Workshop

   

Seahouse and Farne Islands

  Well the 5th of June came and went and what a fab workshop! We had a great team of people and some stunning weather!     

Adobe Lightroom 3

    

Adobe Lightroom 3

     Well after some heavy testing on the Offical Adobe Beta program and more than 600,000 downloads on the public beta program I’m glad to say that Lightroom 3 is finally out on the streets and what a great update it is too!  Here are just a few of the great new features added and theres loads more!

All new noise reduction
Lens correction
DSLR video file intergration
Image Watermarking
Teathered shooting
Perspective correction
Film grian simulation

     Being on the Adobe Beta Team is a real honour as its both great to see the guys working hard to add all these new features going in, but also hard not to be able to tell everyone of all the fantastic work going on! You can get more info at the Adobe Lightroom website and you can get straight up to speed with version 3, with Martin Evening’s new book!

Lightroom 3 by Martin Evening

Living North Magazine

     I’m proud to announce that I’ve been accepted to be a regular photographic contributor to this great publication based in the North East of England, this magazine is quickly becoming known as  “The magazine for the North East!”

Living North Magazine

 

     A little bit of history behind the magazine:

     “Founded in 1999, the magazine has quickly built a reputation for high quality illustration, strong editorial and stylish design. The editorial team have taken the best of the country and mixed it with the vibrant city life.

     From humble beginnings, producing a 112-page magazine published three times a year, Living North now publishes monthly with an average of 350 pages, celebrating much of what is excellent about the North of England, from its glorious coastline, small niche businesses, heritage, food and numerous other attractions, from boutiques to bistros and much more besides. As such, the magazine is one of the most significant quality media outlets in the North East of England.”

Natures Best Photography Update

 

Natures Best Photography

     Just a quick update to say that my photo, which I talked about here, has been moved to the front page slideshow on the Natures Best Website! As of writting this I’m currently about 8 slides in or if you wish you can hover over the bottom of the window and the thumbnails will appear, you can go straight to my photo from there! Way Cool!!

Lee Filters or lack of!!

     Have you ever wondered why there is always a huge waiting time for the Lee Filters? Have you ever wondered how the filters are made? Well David Noton and Kerry Banter, one of his team, had a field trip and travelled to Lee filters to have a try at making the filters themselves in this little article.

FilterStorm

 

Apple iPad

     I’ve been thinking about purchasing an iPad since they had been announced by Apple to use as a backup system and a basic photo viewer for myself whilst out and about.  I think, and this is only my personnal view, that this piece of hardware was just built for this job, probably many others too, but from a photographers perspective this is why it was created! 🙂 I’ve seen on the forums the arguments that the iPad has created, its a 50/50 split, those who think its a great bit of kit and those who think its pointless. Its like Mac vs PC all over again!

Workshops

“Not only a talented photographer, Simon always engages with my workshop clients in a thoughtful and professional manner. His love for the photographic medium is clearly evident both in his discussions and his images.“

By Jason Friend

Scottish Highlands, Loch Lochy. Jason Friend

 These are the kind words of good mate and great photographer, Jason Friend. Jason is an award winning freelance photographer and writer based in the North East of England, when hes not traveling all over the world that is, and for the last 3 years has been passing on some his vast experience and knowledge via locally based workshops. These workshops are set up and aimed mainly at the beginner to intermediate photographer and based around teaching people to use their cameras, tripods, accessories.

Bags, Bags, Bags.

     As most photographers know there is no such thing as the perfect bag and most photographers will have at least a few bags hidden away at home or have been through a number of bags looking for one that suits them best! I was at this point again the other week and I thought it was time to sell the other bags and try for something new. So the search began………

Nature’s Best Photography

” Nature’s Best Photography is an award-winning showcase of nature as recorded by the world’s leading professional photographers, naturalists, adventurers, as well as new, emerging photographers.”

The first post…..

 

But more importantly the first ever photo on the blog!

     The weather had been looking good for the past few days and I thought I’d head along to St.Marys lighthouse in Tynemouth, on the North East Coast, for a sunset. I was hoping for some wonderful colours, cracking clouds and a little bit of inspiration thrown in just for good luck! Well, the colours kind of came, but there was no sign of the clouds, so it was just down to just good old inspiration and good luck!

 

St.Marys Lighthouse, North East Coast. UK

 

     As luck would have it the tide was just on its way out and due to the cracking weather people had started to head down to the coast. Now usually photographers tend to want to have the place to themselves and the last thing they’re after is the general public posing in front of the lens. This is when the light came on and the inspiration hit home and off I head down to the causeway and the crowds. The idea was to add a few blured people into a long exposure shot to add a sense of scale and activity on this wonderful spring evening on the coast. I positioned myself on the causeway and began to setup my shot, I added a 3stop ND filter to slow down the exposure and a 3stop Hard ND for the sky and started shooting.

     I think the moral of this little story is that sometimes you have to use all these different situations to there best and on this evening the crowds of people were a blessing! This is something I’m begining to learn more and more!