I am delighted to inform you that my a selection of photos from my Two Thirds project have been featured in the latest issue of Digital Photography Magazine in Australia. The six page feature talks about my process and the vision behind creating these photographs.

The Shadows of Industry portfolio in now available in book form. The paperback book measures 6×9 inches and is printed on uncoated stock that has a wonderful almost silky texture feeling somewhat similar to the original platinum prints.

Price £9.95 + shipping

Click here for preview and to order online.

I am delighted to announce that photographs from my Shadows of Industry project are going to be exhibited at the wonderful Greenwood Tree Gallery located in The Piece Hall, Halifax.

The exhibition runs from the 9th April until mid May 2012 and is open Wednesday through Sunday 10:30 to 16:00 at the Greenwood Tree Gallery, 15 The Piece Hall, Halifax, HX1 1RE

I have just come back from a couple of weeks in Assynt, a remote part of North West Scotland and returned not only with some great photos but a bit of a revelation in the form of Adobe Lightroom. For the last few years I have been using Apple Aperture 2 and then 3 to deal with the raw processing and cataloguing side of my workflow. I was always happy with the quality of the results and what Aperture could do however back in December I bumped into a problem when I purchased a Panasonic Lumix GX1 to replace my GF1.

Apple did not have raw file support for my shiny new GX1 so I couldn’t use Aperture to open the raw files, the bundled software Silkypix is without a doubt one of the most convoluted pieces of software I have seen so forget that however the kind people at Panasonic include a copy of Lightroom 3 (ok you’ve got send off for it but you can download the trial from Adobe in the mean time) so this was my first steps into Lightroom.

At the start of March when I headed up to Assynt there was still no raw support for the GX1 which was coming with me along with my trusty Canon 5D MkII so I decided I would install Lightroom on my laptop and see what it was like over the course of the trip. To cut straight to the result I am now a Lightroom convert and have started using Lightroom for all my raw processing needs.

When it comes to image quality there is little difference between what Lightroom and Aperture can produce; the amount of detail, noise levels, highlight recovery are all equal from my tests however there are a few kick ass features in Lightroom which have changed my workflow.

The Gradient Tool – This is brilliant, I often want to darken the sky or the foreground of an image and previously had to take the image across to Photoshop to do this as, now I can do it in the same application much quicker and easier while still editing raw and its increase tonality. The best bit is that you can edit any of the settings, exposure, contrast, clarity, shadows, highlights and more locally on the selected part of the image.

Brushes – These work very similar to the above and way more powerful than the brushes in Aperture and are much quicker than opening the image in Photoshop and making changes using selections and adjustment layers. The best bit on this and the gradient tool is that you can go back into your selection and tweak the settings or make additional changes such as if you changed the exposure initially you can still add contrast without needing separate adjustments like you would in Photoshop.

Lens Corrections – As I often do a fair bit of architecture photography it is great to have a library of lens corrections available for the vast majority of lenses available on the market. Even though I use Canon L lenses or primes there still can be a bit of gold fish bowl or pincushion distortion which the lens profile automatically correct. Aperture does not have this option so previously I had to either process the raw files separately in Photoshop / Adobe Camera Raw or just fix it afterwords in Photoshop, again this is another time saver.

Negatives – There are also a couple of negatives compared to Aperture, the healing / clone tool is a bit odd and is not like what you find in Aperture (or Photoshop for that matter) it takes a bit of getting used to and sometimes I have to resort to Photoshop to do a proper job. Secondly the crop tool is slightly odd too and again not the same as Aperture (or Photoshop for that matter again), you select your ratio and scale the image etc but then when you try and move the crop you are actually moving the image behind the crop which takes a bit of getting used to, bit at the end of the day it gives the same result.

So there you go, my musings on why I have switched between the Apple Aperture and Adobe Lightroom camps, if you are an Aperture user I would really recommend you have a look at Lightroom and see what you think of it, I know I won’t be going back.

Oh and finally last week in the middle of March Apple launched a raw update which included the GX1, I’m sorry Apple but 3 months is too long to work for you to offer raw support on a new camera. Adobe have already got raw support for the new Canon 5D MkIII and the Nikon D800 which aren’t even out yet, I dread to think how long it will take Apple to pull their finger out and catch up.

I have recently installed some new prints at Rokt Climbing Gym, Brighouse in their brand new Penthouse bouldering room. The four photos were taken back in March 2011 and depict what was the insides of Sugden’s Flour Mill before the major renovation work began, they may be a bit different from my usual work, given that they are coloured in and are somewhat more grungy than my usual offerings, however they do look rather impressive measuring 30×20 inches each.

Each photograph was created using HDR techniques which involves shooting a sequence of photos exposed from dark to light & combining them into a single image, this process helps to create an almost surreal effect, it is the truth just not as we see it.

I first stumbled upon this location a few years ago while photographing along the Firth of Clyde, Scotland, if I remember correctly it was a rather stormy rainy day and while I recall seeing this pier I don’t think I took any photos of it. Fortunately I was recently back in the West Kilbride area and decided with the weather looking promising I would go for another look, there is a little car park just before the village itself that has without a doubt an awe-inspiring view, right on the coast with a view across the shimmering water towards the mountainous Isle of Arran, however while tempting the pier was more tempting.

As I wandered through the village the pier came into sight and I started thinking about potential shots, my first thoughts were to take a photo stood on the pier itself using the man-made structure as a strong bold foreground however as the pier is T shaped (if viewed from above) I found the composition never really flowed, there was a mixture of hard lines and edges running both into and across the scene which just felt to distract the eye. After a little bit of thought I headed back off the pier and on to the rocks just above the lapping tide, from here the shot started coming together…

For me the shot is made up out of three main elements firstly the wonderful dark coloured rocks that add nice weight and balance to the foreground, secondly the hard straight lines of the pier and the way it links into the foreground and points into the distance and thirdly the distant profile of the Isle of Arran underneath the heavy sky. I experimented with the exact camera position of these elements in order to create a balanced almost symmetrical composition.

On to the technical side this photo was shot on a Canon 5D MkII with a 24-70mm f2.8 L lens at its widest 24mm focal length. On the filtration front I used a Lee Big Stopper, despite being rather cloudy it was still bright and even with the light entering the camera reduced by 10 stops the exposure was only 2 minutes at f16. However when viewing the results on the back of the camera this exposure was working well, the clouds were moving through the sky and a couple of minutes really helped to captured the motion, if I had used a longer shutter speed I may have got less texture and a flatter sky. In addition to the Lee Big Stopper and in order to balance the brighter sky to the dark foreground I used a Lee 0.6 ND hard graduated filter, I placed the transition right on the horizon which darkened the sky and distant mountains but left the water untouched.

As the afternoon went on the conditions started to change and I found myself up against the clock, the tide was going out which in the end meant that the little rocky island in the foreground was no longer isolated and just became part of the other foreground rocks. To make it even worse there was a big patch of empty blue sky moving in from the right which was starting to create some unbalanced skies which is something I always try and avoid. It was time to call it a day.

The urban landscape can be a wonderful subject for both experienced photographers and those new to the art. Every city has its share of architecture and people which create unique opportunities to capture the spirit of a city in a photo. In order to get the best photographs, here are a few tips to think about.

Bring the Right Gear

Not everyone can afford all the expensive gear that can give a full range of versatility to photography, but there are a few items which will help in taking urban photos. A tripod is a must if one is going to be shooting at night or at dawn or dusk. A few extra lenses can be useful as well. A wide angle and a zoom lens will enable one to capture the city in different ways, from detail to a more encompassing picture.

Pick a Focus

Every city is its own entity and conveys many different images. It is important to find those things which stand out to the photographer and resonate how they feel about the city they are capturing.

Panoramic shots can be great for showing the city in all its glory. Focusing on one particular architectural element can be a good way to create a set of photos. Cities all have their own unique architecture, from graveyards and churches to old buildings and skyscrapers. One should find the areas of the city with these elements, even if it takes a little bit of exploration.

Also, sometimes the people that walk through the city are as interesting at the city itself or more so. Businessmen on their way to work, kids hanging about idly or districts that cater to a counter-culture all make good subjects.

Choosing the Right Time

If one is looking to get quiet and clean photos of the city, the morning is the best time, since it is less busy. This is the prime time for doing architectural shots. When looking for a more active time, lunch hour or a busy Friday night will bring the people into the streets.

Bright, vibrant photos will require shooting when the sun is high, while times such as dawn or dusk have their own appeal. Ultimately, the best thing to do is to make time and spend an entire day shooting in order to get the widest variety of lighting.

Things to Keep in Mind

When looking for a good photo opportunity, there are some things to keep in mind regarding composition. By paying attention to one’s surroundings, a shot will often present itself by observing some basic rules of photography.

• Angles – Find new and interesting angles to use and take lots of pictures from many different angles.
• Contrast – Seek out contrasts in visual elements such as architecture styles, textures and colors.
• Theme – Pick a theme and photograph with that theme in mind to create a set of photos that work together.

Even when one does not know what they wish to photograph, being able to use these elements will produce good photos simply by their own virtues.

Be Creative and Be Patient

Never be afraid to try things out and be experimental with photography. Even if unsure of a shot, take it anyway and take a dozen. Sometimes looking at photos later will reveal something interesting that one did not see at the time of the photograph’s taking and inspire them creatively.

Also, one should be prepared for a huge pile of photos that never quite work out. It pays to take more photos than one thinks is necessary, just in case a subtle variation in two similar shots makes the difference between mediocre and great. Photography is ultimately a learning process, and every photo, good or bad, has a lesson to teach.

By Erik Braunitzer and courtesy of Douglas Elliman Real Estate, agents for NYC Rentals.

Today Nikon have announced the new D800 and it looks like the impressive rumours were true, at first glance you cannot fail to notice that the new D800 boasts a new 36 megapixel sensor, an improvement of 50% over any other 35mm DSLR on the market at the moment. In some ways this takes me back to 2009 when Canon launched the 5D MkII with its 21 megapixels that somewhat exceeded the 12 megapixels on offer from Nikon at the time and I bet that Canon users today are going through the same feelings that Nikon users felt back then.

From looking through the full specifications it does look like Nikon are aiming this camera very much at the landscape photography world which makes a refreshing change compared to what has been launched recently in the DSLR world, ISO down to 50 rather than being up to 204800, 4 fps rather 10fps+ offered by other models. So more in line with the Canon 5D MkII in some respects.

To be honest the main attraction of a camera like the D800 are those 36 megapixels which is really going to close the gap against the medium format digital cameras especially the Pentax 645D which costs about £10,000, four times the £2400 RRP of the D800 and no doubt even snap at the heals of the lower end of the Phase One market, I know medium format digital and the increased sensor sizes are always going to have the edge on noise levels and dynamic range but it is going to be an interesting battle.

Obviously my first thought when reading about the 36 megapixel D800 was how big is that in print size, well the camera captures photos at 7,360 x 4,912 pixels which is just over 24 x 16 inches or A2 at 300dpi without any interpolation this is in no doubt impressive although I am sure you will be able to print beyond this size still with wonderful detail. Using a Canon 5D MkII and its 21 megapixels I regularly produce prints that measure 30 x 20 inches which are very sharp and incredibly detailed, I have even pushed the limits up to 40 x 30 inches which have still been very impressive.

It is rumoured that Canon are going be making an announcement on the 28th Feb 2012 which is highly likely to be about the Canon 5D MkIII or Canon 5D X depending upon what you read, the early indications are that the new Canon will have just 22 megapixels but improved processing, increased ISO range and faster frame rate and AF which are not at the top of the list for landscapers but we will doubt find out soon enough and lets face it, depending upon how big you print it’s not always about the number of pixels, he says slightly nervously as a Canon user.

I have always been a fan of pinhole photography however on digital cameras it has never really had the same appeal, the reason behind this is focal length. Film based pinhole cameras tend to have a very wide angle of view, my Zero 2000 pinhole camera has a focal length of 25mm and shoots square images on to 120 medium format film which is approx. 14mm in 35mm terms so that is wide to say the least. However with DSLRs you are limited to fitting a pinhole body cap that tends to give you a focal length approaching 50mm or even 75mm on a cropped sensor, that was until now…

Justin Lundquist and Ben Syverson at Wanderlust cameras have come up with a great solution for micro four thirds cameras… the Wanderlust Pinwide. Yes this is essentially a pinhole body cap however there is a difference, as micro four thirds cameras have no mirror assembly the lens cap can recess the pinhole further back into the camera giving you a much wider angle of view. The Wanderlust Pinwide has a focal length of 11mm (22mm in 35mm terms) ok maybe not ultra wide however a nice focal length to work with.

What better place than to take some shots with the Wanderlust Pinwide that Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire, England.

It was an early start to get to Lacock around first light with a view to exploring the grounds, there are a number of oak trees that make for great foreground interest. After a bit of wandering I settled on this particular oak tree and its view towards the abbey itself.

The sun was low in the sky shining straight towards the camera from behind the oak tree, this combination is always going to create a very large dynamic range beyond the range of the camera however as pinholes tend to have lower contrast I was confident I would capture the desired effect.

The Wanderlust Pinwide gives some really interesting effects when pointed straight at the sun, there are some strange colour shifts towards pink in the grass area of the picture which I feel really adds to the low-fi look and feel of the photo.

I am always a fan of bold dynamic compositions and that was exactly came to mind when I stepped in to the cloisters within Lacock abbey. Even with the wide angle of the pinhole I had to get the camera positioned on a tripod right up against the wall in order to capture the wonderful architecture.

This photo just screamed to be in black and white as it is far more about shape and texture rather than the colours. When using the Wanderlust Pinwide towards a bright light source you get wonderful softness almost like halos where the light flows around a darker object in this case as it passed through the windows.

With Lacock behind me and the raw files from my GF1 downloaded to my Mac I started looking through the images, my first thought was that the files were a lot softer and more diffused than they looked on the back of the camera monitor. This was a little disconcerting at first however after applying a good healthy amount of definition (clarity or structure depending upon your raw software) the sharpness and micro contrast increased which added a bit more punch to the image while still looking suitably pinhole like. From there on I just processed the files as usual until I got the look I wanted.

Overall I would really recommend the Wanderlust Pinhole and while it can be slightly tricky to find great compositions that translate into pinhole photography with a bit of patience you can create some wonderful low-fi photos. Click here to find out more and order your Wanderlust Pinwide.

I’ll admit that despite being rather eager to pick up a Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX1 when they first became available I did very little with it, well other than a test shots. Deciding it was time to put it to some use it has now accompanied me into the Yorkshire Dales on a couple of visits, not as a backup to Canon 5D MkII but as my main camera.

Despite only living just over an hour from these locations the Yorkshire Dales is somewhere I rarely visit, I seem to head to the coast much more frequently however I decided the grey winter weather combined with the rolling hills of the dales would would be ideal for a bit of a new project.

Moorland Textures – GX1 – 20mm f1.7 prime – Hitech 0.6 ND Grad – 1/400th f2.8 ISO160

With much of my photography I am looking for bold foreground objects to act as lead in lines to guide the viewer through the photo, however I decided to break this rule a bit when shooting the Yorkshire Dales and in this first instance it was the colours and textures of the moorland grasses that caught my attention. Having decided what I wished to include in my foreground I next had to decide what to include in the distance, in theory I could have pointed the camera in any direction but the most aesthetically pleasing composition came from including the three receding hills in the distance.

Dent Head Viaduct – GX1 – 20mm f1.7 prime – Hitech 0.6 ND Grad – 1/125th f2.8 ISO160

Just a few miles from my first location is this spectacular viaduct spanning the valley. I always feel the Yorkshire Dales is a unique place is some regards, throughout history man has made a living from the land and while it is often considered as a remote location there are tell tale signs of this relationship such as this viaduct and the barn, there is no doubt a dry stone wall in the there somewhere too however these objects feel to be in harmony with the natural elements and somehow belong.

Ribblehead Viaduct – GX1 – 20mm f1.7 prime – Hitech 0.6 ND Grad – 1/80th f5.6 ISO160

Another day in the Yorkshire Dales and sticking with the viaduct theme however it was much colder on this day. When I arrived at Ribblehead the conditions were not looking too ideal, there was quite a lot of blue sky and few clouds however as I started exploring the area around the viaduct some lower level clouds were slowly moving through the scene. I already had a shot in mind as I wandered around, the viaduct towards the top of the photo and a nice textured foreground. After a little while I found this spot which had a nice mixture of frost and tufts of grass to act as my foreground which I felt nicely balanced the dark viaduct and clouds.

Limestone & Pen-y-ghent – GX1 – 14mm f2.5 prime – Hitech 0.6 ND Grad – 1/160th f5.6 ISO160

On a previous trip to the dales I found out that limestone is rather slippy when wet, however when it is below zero degrees and covered in frost and ice it makes it rather challenging. I slowly wandered around the limestone pavement looking for compositions which is a little tricky, the limestone is very chaotic and I wanted to find a more pronounced pattern to focus upon, I saw this spot of limestone and the composition started coming together. The only problem was that in order to get this composition I had to set the tripod up bridging a rather large gap and just behind me was a drop straight off the edge of the pavement so not the easiest camera position. As I composed the photo I decided there was something missing, I needed an extra element rather than just limestone and sky, a slight alteration of my composition and I placed Pen-y-ghent in the distance which I felt helped to give the photo and bit of distant interest.

On a technical note all these photos were shot in raw and processed using Adobe Lightroom 3, I usually use Apple’s Aperture 3 however Apple have not yet (5th Feb 2012) launched a raw update adding support for the GX1, which is rather annoying given that Adobe did it back in December… come on Apple what you playing at!