Tattoo Convention: Sparks Will Fly

I lied, I'm a liar. I thought I had posted all the Tattoo Convention photos I wanted to but this one was half finished in Photoshop.

I've added some of the sparks on the right of the photo as they were only heading in one direction, I reduced the exposure on the crowd behind her until they disappeared and I've added a red-green-yellow colour dodged gradient which has added the teal and rose hints to the photo.

Gradients have been featuring a lot in my post production experiments, sometimes they're very obvious (example 1 & 2). Sometimes I will use a layer with a gradient map and they're a bit subtler (example).

I hope you like them all and my experimentation is working.

 

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Bestival Festival 2011

I'm getting around to this quite late, Bestival was some time ago and although I did the dutiful thing of updating Facebook, tagging friends old and newly made in the haze of my festival days, I neglected my blog and flickr, I can only appologize it's been a busy few weeks.

Well, here's the first in a series of photos from the festival:

Bestival is a four-day music festival held at the Robin Hill country park on the Isle of Wight, England. It has been held annually in late summer since 2004. The event is organized by DJ and record producer Rob da Bankand is an off-shoot of his Sunday Best record label and club nights.^[1] The initial Bestival attracted 10,000 people, growing to 55,000 in 2010. In 2006 it was voted the Best (Medium-sized) Festival at the 2006 UK Festival Awards, and it was voted the best major UK festival in the UK festival awards 2010.^{[2]...Read More}

- I took this photo while waiting to watch: Beardy Man - Watch his 2009 performance here.

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Happy Birthday

See the full gallery on Posterous

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The 'Can I Take Your Photo Game' Flickr Group

At the time of writing this blog entry, The 'Can I Take You Photo Game' Flickr Group has 4 members including me, and that is OK. I want people to join in, but I only want people to come on board if they are really going to commit to the principles of the game. 

The rules, as you must know by now are:

1. You must ask for a portrait

2. You must get permission to take the portrait

3. You have to alternate between genders, so ask a man then a woman then a man and so on

4. No means no, move on and don't be disheartened

5. Post your best shots as a set of two or more

6. Tag your photos with 'cityPGame' or 'The Can I Take Your Photo Game'

If you have happened upon this blog, and you like the idea of street portraiture and want to play, then please do so, and please join the group. There are only a few of us, but from humble beginnings...

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Photographic Assignments: Discover Magazine

Another Photographic Assignments outing and another rainy day out in London. This time the location was Greenwich Observatory, and the assignment was to take a photo of the new Astronomer Royal for an article and cover for Discover magazine.

Without a real Astronomer Royal we had to depend upon the other members of the group to pose for us, so in this post you will see Pete who runs Photographic Assignments and Monica, my main study and a somewhat challenging one at that.

All shots have been taken without a flash or reflector, and only with the grey light of a dull rain soaked day. Despite these limitations I feel that the results are OK. Perhaps not perfect for Discover Magazine, which tends to go for a very graphic design centred design for both it's covers and articles.

As alway's I would like to know what you think.

 

See the full gallery on Posterous

The first project can be seen here.

And the Photographic Assignment's site can be found here.

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The Can I Take Your Photo Game: Hyde Park 5

A quick recap on the rules:

1. You must ask for a portrait
2. You must get permission to take the portrait
3. You have to alternate between genders, so ask a man then a woman then a man and so on
4. No means no, move on and don't be disheartened
5. Post your best shots

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The Can I Take Your Photo Game: Hyde Park 4

A quick recap on the rules:

1. You must ask for a portrait
2. You must get permission to take the portrait
3. You have to alternate between genders, so ask a man then a woman then a man and so on
4. No means no, move on and don't be disheartened
5. Post your best shots

Posted via email from Stephen Walrond

The Can I Take Your Photo Game: Hyde Park 3

A quick recap on the rules:

1. You must ask for a portrait
2. You must get permission to take the portrait
3. You have to alternate between genders, so ask a man then a woman then a man and so on
4. No means no, move on and don't be disheartened
5. Post your best shots

Posted via email from Stephen Walrond

The Can I Take Your Photo Game: Hyde Park 2

A quick recap on the rules:

1. You must ask for a portrait
2. You must get permission to take the portrait
3. You have to alternate between genders, so ask a man then a woman then a man and so on
4. No means no, move on and don't be disheartened
5. Post your best shots

Posted via email from Stephen Walrond

The Can I Take Your Photo Game: Hyde Park 2

A quick recap on the rules:

1. You must ask for a portrait
2. You must get permission to take the portrait
3. You have to alternate between genders, so ask a man then a woman then a man and so on
4. No means no, move on and don't be disheartened
5. Post your best shots

Expect a portrait a day until I tire of posting them.

 

Posted via email from Stephen Walrond

Kid-A

Kid-A - Radiohead

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5 a Day Challenge: Day 6, Photos 2 to 4

The issue with this challenge, well, one of the many issues of this challenge is that at some point I will be forced to record the minutia of my life and present it as something other than the humdrum. So instead of photos of say, a classic car, you get photos of my new climbing shoes and my ashy ankle, or instead of a night shot of the HMS Westminster you get three cocktails (all mine by the way) lined up on a messy table (no leading lines, no golden rule)... I'm sorry. I will try harder, raise the standard and lower the alcohol level.

See the full gallery on Posterous

I hope these photos go some way towards making an amends.

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Señorita Monica

Ham and mozerella pannin with the cheese unmelted on the side and a hot chocolate with hazlenut syrup.

See the full gallery on posterous

 

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Sneaky | Shoot From The Hip

On Chinese New Year I played the 'Can I Take Your Photo' game and I got a few portraits of some cool people. I would love to tell you that I played by the rules for the whole day, but later that evening I started cheating and began to take shots of people without first asking permission and without the subject noticing.

I took one decent shot with this method and I present it here for your consideration. Comments and criticism welcome.

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Smize!

According to Tara Banks - who I believe should run for senator of the state of You-Go-Gal - to smize is to smile with one's eyes.

But why would you just use the eyes when you could light up your whole face like this blinder?!

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The 'Can I Take Your Photo' Game

The rules are as follows:

Approach a person and ask if you can take their photo if they allow you then snap away, if they say no then go away. You can not take a photo of a person you haven't asked permission from and you can not the same gender for a photo consecutively i.e. boy, girl, boy, girl.

Post all the good ones, ditch the crap ones.

See the full gallery on posterous

 

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Inspiration. Collaboration

Nice one Monica!

A great idea, excellently executed.

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New Outlook

"So many fail because they don't get started - they don't go. They don't overcome inertia. They don't begin."

- W.Clement Stone

Welcome to London.

 

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Season to be Grateful

Something we forget in the run up to Christmas is that we already have so much. Our health, our friends, our family. I hope this doesn't sound too trite, but sometimes I feel we need to tune out the demands for toys and trinkets, tone down the garish lights and tinsel and have a quiet moment considering what we couldn't be without.

See the full gallery on posterous

These photos are of a friend of over a decade and her daughter, both of them a blessing to me and each other. 'Tis the season to be grateful'.

Merry Christmas.

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Holkham Smile

Walking from Holkham Beach to the high street we observed a seal in the shallows by stranded boats and then a flock of birds crossed the sky and flew nowhere in particular. She pointed out a cloud lined by a rainbow and I captured this smile.

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