And it all fades to black....

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B&W Wood Stack.jpg, a photo by Nick Barker Photography on Flickr.

Say what you like but there is so much more to be gained from a photograph once you have converted it to black and white and played with the tones and colour filters...

Stairway to heaven....

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Cloud steps, a photo by Nick Barker Photography on Flickr.

This was a shot which wasn't really intended if im honest, a little bit of vignetting and thats it a lovely stepping effect and there's even a little silver lining at the top right !!

Solitary Daisy...

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Solitary Daisy, a photo by Nick Barker Photography on Flickr.

There is something very beautiful yet sad about this shot .. but i like it!!

Springtime is here!!

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Blossom 2, a photo by Nick Barker Photography on Flickr.

If getting back at 4 in the morning on saturday wasn't rock and roll enough for you then today I took a trip to Rodley nature reserve!

Plenty of trees, birds and nature... it would usually take 30min to walk round but because I cant help but snap pics of anything that catches my eye it ended up taking an hour or so.. I just glad my wifes tollerant of my hobby!!

Saturday Nights all right..

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Sky Larkin 3, a photo by Nick Barker Photography on Flickr.

Today was a brilliant day as far as my photographical career goes.. for today we try low light band photography (with no flash I might add). A friend of mine invited me to watch some local Leeds bands at the packhorse pub.. so I took my camera.. firstly there was no light minimal at best from normal ceiling mounted halogen bulbs.

 

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What I learned:

Metal bands move fast!!

Try not to use direct flash (Flash photography is not permitted at offical venues)

Lowest aperture possible (my tele lenses drops to F4 but really for the best shots you want F1.4 ( exspense but worth it im sure)

Use Wide angle lenses

Autofocus doesn’t help!! so do it manually take a test shot and only adjust if you move position (you will )

Use a high ISO but beware this increase noise (grain on the picture)

ish that looked ok.. so not that bad

The day I caught the train...

Rear window, a photo by Nick Barker Photography on Flickr.

Today was a day like any other and on my daily train ride I tried snapping a moving train window.. not the easiest thing to do!

But i managed to capture two sets scenes in one window very moody and grainy !!

Sky's the limit....

More buildings around leeds.... I noticed this the other day but it pays to look up every once in a while.

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Sky's the limit a photo by Nick Barker Photography on Flickr.

A Sign of summer....

Outside my local train station and I saw this lovely little daffodill... Using my Tele lens I made sure to blur the background which blends nicely with the foreground.

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The Yellow Flower a photo by Nick Barker Photography on Flickr.

Perigee Moon

The moon was 15% larger and 30% brighter me and my Dad drove up to the top of baildon moor.. dispite the bitter wind that was kicking up I managed to capture this shot the effect of the clouds creeping across the moon looked perfect.

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Perigee Moon 3 a photo by Nick Barker Photography on Flickr.

Going up in the world....

Another morning shot before work..slightly off-centre shot which i will have to revisit and possible do again.. but its an ongoing project...

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Cloudy with a chance of ... Cloud

On my drive back from the train station I noticed the cloud cover over the valley... After battling for the right spot with a random bloke taking photo's of his motor bike I snapped away then once back I "tweaked" it within PS.

First of all i decreased the saturation just to bleach out everything apart from the blue, this gave a faded retro look to it and following some further messing with the blacks it added a nice depth to the clouds themselves.

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1940's Cloudscape a photo by The Knight Of Noo on Flickr.

Anchors away...

Great merge of corporate 80's architecture and an abstract Bohemian  pub!!

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Leeds Cake Exchange

I was lucky enough to be a plus one at a cake social over at primos in the corn exchange. Now I’m a man that love’s cake and couple that with brilliant architecture and im all set. In my youth I had often sat outside the corn exchange looking moody and angry with the world… But now following the refurbishment of the exchanges ceiling it truly is a beautiful site.



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Leeds Corn exchange 1 a photo by The Knight Of Noo on Flickr.

I didn’t have my tripod on me at the time and now looking back I wish I did so that I could use a longer exposure rather than a high ISO as the end results look good but do have a certain amount of grain due to the fact I was up at 800-1600 (this was mainly to avoid handheld blur).

And the wheels on the bus ..

Mobile bus jam packed full of vintage clothing...

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Downtown..

Vintage street capture, overall the colour version was ok but after switching to black and white, dropping the contrast and a little tweak in PS I think it works better.. then again I am becoming a little obsessed with my black and white / Infra shots..

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Mr Blue Sky.....

Another beautiful day and the contrast of this weird orange building against the deep blue sky. I'm not sure what is drawing my to architectural photography but maybe its the lines or shapes that seem to appease my OCD. I added a polarising filter to my 18-55mm and that seem's to enhance the vivid colours.

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Also the ELO song Mr Blue Sky was a fitting sound track ....

Its a concrete jungle out there...

Leeds city centre mid day lots of people and brilliant sunshine, the shadows cast from this tree looked very desolate, add the fact that the tree was bare and its a great urban capture...

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A chance meeting...

This shot below wasn't actually intentional as i was waiting for a gap between people walking through the tunnel. However it just proves that having an open mind and a little bit of luck can lead to great results

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Water Reflections...

Just managed to capture this about half an hour before the sun was due to go down.. amazing light bouncing off the building. Another added effect was using HDR to capture the whole range of colours...

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Ice Ice baby...

Quick Marco shot using my standard 18-55 mm Lens, early morning and some mean frost about lucky really as I caught this on the way to the train station.

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Right then you Bastard! lets have some HDR photography...

As the above title suggest HDR photography is something that I have seen alot of and known very little about. The general overview from my (simple) point of view is that the basic concept of HDR photography is to take what they call bracketed photos (a quick succession of photo's at varying exposures) then use a software to stack them together to increase the overall contrast between the light and dark in one shot.

So basically taking all the good bits from multiple shots making one good one........ EASY!!

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If you go down to the woods today...

The below picture has great texture but the thing. That drew me to shot was the light casting interweaving shadows over the trees it add's a little dramatic horror to the shot. Then I edited the pictrure by adding a ND / BW filter and boosted the blacks to enhance the shadows.

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All Hail the mighty Viaduct...

As a yorkshireman I'm often blessed with living near to rural green sweeping vistas... So on my day off I went walk about...

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Bridge over wooden water...

Another morning and another walk through a quiet yet steady Leeds city center, below is a small and quick attempt at an abstract image that's been in by head for awhile and finally is done and out there for the world to see.

The shot has quiet alot of grain to the poor lighting conditions and lack of time on my commute to work. I actually like it.

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Also the trick to slow shutter shots is only press the shutter button whilst exhaling.. like shooting a gun :)

Can't draw? Can shoot!!...

Now I'm going to share a really good technique that I have just mastered (accidentally fell on while choosing the wrong settings) we were round a couple of Friends house and there Cat Toby had got quite fond of the blanket near me so I thought I would get a quick snap (ever the ready pro).

I have exspanded my ISO range on my camera ( in settings most do it) and picked 12800, the grain is amazing but the actual shot looks like its been drawn with a charcoal pencil. I then added a B&W filter and played with the colours alittle.

Not bad after 2 bottles of red wine........... and I mean the picture I'm typing this the morning after with a woozy hangover.

ISO12800 - F4.5 - 1/20 shutter

Architectual Property.......

Having never spent any time actually looking were I walk (Yes I'm the one with my headphones in and head down), I spent most of my afternoon building gazing and it led me to the conclusion that most inner cities are a complete mongrel hive of buildings from art - deco, Neo classical, corporate modern, Post modern.. I could go on.

But needless to say it led me into a new avenue of photography that I had never comprehended until this point.. It's not rock and roll but I like it. The lines, abstract angles, and complete freedom of artistic licence was brilliant and well worth it, I came away looking at most buildings in a completely different way.

Main things to look out for:
Reflections - When adjusting the colour spectrum in PS you can reveal more reflections than originally shown.
Parallel lines and symmetry - When choosing close ups or parts of buildings make sure the composition of the shot is even
Experiment - Obscure angles and objects make great material
Orientation - Shoot in both Portrait and landscape as its hard to get the full feel of the scene until you revisit it at home
Scale - when shooting whole buildings or city street its always good to try and fit a tree, car, post box as this gives a visible scale of height in relation to the building in the frame.

ISO400 - F8 - Shutter 1/80

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This is just a Tribute.....

Recently the weather has been crappy, overcast foggy and the sky has had little to offer in terms of colour, cloud and substance... This is annoying I have however been using this to my advantage by trying to expand my B&W portfolio. The overcast skies are great conditions for longer exposures and motion effect etc..

On my quest of advancement I stumbled on a photographer called Daido Moriyama, he mostly did grainy urban & abstract B&W pictures. After a little bit of research and playing with in PS I produced this is not a reproduction of any of his but i have used his technique's all be it tweaked to my taste.


This shot I have increase the contrast, dropped the light and added a little more to the blacks. I then added an infra red filter to bring out the rear wall.

ISO400 - F8 - Shutter 1/80

Hmm Tell me Moore...?

Quick snap of one of his brilliant statues... and again I played around with adding and infra red filter then also pulled some of the yellow element out to darken the grain of the sandstone background. 

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No More Stairs... For Now

Seen as I have been obsessing about most things linear and stair like Today was spent grabbing a quick shot in the centre of leeds something linear


This shot was taken in bright sunlight as I was trying to catch alot of the sun to gain the most from the infrared filter applied in PS.

ISO200 - F8 - 1/250 Shutter

Follow the yellow brick road...

There are many things I try not to do while in my early stages of photography and one of them is tamper with the photo that I have taken... But sometimes once I get the picture home I can push the envelope so to speak.


Even though the initial shit is dramatic and brilliant I feel my creative side suggesting things ...


Below I have edited the shot in PS and layered the duplicate With only the bright yellow rails.




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