onOne PhotoTools

I came across a tweet/blog posting recently which mentioned the image editing tools by onOne.
Having never heard of them before i ventured over to their site where I found they do some free versions of their software. Not being one for passing up a useful freebie I decided to have a look.

First impressions are good, I've not played with the tools a great deal but the below image is one taken back in July and reworked using onOne ACR presets and PhotoTools.
Head on over to www.onone.com and make up your own mind.

Autumn acer

Autumn is my favourite time of year. The light is warm without being too harsh and the colours of the trees are amazing. I have a Japanese Maple in my garden which is always stunning at this time of year. I love the multitude of gold and red shades as the leaves turn and always look forward to seeing them.
 Unfortunately the colours are usually short lived. The cold winter winds whip the leaves from the branches before too long and the briefly splendid tree conforms to the naked dormancy of its neighbours.

My first sale.

This month saw my first sale through Getty Images. I was quite pleased, though less so when I realised that Getty do things back to front.
Normally the agent takes 20% of the artists fee, but in Gettys case, the artist takes 20% of Gettys fee.
It doesn't quite seem right to me.
Still, a sale is a sale even if I only get $34 of the $170.

A technological first (for me)

I've just found this app at the AppStore which allows me to update my blog from my phone. I've been looking for something like this for ages, but being the sort of person who prefers to use apps developed by the company providing the service and not a 3rd party, I had to wait until google churned this out.
This may even make me post more , but I wouldn't hold your breath.

Its over.

Tonight was the final college class of the year, well it wasn't really a class at all.
Tonight was all about putting up our final images for the end of year exhibition as well as handing in our workbooks. Its been a busy week trying to make sure everything was finished as well as putting up work  for the Barnaby Festival, all made worse "man-flu".
 If I'm being frank I'm glad its all over, its not that i didn't enjoy the the opportunity to meet new people with a common interest (that's really the only reason I've done night classes over the last few years), but it more that i didn't feel engaged in the class as much as last year.
Maybe its down to the different teaching styles of last years tutors compared this this year, but last year i felt that they were more interested in taking photos, more interested in what photos you the student were taking, more interested in your enjoyment of what you are doing, they were very enthusiastic about the medium and the results that could be obtained.
This year it felt like the tutors were more interested in getting to the end of the class, and maybe to the end of the term, with at least 80% of the people that started in order to satisfy the targets.


N.B. I have written this blog post today 15th June 2011, however I am scheduling its automatic submission for some time in the future.
 A time when my workbook will have been marked, when my final portfolio will have been marked, and when the external moderator has had his/her say. I wouldn't want to influence their decisions on my Pass or Fail based upon the bitter ramblings of someone who just wasn't "feeling it" this time around.

College Exhibition

Its the end of year exhibition over the next couple of days.
There are some really fantastic works being shown.
My work was produced as cyanotype prints, hence the blueness of the images.
All the images were taken using a Yashica Minister III Rangefinder, well all except this one :¬P
For this I used a Nikon Coolpix P300 

raleigh

I finally got around to developing some rolls of film last night.
This shot was taken in Manchester on Fuji Neopan 400 using a Yashica-A.
I love my Yashicas

my first home cyanotype

Well, that's kinda true.
The paper was prep'd in college last week but i printed the neg onto OHP at home then gave it a 3 minute exposure to direct sunlight.
It was then finished off with some lemon juice as an intensifier.
Hopefully more of these to come as i've ordered the chemicals and will be experimenting a bit.
Next time though i think i'll try and find a more contrasty image to print...and smoother paper.

Jodrell Bank sunset

For some reason I keep being drawn back to this amazing place.

it's been sunny in manchester for a change...

a sunny shambles saturday

People stop and look

When you wander around Manchester's Northern Quarter with a Polaroid Automatic 103 Land Camera

 

A shot from a roll of Ilford FP4 125 - 120 film taken at the Roaches.

Shot using a Yashica-A TLR and developed in Ilford DD-X 

The Roaches

Today we went to the Roaches to take some Large and Medium format shots.
I didn't get a chance to have a go of the Large format kit but I did take the opportunity to shoot some of my own cameras.
These images were taken using a Polaroid Land 103 Automatic.

minor panic

I had a minor panic last night.
I had a couple of 35mm films i needed to develop  and so loaded them onto spools and secured them in the dev tank. I then went about mixing the chemicals to the right concentration and temperature. It was at this point that i realised i didn't have the agitator stick. And so ensued a minor panic as i turned the house upside down trying to find the damned thing. eventually i found it, it had fallen into the ever ready case of my yashica minister.
Anyway, this shot is from a while ago, taken with a Nikon F90x, on HP5 Plus, developed in out of date Ilford DD-X.

 

Expired Polaroid

I recently purchased a Polaroid 103 Automatic Land camera, it arrived with a few sheets of film still inside.
I have no idea how long the film has been in there but the first image came out white, the second very faded and blue and this was the third. It has been scanned using a Canon CanoScan 8800F and the excellent (if a little cumbersome) SilverFast SE.

didn't turn out too bad considering...

shutter

My Agfa Isollete II which I've had for a while now, has always been a bit on the slow side as far as the shutter is concerned.
Tonight when I got in I decided it was about time I did something about it.

So it was with great trepidation that I dismantled the the front of the camera, removing the focus ring, scale ring, shutter speed ring and both lens elements.
It was actually a great deal easier than I had expected and once I'd removed all the necessary parts a liberal squirt of lighter fluid was applied to the shutter mechanism to give it a good clean.
I now have a shutter that when set to 1/300 responds like 1/300 and not B. It does smell a bit of lighter fluid though.

The image below was taken with the camera in bits.

I only wish I'd done this a long time ago.