Edinburgh Trip

The above was the culmination of several attempts to get this image, each attempt accompanied by cursing and limping. However, I would consider the aggravation and discomfort to be worth it in the end. It was taken at the river mouth at Crammond, on the Firth of Forth.
Why the interesting colours? Well, the shot was taken on a manual setting of 1/250th sec at f6.3 200 ISO which basically underexposed the shot by just over two stops, as the correct exposure was 1/60th sec at f5 200 ISO. This helps saturate what little colour was there, and believe me, there wasn't much!
So, that's the basic exposure, so what about the colours? That's the easy bit, as I just set the white balance to fluorescent which gave the the colours a nice mauve colour cast.
Post processing? Using Nikon's Capture NX (Yes, it's slow, but it does a damned fine job) I accentuated the white balance further, to increase the mauve cast, and then increased the vibrancy a little too. In the end, a nice little holiday snap.
The second shot was taken a few evenings later, and again made use of the fluorescent white balance to add the mauve colouring to the base of the clouds. Again using a manual setting of 1/1600th sec and f8 at 200 ISO to underexpose by at least three stops (I didn't take a standard exposure for reference this time, sorry) which heavily saturated the blue of the sky and the orange of the sunset (which, incidentally, was barely visible). Again tweaked in Capture NX to up the vibrancy a touch, although this required very little post processing to be honest (well, a little noise control).
So, simple holiday snaps to something a little more perhaps, with no real effort other than a little forethought.
ok, so it looks like a busman's holiday, but these were for my enjoyment, and not some editor or other, which suits me fine. (Even though I'm still using crutches at the moment, the editor of Off Road Rider magazine still asks if I'll be out at the track side for the weekend. Sheesh, these guys are all heart)

Finally.....................

OK, so it's taken a while. Quite a while. Or as Catherine or Stuart will no doubt point out, a very long while.
A while for what?
Well, I've said, time and time again, I'll set up a blog and this is finally it. And how long is a while? Oh, about three years.

With the ever increasing workload, and ever decreasing free time, it's just been one of those things I was to do tomorrow, and tomorrow seems to have finally arrived.

So, what have I been doing recently, that's going to remotely interest you. Well, I've had a spanner in the works recently and been off my feet (more accurately: on a pair of crutches) after an old knee injury flared up. About four years ago, whilst photographing MotoX for Off Road Rider Magazine, I caught my foot in long grass and twisted my knee. Four years drift by with a stiff, painful knee every morning that frees up after a few hours. Until a week ago, when it doesn't free up, and gets worse throughout the day, and then much, much worse overnight.
Turns out I ripped the medial cruciate ligament off completely four years ago, and pretty much shredded the medial meniscus at the same time. Whoopy doo

Anyway, it seems to be settling down gradually. So, what's been of note, lately?
Well, it was my parents Golden wedding anniversary a couple of weeks ago, over in Wales. Along with the invite came the usual "are you bringing your camera?".
I had less than an hour to clear some space in their living room, set up a couple of stands, brollies and SB-800s, and a third SB-800 on a footstand for the background, gel'd for blue.
Due to time restraints, I went with CLS and fired off a test shot first, re-dialled the strobes via the SU-800 and then shot the keepers. Set up, 98 shots and take down, all in under an hour.
This was the second shot (first keeper) using the two brollies one above the other in a shoot through clam shell type setup. Upper SB-800 at metered, lower SB-800 at -0.7 (2/3rd of stop lower) and the back lighting SB-800 is around a 1/3rd stop under.

Actually, pop ain't bad at all for 71






We then moved on to mother, with a similar setup, although shifted the distance between the two brollies so they were no longer vertically in line. Same settings, more or less. When it comes to your parents, you cannot flatter them enough with soft light, believe me!

Enough brownie points were earned doing this one small session, to keep me going for some time.