All posts filed under: Guest Photographers

Dramatic Still Life with Capture One Pro 7

As a new Phase One 645DF+ and IQ280 user, I’m continually marveled by the amount of detail I can achieve in my food and still life images. With 13 f-stops of dynamic range, everything is there, and sometimes I need to gently coax the viewer into areas that I want them to see, as well as parts I don’t want to draw attention to. Rich detail even in the shadows Nowhere do I see this more than with dark dramatic shots that maintain full, rich detail even inside the shadows. For this personal project of dark, moody still life images, I utilized some pretty powerful and basic features of Capture One Pro 7 to edit and process this series. Let’s take a look, shall we? This shot of tea and snacks (with a few camellias from my garden tossed in for good measure) was shot overhead with just one light source (a big giant window with diffusion material over it). My exposure is exactly where I wanted it to be, and I like the shape …

Steve Gosling’s 3 P’s of landscape photography

This loch sits on the edge of Rannoch Moor – a vast expanse of open land that I frequently cross on my way to Glencoe and beyond to the Scottish highlands and islands. Adds to the challenge This area on the west of Scotland has become one of my favourite parts of the UK for landscape photography. It’s a rugged, wild landscape that I find very inspiring. It can also be an incredibly frustrating place to work – the weather is very changeable (as mentioned in a previous post, they say in Scotland that if you don’t like the prevailing weather then just wait twenty minutes as it will inevitably change). But that adds to the challenge and makes it all the more rewarding when everything comes together in a successful photograph. The three P’s of landscape photography When I am running photographic workshops or giving talks I often refer to the three P’s of landscape photography:   Planning – to work out the right time of day and year to be at a specific …

How to fine-tune your Black & White images

The first blog post I did was about converting a fairly simple image (processing wise) into a nice Black & White image.   This second post is based on a more complex image requiring more input and manipulation at the processing stage to achieve a beautiful result. “If you don’t like the weather, wait 20 minutes” I am known as a landscape photographer but a lot of the time I’m really a skyscape photographer. Frequently I look for dramatic skies and then find a suitable landscape to go underneath it. Perhaps it’s because I’m based in the UK and although we curse the changeable weather we experience, it does bring with it some wonderfully dramatic cloud formations. And nowhere is this more true than in Scotland (where the common saying is ‘if you don’t like the weather, then wait 20 minutes because it’ll change”!). A passion for the Scottish Highlands I love photographing in the Scottish Highlands. It’s a rugged landscape characterised by craggy mountains, open moorland and picturesque lochs. And one of my favourite …