THE Hairpin

Hairpin II, originally uploaded by David Romanis.


One of our last holidays before the arrival of our son or daughter was to Cannes. This included an evening trip to Monaco.

There aren't many famous roads in the world, but given that the most famous Grand Prix happens on these streets, this hairpin has its own unique place in history: it's the slowest corner in F1 and requires the teams to have a special steering rack so the cars can get round without having to whack it in reverse and ... oh yeh, that's right, they don't have a reverse gear. Honestly - all that money for a Formula 1 car and it can't go backwards? Rubbish.

The one downside to the evening trip was that by the time we arrived in Monaco, it was already dark (Lou and I went for dinner on the road between Casino and Mirabeau Haute as it was about 8.30pm) so we could only take pictures at about 10.30pm. The only available light was coming from the streetlights.

There's only one thing for it: open the aperture as wide as it'll go and whack the ISO up. Not too far, mind - I haven't got a Nikon, you know...

Yep, high ISO and a steady(ish) hand, a bit of creative tilt and this was the result. I deliberately caught the guys crossing the road to get a bit of context and something other than a kerb, then shot wide open at about 1/15th of a second. This is the result.

I only shot a couple, but this was the best one - I've done very little with it apart from a little bit of a push of contrast.

Colour Space exporting

It's hardly a sexy subject - and nothing to do with actual photography - but it's an important part of showcasing photography: which colour space should I use when exporting photos from Lightroom?

Ladybird II, originally uploaded by David Romanis.

Annoyingly, I've discovered that I've been using the 'wrong' colour space (or "color space" as Lightroom calls it) - AdobeRGB strips the photo of some of its vibrance and saturation and the picture becomes a little duller.

I performed a simple experiment earlier on, exporting the original RAW file from Canon's Digital Photo Professional (DPP) software to create a JPG, dropping it into Lightroom, then after a few tweaks, exporting using different colour spaces.

In order of closeness to the original shot, from closest to furthest away, sRGB was best, then AdobeRGB, the ProPhoto RGB.

sRGB is pretty much the same as the shot I opened in DPP; the AdobeRGB shot desaturates slightly; the ProPhoto RGB export might as well be black and white. Almost.

So, note to self: export from Lightroom using sRGB. Glad I found that out after having only exported 16,000 pictures...

Time flies, but not for La Sagrada Família

I really can't believe (nor apologise enough) for getting to May without having posted anything in 2011. How time has flown by. I can't really tell you where the time has gone and don't know what I've been up to, but a quick review of my photo folders tells me that there has been some photography going on, at least.

During the Bank Holiday Limbo week, Lou and I went to Barcelona, a city neither of us had visited before except for on business (Lou went there for a conference last year).

With most cities Lou and I visit, we tend to take more than a modicum of photos, but this place, La Sagrada Família, got a large chunk of our snapping. You only need to walk around the cathedral to see the detail and appreciate the work which has already gone into creating it.

And it's not finished. Not even close.

The two main facades viewable at the moment are the Nativity and Passion facades. The main entrance is still hidden behind tarpaulin sheets and scaffolding. The cathedral itself won't be complete until 2040. That's 29 years away. I'll be 62. That's scary.

However, it also depends on the number of visitors to the cathedral who pay around €15 to get in and wander around - it could be sooner or it could be later.

All I know is that when it's finished, it will be an incredible sight to behold.

Inside, as the picture above shows, it is unlike any other cathedral I've ever visited. The columns split out at the top and bottom to make them look like trunks of trees, the windows in some areas represent honeycombs and there are many tips of the cap to nature in Gaudí's design.

As a photographer, I often walk into these places thinking "hmmmm, ISO 400 or 800?", but I just tilted my head backwards and gawped at the majesty of the place.

I guess today's photography thought from me is to look around before pointing the camera. Take in the craftsmanship, enormity, detail and splendour of one of Europe's most amazing works of art.

Also, try not to pose in front of the altar and have your picture taken doing a peace sign. Tacky tourists.

[Click here for more pictures from Barcelona on Flickr]

Ornithologist required

When we told people that we were heading to Borneo, a few of them asked what the weather would be like.  Being that we were in a rainforest, it should've come as no surprise - either to them or us - that it would rain.  Heavily.

"Balance" as seen in my Flickr Photostream.

During an apocalyptic-like rainstorm on Day 3 of our holiday, we sat in the Rainforest Lodge and watched it lash down outside.  Of course, we were fortunate to have shelter - this fella was not so lucky, but for some reason, he decided to balance himself on the (very flimsy) branch of a tree about 100 feet from the Lodge.  The 24-105mm wasn't quite long enough, so I switched to the Bigma and started shooting away.  This is the result.

If anyone knows what kind of bird this is, I'd be interested in finding out!


Technical shooting info...

Being in the lodge meant that I had a few ways of taming the Bigma, i.e. keeping it steady.  At 500mm and as wide open as it goes (f/6.3), I needed to set the camera's ISO quite high to maintain a fast enough shutter speed, in this case, a 1/1250th on ISO 1600.  The bird didn't stick around for too long, but I managed to shoot off half a dozen or so decent shots.

I rested my left foot on a chair and balanced the Bigma on my knee as a sort of makeshift monopod, then carefully squeezed the trigger for each shot.  Manual focus was vital, of course, as autofocus was doing its best to try and focus on the rain falling down around the subject and not the subject itself.

The rest of Day 3's photos are here.

 
 

Capturing moments

There are photos that require little explanation, but sometimes there are pictures which tell a story, and that story needs to be told.

Capturing moments: the hands of the mother and father of the bride.

This shot is one of my favourites from the day; there are quite a few favourites, which I posted to Flickr recently - out of the 1,000 or so I took, about 200 were good enough to process and send to the bride and groom, and out of those, just under 50 are what I'd consider to be my favourites.  This one is in the top 5.

Jos, the father of the bride, sat to the right of Mish (photo-right) and Margs, mother of the bride, sat to the left of my brother, Andy (photo-left), are the owners of the hands.  As Andy and his new mother-in-law were having a chat, she was holding hands with her extremely proud husband, having just given the speech at his daughter's wedding and welcomed a son-in-law into the family.  I thought it was a great moment and couldn't help but take the shot.

I love taking photos at weddings.  I've only been the official photographer at one wedding, which was back in May.  Nerve-racking doesn't even come close.  Thankfully, it all turned out well and the happy couple were pleased with the results *wipes beads of sweat off brow*.

From an enjoyability point of view, I really prefer to be a candid photographer-guest at weddings, as you can relax and take the shots you REALLY want to.  Not saying that you can't take the photos you want to when you're the official photographer, but you know what I mean - there's no pressure on you as a guest photographer.

Andy and Mish's wedding was a fabulous day (and night, and early next-morning for some people) and was enjoyed by all.  I didn't get the camera out until we got to the reception venue for a couple of reasons (being an usher and coordinating a few things tend to take priority).

Camera-geekery bit...

 

When I did grab the 5D Mk II, I wanted to shoot as much using ambient light as possible, and with Project Black and White in full swing, I set the Picture Style on the camera to mono (or sepia-toned) and shot on relatively high ISO and wide open aperture, so that the shutter speed was fast enough to freeze the action.

I decided to use the 50mm f/1.4 as much as possible so that I could shoot using wider apertures and get the faster shutter speeds.  Sure, the grain is quite pronounced in many of the shots I took (some at ISO3200), but I love grain in black and white photos, as it reminds me of when I used to load the old Pentax with Ilford Delta 3200 and get some lovely grainy shots.  You just need to remember to underexpose slightly so as not to overexpose the low light areas, i.e. to bring out the black.

The shot above was taken at 1/160th on f/1.4 with the camera's ISO set to 1600.  Minimal Photoshopping took place - I think I just tweaked the contrast to bring out the darker areas.

Back to blog-like writing...

Removing the technical aspects of the day's photography, I wanted to post this photograph to talk about capturing moments, whether they're at weddings, family gatherings, days out, reunions, gigs, or whatever.

I'm a firm believer in the idea that photographs are created, not just taken.  Anyone can pick up an expensive camera and take a snap; the real skill is in creating photographs, capturing that once-in-a-lifetime moment on film (ahem, sensor) and giving people something that makes them stop and take notice and, if possible, generate some sort of emotion.  I loved flicking through the pictures from Andy and Mish's wedding day as there were so many that made me smile, as I remembered the fun we had.  

Technically, some of them weren't brilliant, like this one here, but I can remember the laughter that accompanied the shot, even though I've forgotten what the joke was.

And that's what the title of this blog post is all about: creating and crafting pictures, and capturing the moments.