travel

I don't post or process many HDRI's , but this one I like. The barns lined up perfectly and with a very bright sky I wanted to capture all the detail. The HDR generation was done in Photomatix Pro with 3 exposures.

I've been preparing some prints for an upcoming exhibition, details here , and stumbled across this shot, which has be prepared and ready to post since last year.

It was taken on our trip to the Czech Republic , just before Christmas last year. I'm not sure why I skipped over posting it, but it jumped out at me , so I'm putting it up now :-)

What I particularly like about the lamppost is it's perfectly straight, but the cap is tipped to the side, it's a lamppost with style! 

This shot was taken on our recent trip to Northern Spain and was at an urban basketball court in downtown Oviedo, the home town of Fernando Alonso.

This is a shot of our friend Maria walking her sisters dog through the streets of San Sebastian.

The blur is in camera and was achieved by quickly zooming out using my wide 12-24mm lense.

We've been away for the last week travelling around Northern Spain, hence the lack of updates.

This wonderfully dilapidated boat was sitting in the harbour at San Sebastian in the Basque country.

This is another of the Wander gesellen' or 'Wandering Apprentice' we met at the recent party in Austria. I can't remember this fellows name, but he was a friendly guy and I think that comes through in this photo.

I'm off to the British Formula 1 Grand Prix this weekend and am hiring the Nikon 200-400 VR which should be a bit of fun!

This is the widest photo I have ever posted on Lightflows and is one that I've been meaning to put up for a while. It was taken at lake Wanaka in New Zealand and for me is one of the most beautiful places in the world.

The stitch is made from 5 separate exposures, that I put together in Photoshop , normally I use PT Gui, but PS worked great on this sequence. Apart from the lense flare ,which shows a nasty thumb print :-( I'm reasonably happy with this one.

If you have the bandwidth and want to see a larger version , it is here.

One more shot from the Morocco street scenes. I don't have masses to say about this one. I probably have one more shot to post from the series and then onto something new.

I've been adding ( a long overdue) feature to the site, so it is now possible to purchase prints. I will gradually be updating and adding some new galleries.

Lastly , I hope the British summer kicks in soon, it's been raining everyday for a week and I'd like to go out and get some new shots!

Another one in a mini-series from the archives. This was shot on Boxing Day 2006 , again in Morocco. And as I mentioned in the last post, unfortunately, this sort of scene is common place too.

We travel to Morocco every other year as Idoya my fiancée has family there, although pre-warned , I was really shocked the first time I went there and saw the poverty first hand.

A bit of archive raiding tonight, I haven't got any new images to post at the moment, or the ones I do have aren't quite ready to go onto the site :-)

I've been working at home in my new role for the last 4 weeks and you'd expect that I'd have more time to shoot. As it turns out , starting a company is , like everyone says, hard work! But very rewarding all the same.

For those that haven't been to Morocco , this sort of scene is common place, people just chill out and relax , a world a way from the Western world!

Thanks everyone for the encouragement, i'm feeling a little more creative and had a break from shooting today.

I'm not going to blather on tonight, just to say that I've had this image sitting around processed and ready to post for a while, so here goes. It was taken just before Christmas whilst staying with relatives of Idoya's in Morocco.

Going to post some foggy pictures tomorrow :-)

I don't know about everyone else, but here in England the winter is grey and dull most of the time, so today I fancied a bit of winter sunshine, remind me what lies around the corner :-)

This shot is, again, from Morocco. I am in the middle of a small Moroccan series and will probably be for the next few days. This building is just around the corner from the Kasbah, and was shot at that point in the afternoon where you get those nice long shadows.

The image is cropped fairly tight as the buidings either side where a little distracting, anyway hoep you enjoy it.

Lastly, to everyone who commented over the last few days, thank you very much, and I will endevour to pay you a visit in the not so distant future.

Just a short post tonight, as i've come down with a bug and have been off work sick today, hopefully be back o form tomorrow :-)

I discovered this shot whilst looking through my archives of Morocco at the weekend, it's from a few years ago now and I don't why i'd previously overlooked it. It was taken driving through one of the small, hilly villages on the outskirts of Tangier, this lady is wearing the traditional peasant clothes, I like the bold colours and think they work really well together.

This one is from a Moroccan street market or Sook(sic?), and was taken on Christmas day, the year before last. Added to the excitement of taking pictures in Morocco , is the fact that people really don't like having their pictures taken there, so getting good candid portraits is hard, you have to be super discreet or pretend your not taking pictures at all, by looking one way ,whilst taking a picture with the camera pointing another.

Although this isn't a portrait, If I remember correctly it was one of those shots, with camera pointed down clicking away.I'm not much of a fish eater either, but I believe these are freshly caught sardines, maybe someone will be along who can put me right :-P

This shot is a candid snaphot on the streets of Prague, another from our visit just before Christmas.

I don't have masses to say about it, apart from the fact I found these 2 interesting enough to want to take a photo of, and although the shot is not as sharp as usual , due to the low light from overcast weather and shooting handheld at 200mm (300mm 35mm equiv) , I'm reasonably happy with it.

I know posting pictures of homeless people is supposed to be a cliche and it probably is, I work in the West End of London and see a lot of homeless people, street sleepers, addicts etc.. but i'd never seen anyone begging in such an extreme manner like this, and it humbled me a bit. This style of begging , if you can call it that seems to be the trend in the Czech capital as we saw on our visit.

I don't have much more to say about this one, I think it speaks for itself.

Back to Prague , this time in one of the beautiful parks they have in the city. This is a pretty straight shot, and compositionally i'm pretty happy with it. Processing wise , It's just been desaturated a little and muted down, but not much else.

Following on from yesterday's post, where Rose spotted some buildings in the background, I decided to post another shot from the lake side with one of the cabins in view.

According to the locals , the lake is a popular fishing spot and these are , what i consider to be , quite luxurious cabins for overnight fishing trips, hence the title of the post. I guess it gets pretty cold up around these parts, so maybe a tent wouldn't suffice.

The lake is littered with smallish buildings and outdoor toilets, which make for stark constrasting subject matter and interesting compositions, as in this post.

Lastly,this B&W was processed in DXO and then a bit of Photoshop, I'm thinking of posting a desaturated colour version of this one in the next few days. Thanks to everyone who commented on the last one and well spotted Rose!

Evening all. Well, no forest shots again i'm afraid, I seem to be coming down with some sort of bug/cold, so have been taking it easy the past few evening's and resting up for work.

I had hoped to get some new material for the site, but the weather has be atrocious in the South East, if not most of the country the past few days.

Instead i'm posting some material from the archives, back to New Zealand and Poolburn reservoir. This shot is one of my personal favorite B&W's, I have a colour version hanging in my living room and just love the tranquility of this place, hence the title. This shot was taken in the same session as this one which is also another personal favorite.

Hopefully i will have a bit more energy in the next few days and some shots with some colour to post too!

I had hoped to post a colour version of the forest shot, Radiant #1 today, but we were out longer than expected and so it isn't quite ready, so it's back to Prague airport for one more time. As with the other airport shots it was shot through glass, and so is not super sharp.

What attracted me to this picture is the flow of the lines through the frame and the isolated baggage truck tucked way up in the corner, it has a starkness that I find attractive.

Hopefully i'll get back to the forest shots tomorrow, but for now.....

Firstly thanks for the positive comments on yesterdays post, i really appreciate them.

Unlike yesterdays, which was captured on the spur of the moment, this one, shortly afterwards, is obviously posed, which the couple were happy to do. This is one aspect of photography that i'm enjoying, building the courage to talk to complete strangers and meet new people. It's always nice when people are happy to take part.

The 1st of the two images was lightly cross processed for a more retro feel, this one is more straight forward with just a little desaturation of the background and boosting of the foreground.

I really like the gentleman's expression, he was a real character and very happy to talk, shame i missed the fact the lady wasn't quite looking at camera, but I love her glasses and style all the same, a couple of real characters!

Fancied a change from the landscapes today and as i'm coming to the end of the Prague series, i wanted to post a couple of the characters we saw there. These two friends were just watching the world go by and pointing things out, as you'll see in tomorrows shot, they were more than happy to pose for a couple of snaps...and you may just be able to spot me reflected in someones glasses?!

This is the second of the Prague airport shots, and in the same way as yesterday's post, it was shot through glass, and is not a sharp as i'd like. This is the stronger, bolder of the two grades and i think i prefer the toning of this one marginally, although it's hard to decide. If you have an opinion, let me know what you think.

I'm coming to the end of my Prague series now, as i'd like to post some more U.K. shots , I do have a couple of portraits that i'm going to post over the next couple of days, a couple of interesting characters :-) , but then i'm done. This shot was taken at the airport in Prague and was shot through glass, so it's probably not a sharp as i'd like. We were on our way home and a huge storm was coming in and the sky started to look really menacing. I'm have an alernative angle and toning of this shot which i'll post tomorrow, it would be interested to here which one you prefer and why.

Well, 1st post of 2008 and another shot from Prague, this is an old pair of scales that were in the window of one of the traditional Christmas shops. Not much to say about this one really , i just liked the colour and beaten up old paint. Happy New Year!

As a 'yoof' of the 80's i was really into Hip Hop and, naturally, graffiti too. Tagging trains , walls, anything, went hand in hand with the music. Now in my 30's rather than tagging walls i'm going about taking pictures of other people's tags on walls. This 'piece' happens to be in Prague's old town, i still love the fonts that people use for tags, the chunky text..."ah the smell of aerosol...", now where did i leave that marker pen?

Anyway, about the shot,i thought i'd give the black and white shots a rest for a while. This one i really like just for the simple shape and text against the plain background of the wall. Compositionally the sloping floor bugs me a little bit as it interferes with the clean look of the shot, but i didn't want to crop any tighter so that's the compromise, if you're reading this and care to comment let me know what you think?

One of the benefits of my job is that i get to travel a fair bit to film sets, and this trip, the best so far, was to New Zealand.

With the incredibly clean air in the Alpine region of the South Island the sunsets and sunrises are special. We were treated to specular events most days, this was one of the more color ones.