Springfield

Springfield, a photo by Steve_Gregory on Flickr.

Here is a landscape shot I made using my 24mm prime lens (from a film camera). Now, for some reason beyond my understanding, it will work on a digital SLR but only at f2.8

Hardly ideal for landscape photography but, being a prime lens, meant the quality is super cool. My zoom lens at f2.8 would never have looked this good!

After a little dodging and burning in Apple Aperture and I ended up with rather a nice picture from the top of Helsby Hill, in Cheshire, England.

twilight

twilight, a photo by Steve_Gregory on Flickr.

I was never really that impressed with the metering used in this shot. I kinda felt like I'd bummed this one...

So, I went to play in Apple Aperture 3 and Photoshop. With a little layering / masking I was able to improve upon this somewhat.

I hope you agree?
Best viewing on black. So, in flickr, press that L key :-)

cozy

cozy, a photo by Steve_Gregory on Flickr.

Trying my hands at a little macro photography today as I "found" my magnifier lenses after months of searching!

It's a simple pack that I bought of ebay from a good friend of mine. Inside it has 4 lenses: x1, x2, x4 and a might x10

I don't know the technology behind all this but you cannot use wide apertures when you start to macro in on your subject. The depth of field becomes massive compared to usual and very foggy too..

So my pics where taken today using f5.6 - f8. If somebody wants to explain why then I'd love to know!

Ok, this pic wasn't cropped, it's basically sooc except for an increase in brightness and I added one click of contrast too.

Pretty cool, even if I say so myself! :-)

nippy walks

nippy walks, a photo by Steve_Gregory on Flickr.

My latest image on Flickr.

Taken on a cold & foggy day… messed with a few basic settings to achieve a rather vintage feel in the mist of rural England.

Hope you like? Comments welcome!

ladybird

ladybird, a photo by Steve_Gregory on Flickr.

We spied this little critter during our walk in Helsby Woods. I got as close as I possibly could due to the nettles and a drop of about 20ft....

Ironic really, as my lens could have easily managed a closer shot but my legs where spread too much already for my liking!! ;o)

All processing done in Apple Aperture with a little contrast and a hefty crop. Added a frame and nothing more....

Steve_Gregory's flickr photostream

Steve_Gregory's photostream on Flickr.

I'm still working my way through some oldies here and today I've compiled together half a dozen pictures that I made a while back.

Various images - I hope you like!

snowdonia

snowdonia, a photo by Steve_Gregory on Flickr.

Here's another lovely pic of the Snowdonia National Park in Wales, UK. Shot around the Llyn Idwal area just as the low clouds where nicely moving along the hillsides.

I cropped slightly for that wider landscape touch and dumped the highlights in the sky. Increased the black spot a little and added a nice frame.

That's about it really :-)

Llyn Idwal

Llyn Idwal, a photo by Steve_Gregory on Flickr.

Here's a textured landscape delight for you!

Basic processing done in Apple Aperture, as usual : a little white balance amendment, a slight increase to exposure and black spot and then imported into photoshop for a little texturing....

The textured layer was applied as a multiple style at around 70% and I'm embarrassed to say that i'm struggling to remember which texture I actually used. I think it was this one by Anna. She produces the most amazing textures.

Saved it back into my Aperture library to apply a nice frame using the usual Borderfx plugin. I hope you like it?

btw - there's a none-textured version also at my flickr page.

klimmen

klimmen, a photo by Steve_Gregory on Flickr.

Either I'm getting better at photography or I'm getting luckier (or just lazy!)

I seem to say this quite a lot lately, but this shot was a real easy to edit. The only processing I did was to increase the black spot and add a little extra exposure.

Obviously, I added a nice frame but nothing more. Not even a crop.... Hope you like it!

new trails

new trails, a photo by Steve_Gregory on Flickr.

Today we ventured forth into the darkest depths of the UK. More commonly known as Wales ;^)

Seriously beautiful place with tremendous scenery. Very similar to the English Lake District but with less people - so extra cool for the photographer!

The typical British weather of rain actually stayed away for our entire visit and we was greeted with a nice sky. A good mix of blue and clouds, very nice.

As for the picture, I processed very little in this one. The highlights needed a tweak here and there because of that bright sky and I increased the black spot to make help the contrasts by deepening that gorgeous stone.

A slight crop, a nice frame and that's about that. Really cool image imho - I especially like the low clouds here.

Many more to come ... I hope you like the pic :-)

sunny days

sunny, a photo by Steve_Gregory on Flickr.

This image was shot during our walk of Helsby's Woodland Park. It's a small woods sitting in between lots of wealthy people's homes and they've got the old quarry tunnels to view. Pretty interesting.

What really made the day was the weather, it was February and it was nice and sunny - warm enough not to wear a jacket. Yes folks, this really was in England!

Shooting into the sun is always a little hit & miss but I think I got this composed quite nicely with just enough of the sun poking through the trees.

I made no crop and adjusted the highlights slightly. Increased the contrasts and changed the white balance to make everything look a little "richer".

I think it looks pretty cool considering the very few adjustments processed! Hope you agree :)

black beauty

black beauty, a photo by Steve_Gregory on Flickr.

We visited Helsby in Cheshire the other day while the weather was nice. After walking up Helsby Hill, we ventured on and found this nice little farm and a duck pond (I think they had the nerve to call it a lake!) ;-)

I dumbed down the highlights a little and increased the black spot ... cropped for a wider view and nothing more. All done in Apple Aperture 3.

Can you see Black Beauty ?

;^)

worship

worship, a photo by Steve_Gregory on Flickr.

There's a cool iPhone app called "Worship" that simply takes your GPS location, displays it on a map and shows you where all the nearby churches are.

IIRC, it takes its data from Google and it all works really well. Not every church is listed (like our own!) but most are and we found this lovely place using this app.

Based in a remote rural village called Hutton Roof on a cold and foggy day. Yes, it's real fog in the picture and nothing ppost-processed!

Hope you like.. many more to come! :)

spring

spring, a photo by Steve_Gregory on Flickr.

The weather was absolutely lovely today here in the north western parts of England. So, we had a drive out and ended up in a little country village called Barrow, Cheshire.

I obviously cropped this and I amended the white balance, but nothing more. I'm sure you'll agree that it's a nice image of an early spring?

Well, I say that knowing full well they've forecasted lots of rain for the next few days!

Good while it lasted, eh?

bleak

bleak, a photo by Steve_Gregory on Flickr.

This is an image that I shot because the scene looked so empty, so alone, so dead, so barren .. I just really liked the emptiness of it! Perhaps I was in a depressive mood? ;o)

Ok, so I went to work in Aperture 3 by remove the colour, increasing contrasts and adding a nice square crop.

I then imported that version into Photoshop and added a nice grungy layer that had a gold/metal look to it.... Basically, something gritty with a nice colour that I personally liked.

I then reduced the textures opacity as it was way too strong and then i added another layer on top of it - this was a duplicate copy of the main image which was set to 'screen' and reduced its opacity also until it looked just right, without highlighting everything OTT.

Saved ... and hey-presto Aperture 3 has the new version already for the final adjustment in the BorderFX plugin. I thought a humble frame would be best....

I really wanted to emphasise the bleak loneliness of the harsh landscape within this image. A grungy / metal'ish texture fitted the bill just right.

I hope you like :-)

foggy view

foggy view, a photo by Steve_Gregory on Flickr.

Today we headed out for a couple of hours to visit a really cool place in northern England called Farleton Fell. Great for hiking across its unique landscape along with the lovely views to be had.

Unfortunately not today!

After driving many miles, the fog rolled in only about a mile from our destination! We couldn't see a darn thing and it was so cold too. Great! lol

Still, managed to get a few snaps off and later on visited a couple of local churches. Got lots of great shots here that I'll post soon.

I'd love to say I did lots of cool processing for this picture but the most creative part was making the frame, using BorderFX. (as an Aperture plugin)

Apart from changing the white balance and adding a little contrast (and a nice 16:9 widescreen crop!) there wasn't much else done here. All in Apple Aperture 3.

Hope you like. Comments welcome! ;)

time !

peek, a photo by Steve_Gregory on Flickr.

.. or lack of!

I've had 5 images all ready to upload to my flickr account for a while now but I never seemed to have gotten around to doing it.

So, if you check out my flickr site, then you'll see five (yes, 5 !!!) new pictures to view... All of various styles too but this particular image was a simple process of minor adjustments in Apple Aperture to achieve a vintage feel.

I hope you like !

Mmmm... Beer!

Mmmm... Beer!, a photo by Steve_Gregory on Flickr.

This was one of those captures that failed to impress me.. Why? Well, it wasn't exactly what you'd call a great shot. A little rushed and blurred!

I rushed it because of two reasons: firstly, it was cold and we needed to find somewhere open that served hot coffee! And secondly, i noticed lots of cars on either side of me....

So I rushed and took the shot ... ok, a bad workman, I know, I know!

But at least I'm getting some cool results from the processing. I did some basic processing for the usual things in Aperture and then exported this into the plugin called Topaz Clean.

This really did add some spunk to the pic and cleared up the blur and bad focus / aperture!

Imported from here into Photoshop and layered a nice texture onto it and pasted over a copy of the original - but at a low opacity using the soft blending mode.

Finally, saved it back into Aperture and added a frame using another plugin called BorderFX. Phew.....!

All in all, I think I "fixed" this disappointing image. I'll do better next time! Oops ;)

Ps, when you view - view LARGE !

bumps

bumps, a photo by Steve_Gregory on Flickr.

Like all my uploads, I've geo-tagged this image on flickr and I'll try to get more images of this church uploaded soon.

It's a rather unique church! The updates and modifications are something else. There's an ugly clock on the tower and there are bay windows too! Strikingly bad taste for a church!

Anyhow, onto this upload . . . there's not an awful lot to say. Processing wise, I made all the necessary adjustments in Apple Aperture 3 and went for a faded / antique look. Nothing fancy and certainly no plugins used or textures in photoshop!

I originally shot this picture because I liked the tree. Those humpy - bits are rather funny looking plus there was a majestic cross perfectly positioned too. I thought it made rather a nice composition.

Hope you agree?

remains

remains, a photo by Steve_Gregory on Flickr.

I'm continuing on with images from my recent trip to Whalley Abbey in Lancashire, England.

This place is rich in early English Christianity and there are a number of ruins still up, all ready for the keen historian .... or photographer!

The day we visited was REALLY cold and with a rather boring all-white sky. So, after processing it in Apple Aperture 3 i then went to work in Adobe Photoshop to apple some textures and to see what happens!

After finding what I liked, I then made a few minor tweaks in Aperture as I felt the image became a little flat. A little two dimensional (at least in my mind!). So a little dodge & burn here and there and I liked the end result. Hope you do too?

arty

arty, a photo by Steve_Gregory on Flickr.

Here's what can be done with a little patience and a lot of spare time! lol

There's never any birds near our house as there's only the one tree. The birds just ain't interested - especially so in winter when numbers are lower!

Well, I waited besides an open window for half an hour or so ... freezing my **** off and eventually one turned up. And then another and another!!! So I got some shots off and I think this is the nicest of the lot?

Basically, I processed this in Apple Aperture 3, but doing nothing more than changing the white balance and colours slightly until I was happy.

But there was a huge amount of boring white space called the sky in here.... So I exported the pic into Photoshop as normal and began to search for a texture that worked best.

I think I did ok? Hope you guys like it - comments always welcome :-)

two pints

two pints, a photo by Steve_Gregory on Flickr.

This was probably my simplest upload to flickr for a long while. A minor crop before selecting the Aperture preset Dramatic Black & White. Increased the exposure a little.. and that's that!

Hope you guys like it? :-)

Wouldn't it be cool to live here? Geo-tagged on flickr also. Thanks for viewing.

american muscle

american muscle, a photo by Steve_Gregory on Flickr.

I've just uploaded two versions of this onto Flickr. This black and white version and also a colour one too.

This b/w image was made entirely in Apple Aperture 3. The colour version was also made in this great app but with the help of Topaz Clean (as a plugin). You gotta view the colour version LARGE for the details :-)

Comments welcome !

it's mine!

it's mine!, a photo by Steve_Gregory on Flickr.

This bird was shot from our backyard but rather than just process or texture it as I usually would - I decided to use an Aperture 3 plugin by Topaz called Clean.

Really cool fx here, I'm sure you'll agree. The original was rather boring in comparison! lol

delayed

delayed, a photo by Steve_Gregory on Flickr.

Here is something you don't see everyday, a train station in England! That was one investment we decided to miss over the decades - and now we're paying for it! Just try driving our roads someday...

Enough of the moan! I tried to go for a more vintage / colder feel for this. As if it was taken back in the 70s... Hope I succeeded?

Fully processed in Apple Aperture 3 on my iMac.

ollie cat

ollie cat, a photo by Steve_Gregory on Flickr.

Picture the scene ... I'm in the living room sitting comfortably on the couch and I notice at the end of the backyard is a cute kitty cat sitting on our fence.

Out comes the gun.... Err no... I meant to say, out comes the 200mm zoom lens! ;o)

Now, bearing in mind that this was shot from a garden and two indoor rooms is impressive enough - BUT - it was also shot through glass too!  So I'm especially happy with the clarity of this capture. All processing done using Apple Aperture 3.

creepy crawly

creepy crawly, a photo by Steve_Gregory on Flickr.

It's amazing what you stumble across - this little bug was on our gate today. I only noticed it because of its colour!

Tiny little thing, as you can see from the screw in the image. So out came the camera... I've got a 50mm lens that I attached a x1 magnifier lens and I was impressed with the result.

Hardly macro, but I couldn't find the x10 magnifier and I certainly cannot afford a real macro lens! ;o)

The only processing done was a crop and a frame added. Oh and I changed the white balance too... So I'm extra happy how well this turned out!