Andrew Macpherson

NeoCube

My friend David very kindly gave me a cute toy for the Solstice — a set of Neodymium spherical magnets marketed as the NeoCube — they’re fairly small but extremely powerful. Once one gets over being able to have a handful of ball-bearings that don’t go flying off in all directions,the obvious use is for still life exercises.  One can make rather amazing structures as the photo demonstrates, and the videos on the company’s website are an entree to endless hours of frustration.

So anyway it’s a nice difficult subject to light and photograph.  highly polished spherical items.  I had fun with soft-boxes, and black and white foam boards till I got a set of reflections that I liked,  Then the fun begins, to try to photograph it.  The image will only be in focus for very slightly more than a hemisphere at F11 with a full set of macro tubes.  I’ll be making a later post with some good links about circles of confusion, hyperfocal distance and the digital vs film non-issue triggered by thinking about this. (continue reading…)

I just had a query from an obviously photoshop-savvy reader about how to use the file I provided, so in case there’s anyone else out there who does not like to ask….

The file just needs to be dropped into the same folder as any other meta-tag profiles you create to set author / address / copyright notice by saving a completed profile — then when you want photoshop to show that © copyright symbol the file will appear as an option in the Bridge append metadata and replace metadata menus — see the screenshot below  You can select a set of files in Bridge and mark them all as copyright rather than opening the properties of each individually.

Possibly worth pointing out how to save a profile — if you highlight a single photo then go to the bottom of the File menu in bridge there is a File Info option.

Select that and a form will pop up to allow you to set various aspects of the metadata.

You’ll probably want to set Author and the copyright notice and url on the general page, most of the IPTC data and possibly some of the origin data (credit / source) if you work through an agency, or need to credit your company. If you apply that to your photo you can then go to the Tools menu and, with the photo still highlighted select Create Metadata Template that will read in the values that bridge will allow you to save, and you can check the ones you really want to save for applying to other pictures.

When you save your new profile, remember what name you give to the file, and you can then search for that name to find the correct folder to put the copyright setting file you’ve downloaded from my blog (right-click here and SAVE AS), and once it’s in place it’ll just appear in your menu

Hope that helps!

What a revelation! There are speakers out there who will entertain and inform, as most do, and still mix in useful photographic, and club competition knowledge at the same time.  Until David Steel came along the overwhealming message from the club had been (continue reading…)

Well it’s all about learning and taking part, isn’t it?  Sometimes it’s also about discovering that a judge sees disinterest where you are trying to convey something rather more complex or “softness” where each hair is distinct.

Anyway on the  B&W print front, I’ve made an abominable start.  The consolation was selling 2 of the 3 on the way home, so they can’t have been too bad.

I did get 2 really good marks on colour prints, and was surprised and delighted to get nice marks on my first 2 projected images.  I really do want visitors to rate the photos I’m putting up here, so please do click on te stars or leave a comment (but not in Russian thanks )

 

The problem a refurbished flat, with plenty of space that just isn’t getting potential renters through the door to look.  The idea is to break out of the mould of sterile pictures, and try to add some aspirational zing to the advertising.

Jessica very kindly offered to do the shoot on a TFP/CD basis to build up her portfolio, with a view to getting pro modelling and film extra work.  I think that the results were worthwhile — have a look at the studio shots in my portrait folder as well — the sepia head shot makes a wonderful canvas.  Jessica was a joy to work with, and made my job much easier.  Life as a photographer is so much better when the subject also wants to look good.

Equipment: Canon 5D, 70-200 f4 L, Elinchrom D-Lite 2 Go, Chinese wireless flash trigger, shooting tethered to the MacBook Air.  Shooting tethered allowed Jessica to get a feel for how the shots were coming out, and, seeing that helped her to work with me to improve the results.

I’m watching the very good series on lighting and related ideas Jim Talkington on ProPhotoLife.com in his video library link.  The link will take you to the main site, rather than the video library as it’s only polite to see what else he have to say.  I particularly liked the very swift demo of lighting glass, and the article on using a single studiolamp to light a model, but those are only highlights for me –I’m sure you’ll all find something good, or a nice way of putting something you already knew.

Thank you Jim!  great series.

A weekend away in Hereford, and many shots with a very bright, largely overcast sky.  Not completely lacking texture, but almost completely blown by the time one’s foreground was exposed.

So the first thought is “Oh no here we HDR again,” but actually the answer is given in the Adobe TV movie “Learn Photoshop CS4 – Make local adjustments in Camera Raw“ the adjustment brush got down between the ruined walls of Llanthony Priory to let me reduce the exposure on the sky to the point where the texture my eyes had seen was also there in the image.

The skies the following day had a similar burnout problem, but in this case triggered by shooting up-light into the haze from the overnight rain evaporating which you will still see at the horizon, and for them, with their very different skyline, the answer was the Graduated Filter illustrated in the same video.

Yipee! the MacBook Air is back, apparently fully fixed.

“2^nd top case fitted and tested, connector onto main logic board is strengthened”

It was the rest of the response that surprised me: (continue reading…)

I was really lucky last weekend to be asked to do a photo-shoot for a teen party on the back of photos I had been doing of the Little Hadham Charity Fun Run the previous weekend.  Well what I was asked to do was “Take some photos of my daughter’s party” but on discussing the job it became clear that the daughter had asked for a photo-shoot as part of her present.

First job was therefore to adjust the parent’s expectations.

I must say it’s much more satisfying to take photographs where the models want to be photographed, and set out to look good, rather than flinching, squirming and making screwed up faces.   Some of the kids pose beautifully and naturally, some needed a few of the cliche directions. (continue reading…)

Well the MacBook Air got to BackStage and of course was working perfectly.  I had however described the symptoms, and pointed them to this blog for the earlier description of the fault, so they concluded it was something to do with the motion sensors on the top case (which protect the hard disk by withdrawing the heads, amongst other functions), and decided to replace the keyboard and trackpad again.  They checked after doing the work, and everything seemed fine — and I’m completely sure it did, in no way do I wish to imply otherwise, there’s nothing so frustrating as a customer fault that isn’t there when you try to replicate it for diagnosis.  The repair finished too late on Friday for the delivery pickup, so it shipped out on Monday.

Picking up the Macbook Air

Tuesday morning: the chap from TNT is getting to be a regular visitor.  He arrived with the Macbook Air at 10:55 and by 11:10 I was on the phone to Backstage again.  I had

1. Unpacked the MacBook again.
2. Plugged in the power supply, and clicked the mag-power into place to re-charge
3. Logged in to check that it was apparently working
4. Reconnected with my wireless LAN — for some reason it had lost the preferred  list
5. Checked the date and time
6. Started the Spyder 3 utility to check the screen colour  calibration
7. And that was it ….

I picked up the MacBook Air, exactly as in the picture, and it froze, requiring an external USB mouse to shut it down. (continue reading…)