I try very hard to get photos of people in blog posts. But it can be tricky – particularly when my lovely wife is involved. She is a bit camera shy – but God knows I’ll keep trying.
My elusive Jean
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Category Archives: Photography
Positano content creation
It’s around 30 degrees in Positano – enough to make any sane person wear as little clothing as possible and to stay in the shade as much as possible. Unless you’re a content creator for Instagram (or similar) when you’re dressed up, in full makeup searching for those “instagram locations”.
One such location is a collection of ceramics displayed by a local shop on a terrace with the village in the background. You’ve probably seen the shots, I’ve included a couple below.
Now it’s fair to say that these shots – and the reality of taking the shots – are a bit different.
This location is right on the main road through Positano which is very narrow and at a point where steps run down to the main piazza so it can get very busy.
There’s a queue to get onto the terrace which lasts all day and gets longer and shorter as the light moves – apparently mid morning is the best time to go because the angle of the sun helps throw a soft light on the faces of the those being photographed.
The terrace used to be roped off so shots could only be taken from the entrance which meant a degree of “sameness” and also a degree of competition as only one person could be photographed at a time.
But now someone from the ceramics shop manages entry to the terrace and the ceramics are laid out in such a way that content creators can set up multiple shots ensuring everyone has a unique view. It also opened up the opportunity for video to be shot as content creators moved across the terrace.
It costs 10 Euro or a purchase from the ceramic shop to access the terrace. But shots can still be taken from the entrance for free so there is always a degree of chaos as the queue runs along the footpath onto the road.
Instaglam? You decide.
Photos and more photos
We’ve been home from Italy for just over a month. Time for us to settle back into home life, sort through all the photographs we’ve taken, and load a selection into a holiday gallery on SmugMug.
If you’d like to see some shots from the blog and some new ones you won’t have seen, click here.
All the photos were taken using iPhones – as opposed to the usual Nikon camera back and lenses I have lugged to Europe in the past. All in all, apart from not having any real control over the depth of field, they look pretty good.
A slightly blurred moon over Positano
If you have ever wondered why a tripod should be part of a photographers travel kit – here’s the reason.
Last night there was a fingernail moon over the bay as the last of the evening light faded. A perfect shot – but without a tripod it was a succession of ever so slightly blurred shots. No amount of ISO pushing or aperture opening could bring the shutter speed down to avoid camera movement.
The camera was braced, I was braced, but the result was always the same.
Note to self – next time pack the damn travel tripod.
Why shooting RAW is the best idea
For those photographers who are shooting using the jpeg format, here’s a pretty compelling demonstration of why you should change to a RAW format if you can.
Recently I took some car interior shots while the car was in being repainted. These were shots for my insurance company who, quite unreasonably I thought, wanted to have on file some photos of the cars they insure.
Suffice it to say the shots were taken quickly with no real attention to detail.
With one shot the flash hadn’t fired and you can see the results below – an interior that looks virtually black with no detail – but by tweaking the RAW file in Adobe Camera Raw the shot was made passable.
As a comparison I wondered how a jpeg of the same image would perform if tweaked the same way and the results were quite dramatically worse. I wasn’t expecting the quality gap to be so big.
The amount of detail contained in the shadows of the RAW file which can then be brought out is phenomenal.
So, if you can shoot in RAW but choose not too, think about a change.
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- Car interior as shot
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- Car interior jpeg format – retouched
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- Car interior RAW format – retouched
An app worth grabbing – Prisma
Ever so often you run a cross an iOS app that is very cool. Prisma is one such app. It turns photos into art. Yes, I hear you say, there are lots of apps the do this – most produce a result that is absolute rubbish.
Prisma is different – it has a number of different styles you can choose from – and it’s free from the App Store.
Moon over Hataitai
F5.6, 1/160th sec, ISO400, Effective focal length 450mm
Tonight was close to a full moon, and as it rose over the horizon and cleared a bank of clouds I managed to capture this shot.
I’ve tried to get a shot like this many times before but I usually end up with a white blob on a black background. This time the fact it was only just dark and that the moon was magnified because it was close to the horizon all helped.
But this shot was still not what I’d seen through the viewfinder. Given the fact I was hand holding the camera and shooting at 160th of a second to minimise camera shake any detail outside of the moon was lost.
So with a little assistance from my favourite image editor, I’ve put together a view more in keeping with what I saw.
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- The Moon as shot
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- The Moon as I saw it
San Gimignano – quintessentially Toscana
When we were living in Tuscany having visitors arrive was always a treat. The opportunity to show people around “our neck of the woods” was always something we looked forward too. And as an experience of the essential Tuscany, San Gimignano was always a winner.
You may have heard of this village and it’s many towers. Originally it is said that there were up to 40 towers but now only 7 or 8 remain. But even with only a few towers it is still one of the most recognisable villages in the region.
Initially we thought that San Gimignano might be “too touristy” for our friends, but everyone we took there loved it. The walk up the hill from the Porta San Giovanni to the Piazza della Cisterna was always a great introduction, with the multitude of small shops that line the street adding to the feeling that this was the quintessential hilltop village. A drink or lunch in the main piazza was a must with a leisurely stroll down to the Porta San Matteo to follow.
We always seemed to leave with something – linen for the table or fresh pasta or a simple gelato from the award winning store Gelateria di Piazza located in Piazza della Cisterna.
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- San Gimignano from a distance
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- Via San Giovanni in October
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- Spot the boar at the Macelleria
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- One of many towers
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- Piazza della Cisterna – or Piazza of the Well
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- Piazza della Cisterna
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- Piazza della Cisterna
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- Piazza della Cisterna
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- Piazza della Cisterna
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- Piazza della Cisterna in July
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- Queueing is the norm in peak season
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- Piazza della Duomo
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- Piazza della Duomo
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- Tiles for sale
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- Another tower
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- Via San Matteo during peak season
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- Gorgeous cards for sale
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- Porta San Matteo
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- Views from San Gimignano
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- Views from San Gimignano
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- Map of San Gimignano
Night and day
Over the last few days I’ve spent a bit of time playing around with Photoshop turning day shots to night shots. It’s one of those things that sounds hard but is relatively simple.
The key is to making things look realistic is to work out where the night light is coming from – street lights or the moon or an open window – and to work from that.
See what you think.
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- Sorrento by day
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- Sorrento by night
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- Monteriggioni by day
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- Monteriggioni by night
A comparison that surprised me
My first ever digital camera was a Canon Digital IXUS V. It boasted a 2.1 megapixel sensor, an optical view finder and a LCD screen on the back that was about the size of a postage stamp. Overall it was about as big as a packet of cigarettes and built like a brick.
I purchased it over 10 years ago and it has sat in a draw, unused, for the last few years because the battery has refused to charge. I ran across it a few weeks ago and decided to see if I could track down a new battery to bring it back to life. Surprisingly I managed to find a new battery – thank you dc-battery.co.nz – and the camera came alive.
A comparison seemed to be in order – my rejuvenated Canon versus the Leica D-Lux 6 purchased in Hong Kong last year.
This is in no way a scientific comparison, just me playing around one afternoon at my desk. I was expecting the Leica to blitz the Canon – which it did – but in good light the antique Canon held up reasonably well – much better than I expected.
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- Canon IXUS V
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- Leica D-Lux 6
2015 – the year that was
Gallery
This gallery contains 45 photos.
As we do every January, here’s a quick look back at 2015. Some shots you may have seen and some new ones.
Of dogs and moon rises
Presenting two photos that you can only take when you’ve got the time. And that’s the great thing about holidays, you have the time.
The dog shot involved two tired girls and Jean acting as a wrangler behind me. It took about 30 shots to get the one I was looking for with Poppie staring down the lens and Bella on guard.
The moon rising over Nelson shot took time because I had no tripod and the shutter speed had to be quick enough to ensure a sharp shot but still have a reasonable depth of field. In the end I pushed the ISO to 800 and managed to hand-hold the camera steady for 1/30th of a second exposure. Then it was into Photoshop for some cropping, colour balancing and exposure work.
It’s great to have time for all this faffing about.
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- Poppie with Bella on watch for the new year
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- The view on Christmas night in Nelson – December
Sunset from our roof
Around here every evening is a different light show. Here’s last nights effort straight from the camera – taken from our roof terrace.
Colourising old photos
I’ve been playing around with colourising old black and white photographs using Photoshop. The technique is quite simple – if a little time consuming – and makes use of various blend modes to overlay colour on black and white while retaining the detail of the photograph.
Rather than trying to mimic a colour photo, the technique replicates the days when colour photos were simply black and white prints that had been hand coloured. Part of the fun is selecting the colours for clothes, backgrounds and the like. There is no reference colours so it’s all up to the imagination.
Below are a few examples of what can be done – using shots of various members of the family – well mainly me from many years ago.
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- That would be me
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- And me
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- And me and Mum
A post with something for everyone
It’s not often a single post can appeal to a range of different interests – but this one really hits the mark. It’s a picture of the dogs in our front yard but it offers so much more.
For dogs lovers it’s Bella taking some time out from patrolling the front gate with Poppie still on guard in the background. She’s wondering why I’m lying full length on the grass – hence the quizzical look.
For gardeners it’s a study in lawns – check out that lush green growth clipped to perfection and standing to attention – defying a hot and dry Wellington summer’s afternoon which is arguably one of the best summers anyone can remember.
For photographers the shot was achieved with the camera flat on the grass and was one of about 30 shots taken as the girls wandered around.
The camera used was my Nikon D7000 with a Nikkor 18 – 70mm zoom lens set to 50mm, the aperture at F9 to keep Bella in focus and to throw Poppie slightly out of focus, and the shutter speed at 125th of a second to freeze any rapid movement. In Photoshop I replaced the original image of Poppie with one from another shot so she was looking up, cropped the shot using the rule of thirds (Bella’s head is about 1/3 of the way down the shot and 1/3 of the way in from the right), removed the distracting bright round hole in the gate, sharpened around Bella’s face and generally corrected the colour. Simple.
I’ve included the original shot for comparison.
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- Before …
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- … and eventually things come together
Toscanakiwi 
