Cliveden House continued...

Following on from the post below, here's a couple more photos taken at Cliveden House. Re the door, there was just something about it that made me wonder what was on the other side so just had to take a photograph; and I couldn't resist taking a few photos of Anne :o)

If you do think about visiting, just to give you a 'heads up' there is an amazing restaurant inside the main house (booking essential) that has the most incredible views across the gardens from your table.

Cliveden House

Anne and me have actually got a few days together this week without distractions, so we both thought we'd make the most of it. Yesterday we popped over to Cliveden House which is a stately home near Bourne End, Buckinghamshire owned by the National Trust. It's actually only a 10 minute drive from our house but it's the first time since living in our present home, that we've gone for a look around. (...and that's 8 years!)

Unfortunately the house itself wasn't open to the public, however the gardens and woodland area were open so we made the most of the weather and took in the surroundings.

If ever you get the chance, and like that sort of thing, I really do recommend visiting Cliveden. It's absolutely stunning, and a great place to go and relax. Oh, and there's some nice places to photograph too :o)

A 'Model' Airport.

I recently saw a photoshop technique in a magazine that showed how to replicate the results of using an old tilt and shift lens. The effect makes use of the new Lens blur filter in Photoshop and on certain photographs can actually make the scene look like it’s a model.

I couldn’t resist trying the technique out, so when at Heathrow Airport recently I took a few shots (nothing special) from the top of the new Car Park 3 looking down onto all the buildings and activity below. The technique takes all of a minute or two to complete and can, on the right image produce quite interesting results; you can click on the images attached to see what I mean.

That’s it for now … have a great Bank Holiday weekend :o)

AVE IT! (just doodling .... )

There's absolutely no reason whatsoever for making up this montage. I was having a sort out of my external hard drive, taking a break from doing work for some clients, when I came across this portrait of a friend of mine Jim Simpkin, that I'd taken a few months back, and started doodling in photoshop.

The picture I came up with, in no way means that Jim's a bit of a thug (although he does quote from the film Lock, stock and two smoking barrels' quite regularly) ... I just thought the pose lent itself well to such a montage. Yeah I know ... I really must get out more :o)

For anyone interested, I used a displacement map to overlay the flag on Jim's face made from one of the RGB channels and then just masked out his eyes and added a few other items like the riot scene and text.

Some Retouching...

I was recently given a couple of photographs from a friend who's mother had sadly died earlier this year. The photographs were of her mother from a number of years ago, and to be expected were now showing signs of age ie marks, scratches and discolouration. I spent a little time on them carrying out some repairs which included rebuilding part of the right eye and the mouth and have included the 'before' and 'after' with this blog entry.

You have to be extremely sensitive when doing this kind of work cos the last thing you want to do is to change the appearance of a "loved one", so I'm happy to say in this case, that the 'client' is very pleased with the results ... phew!!!

Bringing the Sunshine indoors....

Well not wanting to sound as though I'm moaning, I think it's fair to say that so far, we've not had much of a summer. So...I thought I'd bring a little bit of sunshine indoors today in the form of a Sunflower. I've been meaning to take some photos of flowers for a while so what better than to take some of a sunflower, which just happens to be Anne's favourite (well points do make prizes..if you know what I mean :o)

This shot was taken using natural light from inside our conservatory. The sunflower was placed in an empty wine bottle (the one from last night) and the black background is from my lastolite tri grip reflector which has interchangeable covers. It's actually a HDR image which has been 'Tone Mapped' twice before being tweeked in photoshop.

I've named the photo "Searching for Summer", which says it all (I'm not moaning....honest)

30 years of memories...

Every now and then I get commisioned to design a poster/montage to mark an occasion or an event. This week, I was asked to design a poster from a collection of scanned images that I'd been emailed of a Police Officer that was due to retire from the Metropolitan Police Service, after having completed 30 years.

The Police Officer is a chap by the name of Barry Leach who it seems has had quite a career, having been awarded the MBE for 'Services to the Public".

The picture attached to this blog entry is what I finally came up with, which has been printed out at 18" x 12" on Epson's Premium Lustre Paper, using my Epson R2400 (hmmmm love it!) Composing the image didn't take all that long once I'd come up with the idea ... it was the coming up with the idea that took ages, but hey you know what they say .... "No retreat, no surrender"...whoever 'they' are :o)

Out 'n' about in Stratford

Here's a photo of my wife Anne, that I took whilst we were up in Stratford for the day at the begining of the month; shot into the light (gasp!) with no fill flash.

On the lookout.....

I've been meaning to post these images for a while, but due to workload I hadn't got round to it (a good thing I guess :o). The photos are from a day out we had at the begining of August, when Anne and me went out to Stratford Upon Avon - the birthplace and home of William Shakespeare. Despite all the rain we'd been having, we couldn't have been luckier with the weather - a gloriously hot day; perfect for taking it easy and just taking in the sites. As you'd expect we had a tour around Shakespeare's home and then around what was once his school; which is home today to some 400 students between the ages of 12 and 18.

For some time now I've been on the look out to take a photograph of a person with a certain kind of look that I can try out a photoshop technique on. Well, as luck would have it, Anne spotted two guys that fitted perfectly when we were looking around the chapel. The results (with a little bit of editing in photoshop), are attached to this blog entry; guys ... I don't know your names, but whoever you were ... thanks :o)

The 'Hollywood' Photoshop Portrait Technique

Here's one of the photos I took of my brother Greg, back in March this year. The final version ended up as a black and white image, but I've resurrected it to try out another technique. This technique has been christened the 'Hollywood' technique by Photoshop Guru, Scott Kelby. It adds quite a unique look to a portrait, commonly seen on posters.

New logo, new website ....

Just a quickie to say that my main Photography Site, www.glyndewis.com is currently going through a major overhaul. Feeling that the site needed to look alot more polished, I've re-designed the logo and am now building a completely new website which looks nothing like the current one. I'm hoping to have the new site up and running by the end of this week.

Tomorrow, I'm gonna have a break from the computer and get out taking some photographs which I'll post up here once I've worked on them, so keep 'em peeled :o)

More from yesterday's shoot

Here's just a couple more photos that I took from yesterday's shoot with Damien Lovegrove. Again, no flash has been used in the photos despite one being taken indoors in what was quite a dark room and the other being shot facing towards the sun.

One more thing ... scroll down to see a mention I got from Photoshop Guru/Photographer/Author Scott Kelby, on his website recently.

More time with Damien Lovegrove

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to be able to spend some more time with photographer, Damien Lovegrove, going through a Wedding Shoot. As expected it was a fabulous day with Damien going through his style of wedding photography and how he approaches certain lighting situations. The 2 and a half hour drive back from Gloucester literally flew by cos my head was bursting with ideas and wanting to get back to start work on the photos I'd taken throughout the day. I've attached one of the bridal shots that I took which you can click on to enlarge. This shot taken using natural light only and has had minimal treatment in photoshop.

The ULTIMATE Recognition!!!

Well to say I'm excited would be the understatement of the year! Today I logged onto a blog / website by a guy called Scott Kelby. Now, you may have seen that I've mentioned Scott in my blog before on several occasions, but basically when it somes to Photoshop & Photography - he's the Guru!!! I've lost count how many books he's written on all sorts of technology related subjects such as Photoshop Books, Photography books, books on how to use iPods to their max, a new iPhone book ...you name it he's written it, and not only that he's a best selling author many times over. Based in Florida, USA, Scott Kelby is the editor and publisher of Photoshop User Magazine, Layers magazine (the how-to magazine for everything Adobe®) and President of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP).

Well the whole point of this blog entry is that whilst reading a new section on his blog today I noticed that he's mentioned me on it. I've attached a thumbnail of the screen capture which you can click on to read what he wrote.