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...