29 ways to stay creative...

There always comes the time when you just struggle to keep in the creative state of mind. No matter who you are, we all have bad, unproductive days. To battle against this I came across a '29 ways to stay creative' video from the Fstoppers blog. Simply 29 ways that you can make sure you stay creative all the time. Take a look, it's only a couple of minutes long.

Steve Jobs biography...

So it didn't take long for the biography of the late Steve Jobs to arrive. It was inevitable for the release and I'm really looking forward to the read. I think it's going to be a little difficult to read as it's not taken straight from Jobs himself and many are saying that Isaacson (The author) was to close to his subject to give bot sides to the story. The book is said to have over 100 quotes from others in order help the biography, but I think i'll be reading with an open mind. Either way I'm looking forward to the read and can only imagine it will be on the list of most young entrepreneur's Christmas lists.

Canon 1D X

And so finally Canon have release a Love child of the 1D and 1Ds. A camera with an 18mp full frame sensor and the ability to shoot 14fps with an insane amount of focal points. Without question it appears to be the greatest dslr Canon have produced. As an adventure lifestyle and portrait photographer this is the exact camera I've been waiting for and can't wait to have a go with one. I'll also be hoping to own one within the next year too. Head over to the Canon pro site for the full spec... Canon 1D X

Bit of latest work...

Realised the other day that I've not actually uploaded any of my latest work on here for some time. With this in mind I thought I'd show you a quick peak of a last minute shoot from last weekend. Around 5 hours prior I received a call about shooting a Dj from London. He was playing a gig in York for the evening, but needed some promo shots completing. These are a few examples of what we achieved in such a short time frame!

Adorama TV with Chase Jarvis!

The latest inspirational talk with Chase Jarvis to me really is the best behind the scenes piece I've seen from Chase Jarvis in a while. Lately Chase seems to have taken a step back from the info he was so famous for dishing out and pursued focusing on very different topics. With this video Chase is heads back to his older self a little and really delivers some key points to help with the creative field. Through watching the video you may get a better understanding of what I mean, it's worth a watch...

How inspirational was Steve Jobs?

This 15 minute video is something I urge all of you to view. Steve Jobs has been one of the most inspirational characters to me and as I imagine many others. He is a man that has changed the digital world forever and I can't help but think that things won't be the same without him. He was a man driven by passion rather than greed, something we should all acknowledge. Instead of following how many others live, and replicate what has been done (Good old Bill), he set his mind to creating something new, and as a result he created a company that makes technology cool, even for the people with no interest. Surrounded by so many Apple products and writing this on my mac, it's difficult to see what road the digital world will travel without the most original man in technology, Steve Jobs.

RIP Steve Jobs...

Possibly one of the most inspiring individuals of the last century passed away yesterday. Steve Jobs ended his battle with cancer  at the age of 56. As an avid apple fan I've loved everything Jobs has been involved with over the last 15 years and can't help but think that things won't be the same with apple in the future. I must say loading up the apple site before heading to bed, the last thing I thought I would see is the news of him passing. Rest in peace...

"The Freelance Photographer's Market Handbook"

And so I'm back... The last couple of weeks have been so busy and I've also been back at the gym now my injury has gone, finding time to keep on top of daily activities has been hard and the blog seems to have been neglected most.

More importantly I have something very important to share for all freelance photographers today. It's a book I seem to have completely forgotten about over the past couple of month's. "The freelance photographer's market handbook" contains an incredible amount of information in regards to contacts you may need to gain work. From listing most editorial businesses looking for photographers to agencies, "the freelance photographer's market handbook has all the information you could need.

I stumbled across mine again this morning and have two possible jobs lined up from just firing across a couple of emails. The best thing of all is that the supply all the information the companies are looking for, eliminating that question of whether they will wan you to work for them.

I most definitely recommend ordering a copy immediately!

BenBrownPhoto on Facebook...

Now have an active page on Facebook. Tried to keep up with Facebook a long time ago, but always ended up neglecting it, as I'm not a big Facebook fan. Due to the fact that people appear to be liking the page every week, I thought I would give it a second chance. I'll be updating most aspects of my latest work and generally what I've been up too on a professional level. Unlike twitter it will only be about work, not everything in general. Head over and 'like' it if your interested...

http://www.facebook.com/benbrownphotography

Weekend test shoot...

A quick shot from a test shoot on Saturday. Trying out some different styles and editing techniques, explaining why the image looks slightly different to some of my previous stuff. Just wanted to update a little something as I've been away for a couple of days. 

You may also notice the little watermark in the corner. I've had a few people borrowing my images and not crediting so I'm having to incorporate a the watermark. Usually hate seeing images with these on, but just covering myself for now...

Wacom Inkling...

Quick post on quite possibly one of the coolest gadgets i've come across in some time thanks too @GarthLee. The new Wacom Inkling appears to be truly amazing, by simply attaching the device at the top of your page and drawing with the Wacom stylus, everything is recorded and it simply downloads to your mac. Also allows you to work in layers, allowing for tweaking and manipulating in Photoshop. Not sure about you guys, but I'm definitely getting one some time in the future, it looks awesome...

500px...

http://500px.com/benbrownphoto

As some of you may know I've used flickr for a long time, especially with the 365 project I undertook last year, but I think I may have now found a replacement. I've herd a lot of people going on about this new '500px' site, and how it's better than flickr. At first I didn't take much notice, but now I must agree. With a far more professional look and feel about it I much prefer the entire interface of this new 500px. So headed over and set my account up yesterday. The images come across so much cleaner and more vibrant than I previously experienced at flickr. Head over there and take a look, you may agree...

Site now available on iPad and iPhone...

Livebooks offers you the chance to generate a mobile specific site, to make easy navigation upon iPhone's, instead of having to use all the small button located within the site. The coolest aspect of all is that finger gestures work within the site and images become full bleed, allowing for seamless viewing of the portfolio. Now all aspects of Ben Brown Photo are mobile. If you've got an iPad or iPhone head on over and take a look at www.benbrownphoto.com, it's pretty awesome...

Aaron Browne...

This latest shoot was a collaboration with a trials bike rider Aaron Browne. Only met the guy a week ago, but knew he would make for some pretty insane images. The images are part of a test shoot for a future project I'm a part hoping to be a part of. I needed to generate an idea of what the future images would look like and came up with these. Spent the day in Doncaster, England shooting images in several different awesome locations. After 5 hours of shooting and almost losing some of my kit due to the rugrats of Doncaster (Have camera insurance if you shoot there in the future), we came up with these images...

Richard Walch...

I've been struggling to come around to all these photographers I've aspired to become turning their hand over to this new dslr video world, but the work of Richard Walch is beginning to win me over. Creating promotional work for the Canon 5D mk II immediately caught my attention. Utilising many of the aspects learnt through his photography helps him to generate moving images of which really have still image characteristics about them. It's nice to see a photographer not just leaving his still image skills behind and adhering to traditional video styles and trying to discover something new and exciting. Take a look at the video to understand what I mean...

New Place...

Not really been active online the last month, and this is the reason. Moved into a new place and it's taken ages to get back online. The emails have built up and stress levels kept on rising, felt liked I'd changed my career to a handy man, but it's all totally worth it. Taken us about a month to get the house looking good, so now it's all done thought i'd show you what all the fuss has been for, just for those of you interested...

Hallway

Office

Lounge

Kitchen

Bedroom

Garden

There's a few other bedrooms and load of bathrooms, but didn't think you'd be interested in seeing them. Still got a few bits and pieces to sort out and really need to get some artwork on the walls, but it'll all be done in time. Now I'm back to work and got a new space to work daily blog posts will be a regular, so keep checking back for whatever I find time to blog about...

Editing...

Had a few people on flickr asking about simple editing techniques on my shots, so thought I'd do a really quick run through. When it comes to my post production I don't do to much. Simple manipulation if i want to remove something then a little contrast and colour tweaking.

"The Original"

The original image had a few bits and pieces I didn't like and wanted to take out. After 2 minutes of cloning and using a little "content aware", I'd managed to get rid of the telephone line in the right of the image and a few other bits and pieces. 

The image is exposed perfectly, but is very flat in terms of colour and contrast. I find contrast to be very important in terms of the intent of the image. For example, high contrast doesn't work if you want a natural soft image. There is plenty of different ways to control separate aspects of your images in photoshop. I simply tweak the contrast and colours through channel mixer, selective colour and curves. Make sure your doing all these tweaks in separate layers. This allows you to use layer masks and implement the effects to specific areas of the image.

When the image is looking about right after these tweaks, all thats left is to prepare the image for print or web. I always like to sharpen my images very slightly. I do this with a little high pass filter changed to overlay. Then play with the opacity until you get the right look.

The image below shows all my filter and whether they include layer masks...

"In Post"

Key points...

Using layer masks is key to producing a well controlled image. Many traditional photographers believe it to be cheating, but it's all tricks you can do in the dark room.

Do all your tweaks and adjustments on separate layers. You don't want to at a later date find you've done something wrong then be unable to change it.

Don't fall into the trap of, "Oh I can fix that in Photoshop". You'll never improve your photography that way.

It's easy to go to far with tweaking. Theres nothing worse than an image over processed.

"Final Image"

Check out more of my work at www.benbrownphoto.com

Ollie Locke - Made In Chelsea

Recently I had the chance to produce a series of promotional images for the reality TV star, Ollie Locke. First time I've created work for someone working in this field and I must say I was pleasantly surprised. Ollie was one of the nicest guys I've worked with and so photogenic, getting the right shots wasn't too difficult.

The shoot started off really quite difficult. Trying to find the studio on Oxford street, London and getting lost. Then having to set up a studio I'd not used before on a day reaching temperatures of 32 degrees. Everything panned out well and everyone loves the end results. Here the first few from the first costume we shot...

End results will be on my site in a few days... www.benbrownphoto.com

Leeds Exhibition...

A current on going personal project of mine has been exhibited within a Leeds studio space. The project is taken from a much larger body of work currently ongoing of which I hope to keep adding to for the next couple of years. Following is the exhibition piece and the artist statement to go along with the work...

"Throughout 2011, Ben Brown undertook a project exploring the concept of characters. Carrying a very clean cinematic style into the images, Ben’s produced a fictive scenario into the world of a character.  The project has resulted in a series of 6 images visually conveying the world of the character. The photographer’s aim for the project was to focus primarily on one character. Never giving the audience exactly what the situation is, simply giving suggestions. The focus of the project is to allow the audience to arrive at their own conclusion of the narrative. "

BenBrownPhoto.com

And so the new site is complete...

After a lot of back and forth deciding on how to produce the new site, it's finally complete. Previously I had my site custom made to enable me to control every small detail of the site. Found this isn't important for my photography site. Clean, simple and straight to the point is what I've found works best. This led me to make the new site with Livebooks. Awesome choice for a simple site when you don't have the cash to pay a design company to produce what you want. Everything is so simple to change and make look professional. The ability to pay monthly worked best for me and in comparison to everything your site brings, it's very little to pay. Head over and check it out...

BenBrownPhoto

Advanced Photographer Article...

Last month 'Advanced Photographer' approached me and asked if they could produce an 8 page spread on my strobist work. Still feels very surreal when someone interviews me, maybe one day it will feel normal. Super happy with it, wouldn't have chosen some of the images, but overall think it's pretty cool. It's in this months issue if your interested in purchasing it. Hope some people find it interesting...

4ormat web design...

I'm currently in the process of re-producing my online presence and was looking at different ways I'm able to control my site without having to ask for help from the designer, but at the same time make it look awesome. Took me a while of trying out different companies, but came across 4ormat.com the other day and needed to share them with you guys.

If your thinking about setting up a site, but don't have the cash to get a web agency to do it, go with them. It's so simple to produce a really awesome, clean simple sight. You may need to do a little research into CSS if you want to tweak particular areas, but still really simple. Best thing of all is that no flash is used,s o it's completely compatible with iPad's, iPhones and the world of Apple, which is always good!

I'd check them out if you need a site...

4ormat

Latest Project...

First post in quite some time, not much else to say other than I'm not so great at this blog thing, sorry for those who have found the previous posts interesting and I've not followed up.

The following set of images are taken from a personal project I've been working on for some time and will be adding to in the future. Based around characters and the world of others, the project follows particular characters and develops on particular experiences. Ignoring all the technical aspects my work usual includes, I'm really liking focusing on the aim of the project instead of the visual, technical content.

The images will be exhibited within Leeds for a week, starting around the 13th June, not 100% on the date. I've been really excited about the project for ages and it's been awesome to finally get started on it.

Thanks for stopping by...

Greg Williams...

Thought i'd start to share something a little different through my blog from now on. Instead of just sharing tips and tricks from myself and others, I'm going to start sharing what I find to be the most important tool of research... Things that inspire me! This will vary from interesting vids to artists I find interesting...

I'm going to kick start this with one of my favourite british photographers, Greg Williams. Greg has a very natural and incredibly interesting style throughout his work and is definitely worth taking a look at. He always develops a story through his images instead of them being something pretty to look at, even when they're one shot stood alone, the images always hold some form of motive.

Williams has also recently moved into the world of moving images, but not in the same way as other photographers. He has begun producing moving portraits in a very unique way, each developing a character with no dialogue, just movement...

Take a look, you will not be disappointed...  www.gregfoto.com