Animated Gifs : North Herts Portrait Photographer

I just had a play with making animated Gifs in Photoshop.
I had to look through my photos for some that would work as a sequence.
Here are a few I played with.

I couldn't resist using these shots from Christmas Day. Hubby was a wee bit merry from the unlimited alcohol.

I had been wondering how easy it was to do an animated Gif. After reading one of my favourite bloggers recent post I had a play.

Amanda's original blog is here.

It took me a while, to work out I had to resize all my images for viewing on the web. The Gif reduces the quality of the original images, but I still like the affect. 

The one below is of my niece Taya, from a shoot in the summer. The images are all the originals straight out of camera shots, except one. An edited one snuck in there. See if you can spot it.

I can't wait to shoot a collection of Teddy. He is so hard to shoot without movement, but this will be a great way of showing how truly mad he is.
It's a shame you can't post them on Facebook. It would be a great way of sharing a quick little slide show for clients to share their shoots.

India 2012

It has taken me forever to get around to writing about our recent travels in India. I think because I knew it could be an epic post. I had been putting it off.
It was so long ago that I shared this post of the Smash book I put together to take on the trip


From the off our trip was amazing. Our seats on the plane weren't the best, so a tour rep waiting for us at Heathrow, said leave it to me and we did. When we got to our seats, we were ecstatic to see we had the extra leg room,emergency exit seats. I popped some sleeping tablets and slept the whole journey, only to be woken by the sounds of breakfast. I was lucky I slept, as the tour turned out to be full on.

Erica was to be our amazing tour guide for the entire trip, there aren't enough superlatives I could use to express how great she was. We had enough time to have a quick shower and then we were straight out to experience the delights a smoggy, polluted Delhi had to offer a coach of 20 tourists.

During our tour the Hindu festival of Diwali was taking place. So there were a lot of Indians taking time out to visit their national treasures. This was always my favourite part of each monument we went to. Watching the faces of Indians taking in the beauty around them.

Everyone was eager to have their photos taken with us or by us. We were as exciting to them, as we thought they looked to us.

 Everyone wanted to see what they looked like in the back of the camera...............

Months later and I still hadn't finished this post, so I have now decided I'm just going to show you some of my favourite images from the holiday and then share videos of the photo-book, and SMASH scrapbook of our tour. Otherwise this post will never get done.

Here's the Smash book scrapbook I finally finished today of our tour. To begin with, the focus isn't great. I forgot to reset the focus from a previous video. Sorry.

And here is the My Publisher photo-book I put together.

There is a fantastic giveaway going on over on Photobook Girls website here, for a chance to win $100 of a My Publisher product. It's a great site for finding out all you need to know about making Photobooks.

Dubai Christmas 2012 : North Herts Photographer

I recently spent three days watching a live workshop on the next step coming in photography, video. Sue and Hayley were showing us how to make short, snappy videos.. Our homework is to put together a two minute video, after a month of shooting. I chose my model to be Teddy. Now it is way above my head, and I think it will be a miracle that I ever get to cut a months worth of video into two minutes. So just watch this space.

But whilst I had my DSLR camera out, I popped it on a tripod and videoed some recent scrapbook projects. I have finally finished a scrapbook of my recent trip to Dubai to see my son. At a recent crop in Enfield, we had a bring and buy stash sale. I picked up some freebies and quickly put together a layout for a photograph I took when my daughter got engaged. Everything but the white 12 x 12 card stock was free.

 I also spotted a Christmas inspired album that was for sale by Denise. I hope she likes what I did with her cast off.

PS.. I noticed when I watched the video back, that some of my small word stickers had come loose. So I went back and used some Glossy accents on them. They're not going anywhere now !

A snow day : North Herts Portrait Photographer

We have had some beautiful fluffy, dry snow fall over the last week. In the UK that means the Country can come to a standstill. But this time the local councils seemed to listen to the forecast, and gritted the roads. But the majority of schools decided to have a snow day, as with " Health & Safety " rules now, they were frightened of children slipping over !!!!
That was a bonus to me, as I knew some children who wanted to go out in the beautiful snowy backdrop and I could photograph them.
We went to an area directly behind there home. I can't describe how beautiful the woods looked. There was a fantastic slope with kids sledging down on anything they could get their hands on.

I took some props along with me, to incorporate in the shoot. I knew a fur collar I have, would work as a beautiful frame to Lucy's face.

and old picture frame, worked just perfect as a simple natural frame.

Noodles came along to. But just one major drawback. For some reason he is petrified of cameras. So I had to employ some stealth to get a snap of him.

We had a walk through the woods and up on to a hill bordering Weston. It's the hill of choice for all the locals. It was mobbed as is usual when the snow hits. There were even teenagers attempting to sledge down in a massive paddling pool !! I have one confession, I have never owned a sledge. It's one of my things I have high on my "grandchildren gifts " list, if and when I ever get any. I have only been on a sledge once, briefly, as a young child. I vividly remember falling head first into the snow. Now I won't even attempt a quick toboggan because of my spine.

It is thrilling to get to work with such fantastic light at this time of year. Very little editing was needed as I could get exposure in camera just right. The snow acts as a natural reflector and as long as you get your white balance set correctly,.......BINGO- magic happens.

Here are a few more shots of Alfie from the shoot,

Dog gone easy:North Herts Portrait Photographer

I've had a manic month so far. Lot's of shoots, a trip to India and a cold/cough bug I just can't shake off.

Before I hit you with my India trip photos and commentary overload. I thought I would share with you the easiest shoot I have ever undertaken.

The subject didn't care about me editing his wrinkles or teeth. He didn't even mind that it started raining during the shoot.

Ok, he wasn't the most perfect model, in that I had to bribe him to sit still. But still I was thrilled with the quick results.

The photos are going to be a surprise Christmas present for his owner, Harri.

Harri has special needs and his dog is his best friend.

Meet Buster, the cutest dog ever.

and here's a collage of some of my favourite Buster poses.

A wee little test

I just though I would have a play with writing a blog post on my iMac using blogger direct. What I see in front of me looks a lot different to the HTML confusion I used to see on my laptop years ago when I started.

So maybe blogging from an iMac will be easy after all.

Hallelujah !

And I though I would throw in an image I like from a recent photo-shoot I did.
Just to see how easy it is to add.

So far so good. As easy as writing a blog in Livewriter !

I'll go for another one then......

Oh this is toooo easy.....

I have to put the photos in at a smaller size than I would like, but I can play with that another day.

undfind camera lens bag

 

When I am on a shoot I use a Black rapid women's camera strap. It is one of the best things I have bought. It means I can walk around with my camera safely strapped at my side, leaving my hands free. On a shoot I usually have a lot of props, reflectors and stools to carry around, so I need all the hands I can have.

I also have around my neck my Expodisc, I use to set white balance readings. Essential to my style of shooting.

But the main problem comes when I want to change lenses. I leave my camera bag at home and pop all my lenses in to their own individual padded lens bags. But it gets very fiddly when I am thick grass in a meadow, rummaging through my huge bag of shoot needs I take with me.

I have watched with envy for a while all the photographers I admire in the States who use a Shootsac to hold their lenses. They are essential for wedding photographers, who really don’t have the time to carry around camera bags. They need to merge in with the wedding party. As our time was nearing for our trip to India.

 

 

I started to realise such an item would be great on our trip as well as for shoots. Their bags hold two lenses, right up to my huge 70-200mm lens. They have an extra 4 pockets to carry smaller items. That means I could have three lenses with me at all times, within a moments reach.  The bags are made of strong, light stretchable neoprene fabric and you can even buy interchangeable covers.

But the problem was the exorbitant price of The Shootsac $180. She pretty much has the market locked down. But one day I came across the UNDFIND waist shooter . At $80 the bags are much cheaper, and really do exactly the same thing. The great thing is they are slightly smaller, as they only have two pockets as apposed to the 6 the Shootsac has. The Shootsac is designed to really only have two lenses in the pockets, just like the UNDfind bag. The extra pockets are just for things like flashes and keys. The Shoot sac just looks too bulky and big to have strapped across me. So the UNDFIND bags seems even better to carry around, in my opinion. I need things as light as I can , because of my previous back problems.

The great thing about using it in India is it doesn’t  look remotely like a camera bag. Just a trendy over the body, leather bag. I ordered one from B&H for Hubby to pick up in Chicago on his last trip. I went with the black leather cover and may add a colourful limited edition one at a later date.

They have 2 zip able pockets on the inside flap, that I keep my extra CF cards and batteries in. I’ll be able to keep money and hand sanitizer in there as well on our trip.

The great thing about the UNDFIND waist shooter, is it comes with a detachable strap and also comes with strong Velcro straps on the back so that you can wear it on a belt around your waist as well. Great for men, who wouldn’t want to be wearing a “bag”.

I just LOVE it and put it straight to work on shoots.

If only I could find something to strap to myself to hold a reflector at the perfect angle. Then everything would be sorted. But boy how stupid would I look !