Ho Ho Ho. Merry Christmas

This is a picture of Santa from the weekend. My kids think he could be the actual real one on account of his beard being "a proper one"

Santas Little Helper

Santas Little Helper
Originally uploaded by Mark1970Vintage

I couldn't resist getting a shot of Santas Little Helper from our weekend away at Ribby Hall IN Lancashire.

The rest of the shots fromt he wekeend can be seen here on my flickr stream.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/marklandon/sets/72157622890714809/

Smiths Lawn to the Obolisk

Smiths Lawn to the Obolisk
Originally uploaded by Mark1970Vintage

First attempt at HDR. I wanted to make it as subtle as possible vs some of the extrem "in your face" HDR's that seem to be in vogue.

This was taken during a photowalk around Windsor Great Park (Saville Garden/Bolisk/Cow Pond area. Check out the rest of hte shots from this walk on my flickr stream. Each shot contains a geotag/map link for where it was taken.

www.flickr.com/photos/marklandon/sets/72157622956964952

Inspiration....

I stumbled across this today and found it really inspiring. I'm still struggling to find my style and as a result probably putting too much pressure on myself to improve vs just enjoy the process and let it come naturallly.

http://www.zarias.com/?p=284

This second video http://www.zarias.com/?p=465 about street portraiture also reminded me to get my ass into gear again regarding my own 100 strangers project. I'm currently on 17/100 (as I have been for several months)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/marklandon/sets/72157611320280959/

Quad Toning In Photo Shop ...

...this time Quad Toned
Originally uploaded by Mark1970Vintage

I really like the richness of the B&W image you get with ha quad toning effect.... A trick I learned in Scott Kelbny's excellent book CS3 for digital photographers.

The shot is of a face paining in progress from my works Xmas party for the kids of staff. The face painter was excellent.

Virginia Water Waterfall After Heavy Rain

I hoped that the amount of rain we had this weekend would mean that the Waterfall on the outflow of Virginia Water in Windsor Great park would be in spate.... I wasn't disappointed. It was very late on Saturday evening before I had chance to get down there. Infact it was nearly dusk. I didn't have my cable release with me so I had to resort to upping the ISO and the aperture to reduce the exposure to 30 seconds. Processed in lightroom with an X=equals "super punch" preset and then a bit of fine tuning.
The second shot of the upper level, looking down has the road in the background which is where the orange glow comes from as cars were driving along plus the street lights.

Obviously both of these shots were taken with a tripod.

Little Man

Whilst doing the Photoshoot of the staff at school yesterday my wife came to pick me up, so whilst I had the lighting set up I couldn't resist getting a shot of "The Babsa", "The Little Man", "The Maestro" aka "My Boy"