Why Photoshop is essential
This last week I was asked to shoot a property for a local estate agent. With this hopefully being the beginning of a fruitful relationship, I was determined to do everything within my powers to make sure the job ran smoothly. I try and go the extra mile as a matter of course, but for [...]
Serene Snowdonia
A couple of weeks ago, I headed to mid-Wales to hook up with some old friends for a long overdue reunion. I decided that I ought to chuck my tent in the back of the car and stay an extra night with a view to capturing some of wonders of the Welsh countryside. Snowdonia [...]
Cemaes Bay, Anglesey
This last weekend I was to be found swanning around Wales for a couple of social occasions, so as always I took an obligatory bag load of camera gear. I also managed to peg on an extra night purely to focus on some landscape work spending my first night under canvas in a very long time, [...]
Star Wars X-Wing Starfighter over Altrincham bus station
I’m going out a day early this week because the thought of the small matter of the football game tonight between Manchester United and Manchester City which could potentially decided the 2011/2012 premiership title has prevented me from focusing on anything particularly productive at all, and I can’t guarantee being fit for anything tomorrow. So [...]
Desktop Wallpaper for May 2012
Crikey, that was April. Notable only really for it’s dampness and the announcement that we’re in a double-dip recession. So we can put all that to bed and look forward to a sunny May Day Bank holiday, the build up to the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations and my birthday. Her Royal Highness and myself with be [...]
Amelia Interior Design
Just before I jetted of to Malta for Easter and the Good Friday parades in Zejtun, I was privileged to shoot some work for Diane over at Amelia Interior Design in Macclesfield. They provide stunningly designed interiors to home owners across the North West and it was a real pleasure to shoot for her. Not [...]
Good Friday Easter parade, Zejtun – the details
In last weeks entry, I posted some images from my most recent trip to Malta over Easter, and I promised that I’d go into shooting the procession in a little more detail. So here goes… To start with, I’d been planning this for some time. I’d gathered from quite a bit of research that [...]
Good Friday parade, Zejtun, Malta
Last week I was in Malta again, and one of the things I was very keen to shoot was the Good Friday parade in Zejtun. However having lost a day to the bank holiday yesterday and I’ve been processing so many great images that I’m way behind schedule already this week. So today’s post is [...]
Desktop Wallpaper for April 2012
Another month has flown by and summer is approaching. Before you know it, it’ll be Christmas again… I’ll stop right there. This month’s desktop wallpaper was a photograph I made one misty morning a couple of weeks ago around Dunham in Cheshire. I like the simplicity of this image, and the echo of the tree [...]
Come and see me at Redeye Gallery’s Hothouse
On Saturday 10th March I’ll be presenting some of my work, giving a short talk and answering questions at Redeye gallery’s HotHouse event. It’s to be held at The Studio, 51 Lever Street, Manchester. M1 1FN. I’ll be on stage around 11am, but the event itself is scheduled to last all day. “Redeye is delighted [...]
Desktop Wallpaper for March 2012
Crikey. Yet another month has flown by, so it’s time once again to liven up your computer desktops with a new wallpaper calendar. This photograph of Barton Bridge on the M60 motorway around Manchester was made late last summer. I was on my way for a game of squash with my squash buddy and I [...]
It’s all about the vision
Thankfully last week, I finally finished the audio book of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina that I’ve been listening to for the last two months, and so decided to move onto something a little less weighty. I’ve had Steven Pressfield’s “Do the work” on my Audible wish list for a while now, so felt that this would [...]
Why bother with photography insurance?
Today’s blog post is on a subject that no serious or sane professional or hobbyist photographer should do without, and it’s a topic that a lot of people find rather mundane and uninteresting. As a professional photographer, your bags and bags of camera gear become the tools with which you make your livelihood, and as [...]
Shooting a VW Scirocco with small flash
Volkswagen Scirocco by Neil Alexander Over the last couple of years I’ve made several photographs of this Scirocco, but this time I wanted to try something different and really push my little flashes. I wanted to shoot into the setting sun and light as much of the car as I could with 2 SB900s (on [...]
The delights of the Cotswolds
This weekend just gone, my wife and I took the opportunity for a well overdue weekend away and headed down to the Cotswolds for a couple of nights. As usual, it was beyond my abilities to travel without a camera, so in the interests of marital harmony I travelled light – just my Billingham 550 [...]
How I plan a landscape shoot
Today I thought I’d write a little post around what I put into planning a day of landscape shooting. The first thing I’ll do before a trip like my recent trip to the Lake District is to check the weather, re-check it, and then check it again. The weather in the UK is so varied [...]
Winter sunset in Lymm, Cheshire
Well I hope you all had a fun filled an over indulged Christmas and New Year. I know I certainly did. The older the kids get, the more fun it seems to be. Can’t imagine that upward trend will continue forever so I make sure I enjoy whilst I can….. So to the photographs. These [...]
My favourites from 2011
It’s that time again…. In keeping with the last couple of year’s reflections on the year that was (2010 here, and 2009 here) below are my 12 14 favourite images from 2011. Slightly different from these previous entries though, I haven’t picked one image from each month, I’ve simply tried to pick my 12 (which [...]
European Christmas Markets, Manchester
Earlier last week, I took a trip into Manchester to shoot the Christmas markets, of which there are now so many it wasn’t easy deciding where to start! In the end, I plumped for the main European one in Albert Square presided over the an extremely large illuminated Santa perched over the entrance to the [...]
Derwent Valley in the High Peaks
Further to last week’s post on Stanage Edge in the Peak District, here’s a couple more images from that weekend that I’ve just processed. Multi-frame HDRs processed in Photomatix Pro and then tweaked in Photoshop and Lightroom. Got quite a few keepers that weekend, so there’ll be more to come…. Shortest post ever I [...]
Stanage Edge in the Peak District
Last weekend, I had the privilege to spend the entire weekend up in the Peak District. If you’d been following my tweets, you’d have noticed that Saturday, weather-wise, was a disaster. The day started off grey and miserable and ended up the same way, and to be pretty honest felt even greyer and more miserable [...]
The key to long exposures
I enjoy shooting long exposures. The longer the better, unless that is you’re stood on a very noisy motorway bridge in a very cold wind. I’ve posted on shooting long exposures several times over the years (for example “Silky Water Shots” and “Breathtaking examples of long exposure photography“) but as it’s something I really [...]
Blacko Tower, Nelson, Lancashire
This is a photograph that I made earlier this week up on the Lancashire / Yorkshire border. I had intended to try and get quite a bit closer to the tower, and did plenty of research before heading out only to find a large “Private Property – Keep out sign” on the gate at the [...]
Bridgewater Canal, Lymm
Last weekend I was over in Lymm by the Bridgewater Canal just before sunset where I made the photograph above. It wasn’t quite as still as this initially looks. It was actually a little breezy, but I wanted a silky smooth feel to the water for this, so I popped on my Singh Ray variable [...]
