m&i Tutorials Blog» Photography

Holiday Photography

Irina Overy — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:26:37 +0000

In this tutorial George Barrie describes you some digital photography tricks. It could be applied for every day photos as well as for holiday photography. He tells you which photography settings are used to get desired result. Also you can find some useful landscape photography tips.

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I told you I was going on holiday this week. Will I, as a professional photographer be taking photographs on holiday, of course I will.

As I am going to Canada, near Niagara Falls, I will take every opportunity to add to my stock image library. Last time I was there, as well as views of the falls in winter, I got some amazing shots of the atrium interior of the new casino, some of my best ever building shots.

I also have some wonderful shots the interior of Seville cathedral, and the sun at noon shining through the stained glass oriole window in Palma cathedral, the different coloured shafts of light are very atmospheric. All shots were hand held.

It drives Julie, my wife, mad. I have to be forced into taking the “family” shots.

Anyway I will tell you about the shots I have taken when I get back.

How do you get the best of your holiday photographs? Try to look at what you are about to photograph prior to pressing the shutter, that way you might avoid the lamp post appearing out of a head shot.

The other thing you will find, if you are taking landscapes, you will not photograph what you see. The human eye sees through haze, the camera doesn’t. As a minimum, if you can fit a UV filter to the front of the lens. It does 2 things, cuts down the UV glare and protects the surface of the lens. I have a UV filter on the front of all my lenses.

In most cases you will need a polarizing filter, it cuts through UV and gets rid of unwanted reflections in glass and on water, and you will be amazed at the difference it will make.

The best light for landscape photography is early morning in early spring, when the air is clean and the light is pure.

We all like sunrises and sunsets, no one more than me. My best sunsets were in the Maldives. They are awesome and change by the minute. Try to think of the effect you are trying to achieve. Don’t just point and press. Look through the viewfinder, compose the shot, try different exposures, from over to under exposure, you will be surprised at the results. As it’s sunset, you need to set the film speed on your digital camera to a high ASA setting, 800ASA if possible. Most of us don’t carry a tripod on holiday, try to use 45th sec shutter speed or better to avoid camera shake. Or prop the camera on something solid, if you want to use a time exposure.

I remember a couple of years ago doing some night shots around Manchester for a client. I got some great images.

As always, if you need advice, email me. Even on holiday, I will try to respond to you.

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I hope you have got some photography idea for your holiday. These digital photography tricks you can use to improve your digital photography technique.

For more information contact George Barrie:

Contact details:
George Barrie
Summit Studios
Pioneer House
Lodge St
Middleton
Manchester
M24 6AA
Tel: (+044)0161 643 5892

Wedding Photography

Irina Overy — Fri, 29 May 2009 21:14:19 +0000

Today we continue our series of photo tutorials. George Barrie will describe some useful photography techniques. Also he will give you an advice about photo cameras. You will find useful tips for creating black and white photographs as well as colour photography. Firstly the art of photography is the art of photo lighting. In these photography lessons you will learn everything about photography light.
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Hi there, hope you had a good week, well I did the wedding on Saturday, I said I would tell you about it.

Weather is perfect, bright overcast skies, great couple, and lot of fun. No problems with any aspect of the day, images look good.

One thing to always remember when you are shooting digitally, keep checking the screen to make sure the images are correct, it is too easy to overlook that basic discipline when you get absorbed in the photographs you are taking.

I once had a young photographer who I entrusted with a wedding, didn’t check the screen, decided to trust the camera metering system, shot against a window, perhaps you can imagine the results, lot of underexposed silhouette images that understandably the client wasn’t happy with. It took all my skills on Photoshop to get reasonable images, even then I wasn’t entirely happy with the result. Now you know why I prefer not to over commit myself and now to do all the wedding on my own, perhaps with a second camera capturing images around the edges. You need to have total trust in assistants.

The difference between an enthusiast or assistant and a seasoned pro is the ability to know what to do if it all goes pear shaped. You need the ability to think on your feet and make the corrections without the client noticing the problem.

You need to know your camera well, all its little ways and shortcomings. That way most of your images will be technically competent. They might still be poor images however.

Even the top end equipment I use needs some tweaks to optimize it for every assignment.

I am going on holiday next week; I will try to give you some tips to optimize your holiday photographs before I go.

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George Barrie has a significant experience in wedding photography as well as in portraiture. You can arrange individual photography workshops with George Barrie.
Contact details:
George Barrie
Summit Studios
Pioneer House
Lodge St
Middleton
Manchester
M24 6AA
Tel: (+044)0161 643 5892

Photo Cameras

Irina Overy — Mon, 11 May 2009 21:11:08 +0000

Welcome to this week’s newsletter, my apologies for the delay, gremlins on my pc and with internet connections.

Always remember, these newsletters are meant to be read by aspiring photographers and enthusiasts.

This week I just want to talk about cameras, or means of capturing images.

These days, nearly everything can capture images, ipods, mobile phones, PDA,s etc. They are fine if you ate stuck and need to send an image to someone, as happened last night, Leanna, my future daughter in law sent some images of the little Yorkie pups.

The quality of those images is not high, and my experience of this means of capturing images suggests it has limited practical use. It is the purist in me again. Phones are for phoning, cameras are for taking pictures.

Digital cameras have come on leaps and bounds over the last few years; they have also physically shrunk and will shrink further. The capabilities have increased by orders of magnitude with more and more features. I am convinced most of the “features” are there because the technology is available, not because it is necessary.

I remember an early experiment we all did as students, and it puts things into perspective. You take a shoe box, put a pinhole in the end, and attach a piece of photosensitive paper to the inside (in the dark of course) seal it up. Then take it outside and place it on a wall, uncover the pinhole for 30 seconds. Take the box back to the darkroom and process the paper, hey presto, you have a photograph. Technology now, it almost makes the tea!!!!

My very first camera was a Kodak Brownie 127, I kept it for years. It was of course a simple film camera, fixed focus, fixed shutter speed and fixed aperture. The film was black and white; I used to take it to the local chemists in the village, 3 days later you got 12 enprints, 3×2 inches if I remember correctly. Nostalgia!!!

Digital imaging changed everything; it is not that long since this technology was introduced when looked at through the history of photography. They are in essence not any different to my brownie 127. They have a lens, a shutter and aperture that focuses the image in front of you onto a light sensitive surface, on a CCD or CMOS chip instead of a piece of film.

When you decide to look for a digital camera, don’t be mesmerized by the salesman or the “wonderful” spec quoted. First decide what you need it for, is it for record shots of the family, holidays, sporting occasions? That should determine and narrow down your search a bit. How compact does it have to be? There are digital cameras that are keyrings, quality of the images are shocking.

As you know I am a working professional photographer, in addition to the high end equipment I use, I also have a compact digital camera for occasions when my high end equipment would be impractical.

I will talk about some practical tips next week to make your images better.

What have I been photographing this week? It is flowers and food. I like photographing those items; first, you never go hungry and the flowers make the studio look wonderful. Both of these subjects need some specialist equipment to get the impact the client wants. I will tell you about that some other time.

Talk to you next week, remember email me if you have questions.

Photography

Irina Overy — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 12:16:20 +0000

Today we start series of photo tutorials. George Barrie will describe some useful photography techniques. Also he will give you an advice about photo cameras. You will find useful tips for creating black and white photographs as well as colour photography. Firstly the art of photography is the art of photo lighting. In these photography lessons you will learn everything about photography light.
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Welcome to my newsletter, I don’t like the word blog. Where did that come from anyway?

This is the very first of a weekly, hopefully informative, newsletter that I hope is useful to you about photography in general. I was talked into this by my friend Irina, she said it was about time I shared the knowledge I have with a much wider audience, so blame her!

Let me give you the background, I am a practical working professional photographer working the north west of England. The type of assignments my business covers is very diverse, over the weeks I will tell you more about the assignments, the people involved and have met, the joys and the problems.

I want to concentrate mostly on digital imaging, the cameras, software, printers, techniques, lighting. However I am of an age that remembers black and white photography and being an old purist still thinks fondly of that period in my life and I will try to tell you about that as well.

There is a lot of mystique talked about photography; some people baffle you with all sorts of jargon and technical stuff. While you need to know some of the technical stuff, it shouldn’t detract from the enjoyment of taking photographs. Neither is it about having the latest xxx million pixel camera and top of the range lens. Some of the most famous photographs in the world were taken with very basic equipment.

One of the first things I tell people when I talk about photography, and I can talk at length (if you let me!!!) is this, it is your eye and brain that takes pictures, the camera only records what you have visualised and seen.

What I would like to do over the next few weeks is to give you practical help on improving your skill, this is not aimed at fellow professionals, it is for those who just want to know more about their hobby. Hopefully I can help you to “see” a picture, then to improve it and to create a print that makes people go wow.

There I go again, I believe photographs should be prints; it’s the purist in me. Digital photo frames are terrific, but they are not the same as looking at good quality prints.
I would be happy to answer your questions as well, just email me at the address below and I will try to give you practical help. I might feature the questions in the newsletter.

I have a strap line that I use at business meetings, flashing is an art form and not a crime, and I look forward to talking to you next week.
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George Barrie has a significant experience in wedding photography as well as in portraiture. You can arrange individual photography workshops with George Barrie.
Contact details:
George Barrie
Summit Studios
Pioneer House
Lodge St
Middleton
Manchester
M24 6AA
Tel: (+044)0161 643 5892