Urban art form or Crap on the wall...

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Duck?, a photo by Nick Barker Photography on Flickr.

Now most people and government organisations do not Condone or acknowledge Graffiti as an art form, well not when it's done illegally anyway... We passed this abandoned half of a building near Eland and we had to stop.

The semantics and legality of it aside and I for one love the bold colours and contrast it makes really good material.

Just another brick in the wall....

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Just another brick in the wall, a photo by Nick Barker Photography on Flickr.

Experimenting with filters and stone again... But keep the faith I'll through more colour in my next post ... Well maybe but I'm not promising ....

This abandoned red brick wall look battered and warped .. Great material when playing with red / infra filters as certain filters highlight different tones with in the brick ... Yet another reason to always shot in RAW + JPG.

Stand By Me...noo body knoows..

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Stand By Me, a photo by Nick Barker Photography on Flickr.

I feel that today was a massive turning point on my journey. This picture is the first that I can truly say has "my" stamp on it. Apart from feeling slightly self-aware again.. I saw the shot in my head and took the moment and once I had editied it everything fell into place.
It's hard to know what it is you like and even harder to know your own style .. But I suppose 6 months and over 4000 photos taken (not all good I might add) gives you time to practice.

221121

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221121, a photo by Nick Barker Photography on Flickr.

After finishing work I caught the quiet terminal and its lights rolling down the track...

Tunnels.com....

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Eyes Front, a photo by Nick Barker Photography on Flickr.

This was a great shot of a walkway down by granary wharf the bright sunny day gave great reflective ends to the tunnel.

Something out of nothing....

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Under Section Art, a photo by Nick Barker Photography on Flickr.

This was taken around 5:45 in the morning.. underneath a railway bridge where a florescent light was casting great shadows and texture.. once i got this into edit I increased the blacks and brightness to give a comic book effect..

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 !!

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.

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ISO400 - F11 - 1/80

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.

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Dark gloomy train station revisited...

Quick snap of another hard lined seat at the train station.. not bad to look at pretty rubbish to sit on for any extended period of time.

Mornings and Hangovers..

As a morning work took me through the county arcade in the centre of Leeds the clouds seemed heavy and look rather ominous the view from beneath the glass roof was brilliant but editing it to B&W really made the most of the tones.

Nobody likes mornings... I especially hate them !

Sat in a cold dark and what felt to be an isolated train station I decided to entertain myself by playing with my camera, most of the photos were crappy apart from this one.. once I had changed it to B&W and added a tungsten white balance to the shot in PS it seemed to black out the windows to the rear looked better than the original.

At the moment Black and white images are mostly all i can think about, there seems to be much more intensity and mood than when it was originally shot in colour.

Leeds Urban Shoot... one time one time

This seems to be a reoccurring factor of my life now most mornings and nights leave me thinking about photography... not an entirely bad thing just an involved one.

This morning I woke up with an image in my head of a place i thought i had seen before this time it was in black and white so I ventured out and captured about 99% of what i saw in my dream...

ISO1600 - F8 - Shutter 1/125

After reading Digital Photographer I read a article about shooting black and white using a high ISO it adds a natural grain and ... well I likes it!