Raindrops

HDR and Fisheye Experimenting

When my new camera came, I wanted to get stuck in straight away. Unfortunately, I can't drive, and didn't really have the time to get a bus anywhere because I was going out later that day, so I ended up going for a walk down by the canal as usual. I previously hadn't had the chance to use my fish-eye lens, because it arrived after my old camera broke, so I thought I'd give it a whirl.

I also wanted to have a go at real HDR, so I brought along my dad's old deathtrap tripod. What I mean by 'real' is that most of the HDR photos of mine aren't actually made up of 3 or more bracketed exposures. They're the original RAW file simply made into a pseudo-HDR image automatically with Photomatix Pro, or I have manually adjusted the exposures of an image and saved them as separate files to create the effect of bracketing. To be honest, this time I didn't see much difference from pseudo-HDR, which I was quite disappointed with.

As for the fish-eye, it works well as a cheap alternative to a wide angle lens, however I did seem to get a lot of distortion around the edges of the frame. Also some vignetting occurs when you have it at its widest, so I would much prefer wide angle. I suppose that's what you get for trying to do things the cheap way.

Anyway, if you didn't understand a word of that, here are the photos I took. The scenery isn't particularly brilliant in Barnsley by the way, it's like the closer you get to ASDA, the rougher it looks. This is the closest bit of nature to my house.

Mini Shoot with Zander

Leeds College of Art set me a task to complete in order to apply to their Photography course. The theme is 'Identity' so I thought I would portray what I think identifies a person. You know when you're trying to describe someone to somebody else, and you go "that short, angry guy with the glasses and blue hair" or something, well that's what I think makes people identifiable.

So I decided to 'identify' my friend Zander... not just because he has a nice, clean white flat with plenty of lighting I could use as an easy setting, but he has distinguishable features. Of course there are many ways I could have identified him, but I decided to go with the most obvious things that spring to mind when I think of him. So, here is Zander: the red haired, Scottish guy who likes LARPing and smokes. (fyi, LARP = Live Action Role Play)

By the way, we weren't quite sure how to portray him as Scottish without a kilt, so we improvised...

 

   

And a few extras...

 

The "If I told you, I'd have to kill you" Face.

 

Welcome to my new photography blog!

Colourize is the new name and look for my digital photography and other works. I disliked "RH Visual" as it lacked any character, and didn't describe me or my work at all. I'm a very colourful person, (if you see me on a regular basis you will know just how often my hair colour changes) and I love bright, vibrant photographs, particularly HDR.

So, from now on this will be where you can find my portfolio. I will keep up to date with any new work and plans for the future. For now, I'd like some opinions on my new look!

And as always, if you want me to be your photographer please get in touch and I'll see what I can do - just drop a message at rhansonx@hotmail.com