to do another print that I can collect from their lab near by, so a big thanks to them.

You can read all about the winning photo on The Digital Contact Sheet :: Episode 3 or by clicking HERE

A huge thanks to everyone that sent congratulations by text, email, tweets, Facebook etc... I really appreciate it!

• Top photo of the X100 was taken by the X-Pro1 and the 35mm f1.4
• The shot of myself was taken by Fe with the X-E1 and the 18mm f2
• Last two shots were taken with the X100

Addendum :: Click HERE for some street photos taken in Bristol & Cheltenham during this trip. 

View From My Keys :: 23rd March 2013

Three colour shots from the weekend. Heading to Shetland Islands next, so there should be a wide range of photos on the next View From My Keys in April. Camera info at the bottom of this post.

• Top: X-Pro1, 35mm f1.4, 125th sec, f1.4, 1600 ISO.
• Middle: X-Pro1, 35mm f1.4, 125th sec, f1.4, 1600 ISO.
• Above: X-E1, 18mm f1.4, 60th sec, f2.8, 1600 ISO.

View From My Keys :: 14th March 2013

Here's some shots from last night. Back on the road tomorrow, so maybe more to come on Sunday or Monday. All these shots were taken with the X-Pro1, 35mm f1.4 at 1600 ISO.

View From My Keys :: 9th March 2013

It was good to leave the studio rehearsals behind and get back on the road to play to an audience again. By the power of Grey Scull or by the power of electricity? Horsing around with a laser before the gig (left) and a fan gets close enough to feel the magic (right).

Some say he traveled here from the planet Krypton in a mystical craft. Others say he came from Turin in an Alfa Romeo.

View From My Keys :: 5th March 2013

Guitar faces don't come naturally, they have to be practiced and perfected before unleashing them on today's public. The examples above are the 2013 faces that have been finely tuned and are on the cutting edge of what's possible from todays musicians. If you would like to be successful in the dark arts of facial performance, start by sucking lemons...that should tighten-up your embouchure. The shot above was taken with the X-Pro1 and the 35mm f1.4. The shot below and at the top of the post was with the X-E1 and the 18mm f2. All three were shot wide open.

The mighty Hammond organ has been the cornerstone of many great rock bands through the decades! This XK1 replicates the sound of the amazing B3 that can be heard on countless classic records of the 60's and 70's. It's a beast!

The Digital Contact Sheet :: Episode 4

 Welcome to Episode 4. This time round we'll be looking at some shots of a comedian at last years Belladrum Festival in Scotland. I was there as a musician and had a lot of time to kill as we were the last act of the day. Festivals are great places to photograph as you get a huge amount of things going on in a relatively small space. There's live bands, comedians, fire eaters, vendors and some of the craziest humans on the planet! Click HERE to see a blogpost I did at that time for more shots from Belladrum Festival. I could hear laughter coming from the tent and wandered in to see what was happening. I got the impression most of the audience were waiting for their favourite band to come on, rather than letting themselves enjoy this comedian's act. I didn't catch his name, but he was pretty good. Maybe someone will recognize him and let me know?  Remember to click on any of the photos for larger versions!

So here's the contact sheet, shot in colour as always. All taken with the X-Pro1 with the 35mm f1.4 at 3200 ISO. There's nothong interesting in the colours here and certenly nothing that adds to any of the photographs, so it's black and white time (reaches under the desk for the one prepared earlier).

You can see from the black and white contact sheet that it's much easier to spot which ones work and which ones don't. Colour has the ability to make things more complicated, but black & white cuts it down to the basics.

The ones with the red X's are all missed focus. It's nothing against the X-Pro1 as it was very dark in that tent. The ones with the red outline are my picks and I could use any of them. Although I haven't outlined DSCF7362 (second one up on the left hand side), I actually quite like the amount of negative space in that shot. I chose the second last shot as my favorite because it's more af an action shot. He lunges forward to hammer home the punch-line. The rim light on his back is quite nice too!

This is it straight out of the camera, but rotated slightly to fix a tilt to one side. I'm sure you'll agree that the colours (what little there are), don't really do much to enhance the photo. The open door revealing the night sky is also a distraction.

I think this shot works well in black and white, which also brings out that rim light on his back. I decided to crop it down slightly to remove the second bank of stage lights that were creeping in on the upper left hand side. I found they were a distraction and could take your eyes on a little detour. The conversion to b&w was done in Nik's Silver Efex Pro 2, where I started off by using the Wet Rock preset (you've gotta start somewhere!). It took care of the open doorway enough to no longer be a distraction. I then added slightly more contrast, a bit more grain and I was done.

So that's it for this installment. I'm aiming to do a new Digital Contact Sheet on the first Tuesday of each month, which should be easy to remember. As usual, if you have any comments or suggestions, stick them in the box below.

McCullin :: DVD Review

"War is partly madness, mostly insanity and the rest of it is schizophrenia!"

Don McCullin

McCullin is a feature length documentary film by Jacqui & David Morris on the life and work of photographer Don McCullin, who is most known for his hard hitting photographs of the conflicts in the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s & 80’s. This film mostly covers Don's war photography, but also features a great deal of his work on poverty in post World War II Britain.

The first thing that stands out right from the opening titles, is the haunting score by Alex Baranowski. Music can make or break a documentary and this beautiful soundtrack does for McCullin what Antonio Pint's score did for the fantastic Senna documentary. I was glad to find the soundtrack for McCullin HERE on iTunes.

Another thing that struck me, was the amount of unseen film footage from the various conflicts featured in the film. There's no doubt the team that made McCullin did a huge amount of research and they should be congratulated on such a fine job of putting this together. The whole film is woven together with Don's superb black and white photographs, video footage and interviews with Don McCullin and Sunday Times editor Harold Evans.

Although the scenes of war are very graphic and show many mutilated bodies, including people flattened by tank tracks, I found the most harrowing scene was of a group of starving Biafran children. One trying to drag a smaller sibling up a concrete step by his or her skinny arm, the tiny body twisting as it's head bumps off the step.

McCullin is out now on DVD and Bluray and is unmissable! If you are a human (I'm assuming you are if you're reading this), then you need to watch this! In my opinion, this film should be used in schools to show the horrors of war!

[embed title="McCullin official UK trailer - in cinemas & Curzon on Demand from 1 January"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VWjo5XUIfw[/embed]

Italy :: Venice & Verona With The X100 & X-Pro1

This post is just about showing a few shots from Italy. I have hundreds sitting on my hard drive, so I thought it would be a good idea to throw a few up here. These shots are from Verona, Venice, and Jesolo. They were all taken with either the Fuji X100 with it's built in 23mm f2 lens or the X-Pro1 with the 18mm f2. I'll note which is which at the bottom of the post.

• Photos 1 - 6::  Verona, Italy, X-Pro1, 18mm f2
• Photos 7 - 9::  Venice, Italy, X100, 23mm f2
• Photo 10::  Jesolo, Italy, X100, 23mm f2

Professional Photographer Of The Year Finalist

I'm delighted to be a finalist in The Professional Photographer Of The Year Awards. I received an email yesterday confirming I was in the final ten of the News category. A selection of the finalist photographs from all categories will be featured in the April edition of Professional Photographer Magazine (on sale in March) and the winners will be announced at the awards event in Cheltenham at the end of March. You can read more about this shot (taken with my X100) in the previous post The Digital Contact Sheet :: Episode 3