Alan Rossiter Photography

noreply@blogger.com (Alan) — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 17:51:00 +0000

Hi Folks,

If you've made it here you may note a lack of activity. If you're a follower you're wondering who this guy is. Well, the truth of it is...I've let my old site that this page link to lapse. I've created a new blog (with comments and all posts from here) in a Wordpress page. So if you want to pop along to www.alanrossiterphotography.com you'll be more than welcome.

Apologies for anyone wondering what was happening and I appreciate the support.

Alan.

A slideshow of my favourite sport

noreply@blogger.com (Alan) — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 20:39:00 +0000

I had the backing music in my head for about 1 month. Played it over & over & over so that I could piece together a slideshow of images to put to it. The problem was that I didn't have the images. As it turned out this was the best approach because I knew what to look for. The following is a slideshow of thew Wexford Kettlebell Clubs participation in the second Irish Kettlebell Sport Biathalon Championships as hosted by Kilkenny Kettlebell Club.

Again congrats to the folks of Wexford Kettlebell Club. Hope you enjoy it!

Time for a change...

noreply@blogger.com (Alan) — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 18:36:00 +0000

You may have expected to see my Pixelpost site when coming through this link but I've decided (perhaps only temporarily) to abandon this. I don't take as many photographs and feel that my work displayed was becoming slow and without enthusiasm. What I'll be doing for the near future is putting any new work on this blogspot site and see how it goes. Apologies to anyone who appreciated my other site but times are a changing.

Interesting techniques from Guy Gowan

noreply@blogger.com (Alan) — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 21:01:00 +0000

I came across a method of processing recently as exercised and flaunted by Guy Gowan...I had heard of him before and got the usual "he changed the way I process images" comments. Now I can see why. I had seen excerpts of what he had done so I could work out his methodology.

Below are 2 images - your typical before and after. Nothing special just a club outing to Leenane, Co. Galway during 2010. It was taken handheld using the Panasonic Lumix LX3 in low light. The image was about 2 stops underexposed and had a green cast (as you can see).

Before:

After:

In Lightroom I raised the Exposure about 1+2/3rds of a stop. I didn't worry about the bright sections to the right side as the Histogram said nothing was blown - I could have balanced it but that wasn't the intention of this exercise.

So exporting to Photoshop I got to work on the colour cast. I saw by the Histogram (expanded version) that the greens were excessive so I added a photo filter magenta to bring the colour back...about 25% with Luminosity preserved. I tried to boost the blues a little but this served no real purpose so I left it as it was. A bit of noise reduction then with an interesting method of contrast boost.

The contrast boost utilises firstly a Levels layer where Auto is selected with "Enhance Monochromatic Contrast" checked in Options and 0% clipping. Then an alpha channel from the RGB Channel placed on a Curves adjustment as a mask for highlights was run. This was on a 50%/50% point and dragged down by 10%. Then I ran a levels adjustment on the Alpha Channel generated mask (Alt-L) and moved the sliders in to just past the edge of the histogram edges.This layer was duplicated, the mask was inverted and the Shadows were increased by 5% by using the same method but not placing a Levels adjustment on the mask as this had already been done on the prior layer. Then this was flattened and sharpened by using a LAB Mode Sharpening technique and only running a 25% opacity on this new layer.

I was quite happy with the technique, all of which is lossless and can be constantly re-adjusted once saved as a .psd file.

So what is street photography?

noreply@blogger.com (Alan) — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 20:57:00 +0000

This is a peculiar question to ask anyone who isn't into "Street Photography"...but what is it...I mean, street photography? To me it's a answer that I initially thought was an easy one until I tried to answer it.

Is it people in an environment where the image produced holds the viewers attention longer than a passing glance?

Or even more detailed - where a person sees an image where they exhale a short burst of air through their nose...not a laugh or a snort, just a recognition of a situation in a period of time?

It can be when a sequence of events leads to an image where you think "You couldn't make it up" - almost like spotting a rare bird or witnessing an unusual sporting event...you can say you were there.

But on the other hand the juxtaposition of people with their environment suits well. Just in a position that holds the attention but nothing startling stands out...it's just a situation. But then you just take a photograph just because it's an interesting composition and the people just add to the randomness and create a pleasing effect.

To try to answer the initial question - it's probably a lot of things to a lot of people but the interesting fact is that it is just that - varying and diverse. Rather like the people that feature in the images.

Whale Watching?

noreply@blogger.com (Alan) — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 19:10:00 +0000

3 mental sons, stuck in front of a TV fighting over who was on the PS3 next. An idea - go see the whales that have been reported off Hook Head. So 3 kids, wife, 2 cameras and off we went. As soon as we got there we could see the shine of car roofs through the haze - not the only ones out for a Sunday afternoon of amusement.

Driving down the peninsula we saw snow drifts...we got closer and they were mounds of foam from the surf...of course - the storm from yesterday was still wild at sea.

So we saw no whales. We didn't look. We were bemused with the people standing around the perimeter of the inlet under the Tower (Hook Lighthouse) watching the waves converging and shooting into the sky. Everyone seemed to have a camera or a dog...why no one had both is one of those unnecessary but curious thoughts. So I tried to get something that showed the people and the tower and the waves. This was probably the better of the day but with the wind and the cold we didn't stay long. Last time I did this I got soaked but it was worth it.

Of course I said 2 cameras - my wife had the other. I think she pipped me at the post today with this one. Competition is tough in the Rossiter Household!

For Sale

noreply@blogger.com (Alan) — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 12:05:00 +0000

After pondering the inevitable for some time I have now presented images on my site for sale. Along the top of all images the details can be retrieved for prints, e-cards, downloads and sharing. The joy of this for me is that I use a third party vendor for the printing, payment and delivery of the images which gives me time to do other things. The company, if you're interested, is Fotomoto. I've seen and used a couple of these types of vendors but none have been as simple to use and as easy to adapt to my site. Image quality is also top notch...best idea all round methinks.

Feel free to contact me if you want further information about this provider or my site.

Merry Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Alan) — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 10:11:00 +0000

To all my friends, relations and colleagues may I wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Here's to the future.

It's been a while

noreply@blogger.com (Alan) — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 19:41:00 +0000

For anybody following this blog - my apologies for the obvious lack of input since February. It's been a quiet time on the photography front. But I'm back making shapes again.

Over the next couple of weeks I'll be making a few changes to this blog and also to my website. I'll be adding the feature to buy images from my site but that'll mean restricting images from that part of my site to sale-able images. On the other hand it'll give me a reason to update this blog a little more.

So watch this space for the changes and thanks for hanging in there.

Film...the story so far...

noreply@blogger.com (Alan) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:41:00 +0000

A friend says to me "So, wonky...where's all this film stuff you've been doing". Well, it's been an adventure. First I got a Kiev 88CM...I was warned they could be difficult or might not work at all...but first shoot was quite good.

Then it went a little downhill. I went to Johnstown Castle and I found a little light leak...just a little one.

OK, this I could have fixed with a new seal. But then this black band happened on all exposures with the next back.

Ignore the scratching...I have that one sussed. But I thought this was a shutter problem so sent the camera back. Only tonight I discovered looking back at mixes (or soups...if you like) that I had only made a 500ml mix instead of 600ml...so the black band is not developed correctly. Ah well!

But in the meantime I had the Holga out for a run:

This turned out OK but in low light conditions it wasn't what I'd seen others doing...so slowly got disillusioned with this whole film thing. But I ran another roll through the Holga:

Faith restored. More recently I've run a roll through a pinhole and the Bronica GS-1 but got too brave and tried a stand development...stupid idiot...should have stayed with the basics first till I know what I'm doing. I have a film through the Holga drying at the moment run at Massive Development times and the negs look good. Now if I could only get to grips with the scanner!

To be continued...

SACC Printed & Projected Images

noreply@blogger.com (Alan) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 08:56:00 +0000

On Sunday 6th December the SACC (Southern Association of Camera Clubs) round of the National Printed and Projected Images Competition was held in Clonmel. This was the first year that I was placed in the Open section of the competition (as opposed to the Intermediate). In the Projected Images section I came in third. OK, not earth shattering but nice to get some recognition.

This was the image that took third.

Out of the 9 images I submitted 7 are going forward to the finals and the club had 18 out of 30 passed on to the National Final in February. Fingers crossed again.

Film Photography

noreply@blogger.com (Alan) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 10:00:00 +0000

"I'll never take up film photography"

It's funny how statements from the past come back to haunt you. I gave this statement about 18 months ago on Photography Ireland and got a few retorts that put me back in my box. It was an innocent statement but one I wholeheartedly believed in.

18 months later and I've put Ebay under stress as well as the bank balance. To date I've received a Nikon FG that I had given to my father over 20 years ago as he has "a digital camera and won't ever use film again"...some trends go up generations too.

So I've bought 4 film cameras...not content with 1.

The Brick (Argus C3 Matchmatic):

A "Zero Image" MF pinhole (6x6)

A Holga 120N

And on its way in time for Christmas is a Hasselbladski, aka a Kiev 88CM MLU

So, happy days!!

Please note - the images you see represent the cameras that I have purchased and these images are from other review and sales sites. If you click on the images you will be taken to these sites.

Bark

noreply@blogger.com (Alan) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:36:00 +0000

Woodstock, Inistioge, Co. Kilkenny. I'd never been there before and didn't know what to expect. "There was a house" was all I knew. I'd seen recent images of flowers...so there were flowers too. Other than that it was into the unknown.

It's a large park area with an old house and well kept grounds. The time that we ventured around the area (October) it was just turning yellow with leaves and we were blessed with the weather.

But from a photographic perspective this is a treasure trove, especially for myself when I'm in the Ansel humour. Trees, lining paths, bends, waterfalls, contrasting light, etc. And around each corner there's something different, a different challenge.

This shot was quite difficult and simple. I had to slap the camera into manual mode to measure the closest tree, then spot meter the background trees. There was a 6-stop difference so I went for the mid-ground. So at ISO200 I went to 55mm 1/60sec at f2.8 (despite what the EXIF data says this was a 24-70mm f2.8 lens). Then in conversion I had to pull back the nearest tree and hold the reigns of exposure while bringing out the background. Cloning out a few stray leaves to the left, burn/dodge the tree then dodge a few highlights in the background all complimented with a mild vignette. Then some selective sharpening of the ferns and grass to the foreground and hey presto.

As ever the original can be seen by clicking on the image above.

Competition win

noreply@blogger.com (Alan) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 18:07:00 +0000

I love competition. I was a competitive cyclist for many a year and when you change hobbies it sticks with you. Photography is different as it's soooooooo subjective. A couple of months ago I started actively seeking competitions and I won one...get that!!

The image above won first place in a monthly competition at www.trustedreviews.com where the theme was "Power of Nature". I was thrilled with the win and seeing what stiff competition there was I was equally bowled over. The prize was a Panasonic Lumix DMC LX3 (as seen below), a Sandisk Extreme III 2GB card and a card reader.

Here's to next Month.

Stoned

noreply@blogger.com (Alan) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 17:57:00 +0000

Bless me Father for I have sinned - it's almost a month since my last posting. Above is the aptly named "Stoned". I'm looking at film photography and I was blown away by an image taken on a Bronica SQ-Ai camera. I wasn't trying to replicate it but you get the idea of stones and DOF in your mind and you try.

As ever the original can bee seen by clicking on the image above. This one is just a crop, a conversion, a little curves adjustment (not too much - not too contrasty) a "Lens Blur" overlay with a horizontal mask to further emphasise the DOF then a little sharpening.

They watch

noreply@blogger.com (Alan) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 18:25:00 +0000

This is a sculpture created for a Memorial Garden or Millenium Garden in Kilmore Quay, Co. Wexford, Ireland. The statue overlooks the Ballytiegue Bay, otherwise known as the graveyard of 1,000 ships. The statue depicts a mother, wife or partner looking out to sea being comforted. The memorial garden that it is adjacent to has engraved the names of hundreds of people who lost their lives at sea.

The image was exporeted from Lightroom to Photomatix as 3 bracketed images of +2,0,-2 Ev. Then they were finely balanced so as not to look like a HDR image. This then had a few sample presets applied before I settled on an infrared one. Then the orange and yellow saturation sliders were adjusted to reduce the orange effect. This was then exported to CS3 to remove noise, add a little subtle contrast and sharpen. Obviously this preset had a deep vignette too which I thought suited the atmosphere.

As ever the original image can be seen by clicking the image above.

The Pier

noreply@blogger.com (Alan) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 18:32:00 +0000

This is St Helens Bay in Wexford, Ireland. It draws you in...there's nothing spectacular there apart from a bay, a few rocks and a quaint little pier. But it can be a nice little place for images.

This image here was as a reesult of a failed "moon watch". I had seen a great moon the previous evening rising around 9.30pm so with another reasonably clear sky I went in search of the moon. The reason for this particular spot is that a couple of miles off land there is a lighthouse, Tuskar Lighthouse, so I was hoping for both in the one shot. Shooting a moon at night isn't what you'd call clever. You either get a blown moon, or a non-existent landscape. You live and learn.

Anyway, this image. I straightened the horizon and lost a few dust spots. Then I converted to B&W which was straight forward enough. I added a little contrast and burned in the edges of the steps. Then I got the curves layer and used the white eye dropper to find the brightest spot (with the "show clipping" box ticked). Then I added a gradient overlay for the top of the image. Well, not an overlay as such just added a black gradient and reduced the opacity until I was happy with it. I then copied this gradient and reversed it to cover the bottom but had to reduce it's height so as not to infringe too much on the image. Lastly an octave sharpening run with a reduced opacity. BUT, the work done had given me some noise so I ran a noise reduction bit of software over it to clean it. I didn't mask it as it looked OK without it. And voila.

The original image can be seen by clicking on the image above then hover your mouse over the button on my website.

Croke Patrick

noreply@blogger.com (Alan) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 14:43:00 +0000

A holiday around Mayo brought us to this spot. It's Croke Patrick, the place for the annual pilgrimage on July 26th to the top of the mountain you see in the image...the one in the clouds. There's a church on the top and mass is celebrated there. A fit person could take 2 hours+ to get there but some, including the elderly take the trek barefoot. Up to 20,000 people can be on the mountain at any one time.

We visited a few days before the pilgrimage and took a few hundred yards of a trek...purely for photographic reasons, you understand! Although having 3 young lads with a fetish for throwing stones does limit your time anywhere. If you're in the region of Mayo, Ireland I'd recommend a visit. The views from the top are spectacular...I believe.

As ever, this image was processed. You can see the original by clicking on the image above to see the subtle processing done. A word of warning - this may look a little washed out on an uncalibrated monitor.

Clowning around

noreply@blogger.com (Alan) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 18:29:00 +0000

This was the first visit to a cuircus in many years...last time it was me looking for the candy floss and not my own 3 sons. SO, a photographic opportunity arose...

I tried to check what shutter speeds and f-stop to use but the initial lighting for when the crowd flooded in was different than the acts but I had to start somewhere. I shot the entire time on Aperture Priority mode. It didn't take long to see that ISO800 was required at f2.8...oh the joys of a 2.8 lens. The WB had to be left at auto as the colour lighting was changing by the second and the fact that I was shooting RAW I wasn't too concerned anyway. I also found out quickly that if you use evaluative metering you get the crowd in the darkness coming into view and slowed down your shutter speed...which was useless as the performer was a blur so I went to centre weighted light metering on the performer and that worked.

The announcements came - no flash photography or videoing as it frightens the animals...that was me covered...I was safe. A rotating ring that went way into the roof of the tent moved too fast so I missed it. Then this guy came out and when he stayed still it was worth a few shots. Animals were a non runner as even at ISO800 and f2.8 I was still only getting 1/30sec thereabouts so it was futile. I considered going higher in ISO but with such bright lighting it would have been even less of a useless exercise. Some balancing and juggling worked well as the guy was still and the 5 balls were at varying levels of motion so that worked well. Overall a good evening.

To summarise if you want to go to a circus to take shots - high ISO depending on lighting is a requirement so assess your cameras capabilities. Use a fast lens and use spot metering or center-weighted metering for the lighting. You don't need a wide DOF so go as low as you can...f2.8 if you have it. Shoot in RAW so that you can cope with the changing light temperature.

If you want to see the original image before processing just click on the image above and you will be directed to my site. Oh yeah, have fun!!

On the harbour wall

noreply@blogger.com (Alan) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:27:00 +0000

Kilmore Quay, Wexford Ireland. I had a need to use a polarizer on my lens earlier in the day when I took these shots. It was the first time and I liked what it did to images. So armed with this and the Sigma 10-20mm & the Sigma 24-70mm lenses I went to Kilmore Quay seeing as it was a fine morning.

The clouds were of a peculiar shape and looked like they were eminating from the Saltee Islands. It's not often that you get a quiet harbour either so I took full advantage with the image above.

There wasn't mich processing work to be done on this image but what was done can be seen on my site. I cloned out a couple of cars, leveled the image, added a little contrast and a strip of yellow colour overlay along the pier to give it a boost. Then I ran the Octave Sharpening that I keep harking on about. I masked out the boats so that they didn't look soo gaudy, and so it was.

Sunset in the Cull

noreply@blogger.com (Alan) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 19:24:00 +0000

Every 3 months or so there's a frenzy of activity within our local club and photographers with aspirations across the country. I speak of the RTE Weather Photo Competition. The summer event is just about to close for entries and the image above is what I've sent on. Does it look over done - yes, of course it does. What I've found is that the image is half covered by the presenter of the weather for the few seconds it's on and then there's a green band across the bottom of the image to show the presenters name. Something has to be strong to get by the initial selection process to survive being presented.

I first entered the competition for the spring of 2008. I was hugely surprised to come in 3rd runner up. I failed last summer but Autumn and Winter I reached the finalists selection with the Autumn image being presented throughout Christmas and was the first image of 2009. This spring I was again optimistic but failed...but my wife got her image in as a finalist.

The image itself - this was taken in a place called Cull Bank near Kilmore Quay, Co. Wexford. It was almost an accidental shot as I was out in a hide to take some photographs of local wildlife but they failed to play ball. This, I spotted going home and thought of a good composition to show it with.

The image was taken from 1 exposure where I upped the exposure in lightroom in a virtual copy and blended both exposures in CS3. I boosted the saturation of the yellows and reds, and "fixed" the fence across the sun. A run then of octave sharpening and masking for the edges of the fence and hey-presto. The original can be seen on my site, as ever.

On der fone

noreply@blogger.com (Alan) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 07:59:00 +0000

Duncannon Fort, Wexford, Ireland. On the June Bank Holiday in Duncannon many historical groups converge on the fort to present their depictions of history. Re-enactments, battles and displays of a military nature take place. It's a prime spot for presenting images which defy logic, such as the one above of a German officer with a mobile phone...yes, we know it's a modern day necessity but it does seem odd looking.

The processing was quite simple at this one. A slight rotation, an adaptive contrast layer and a mask on the face to bring up the detail again and then a B&W conversion in CS3. Then the Octave Sharpening that I referred to in an earlier post with the "flowers" masked out and the opacity changed to 75%. The original can be seen on my site.

As always contact me for any further info. Of course, there were other oddities too...such as 2000 years of history in the one image!

Smile for the Birdie

noreply@blogger.com (Alan) — Fri, 29 May 2009 17:06:00 +0000

Street...where would you be without the candidness of people. Like animals in their own habitat they do the silliest of things. This shot isn't silly...just think of the concept of a photographer taking a photograph of a person taking a photograph...sounds like some sort of perversion.

Anyway - the processing. I dropped this shot by 1 full exposure in Lightroom and then applied a preset called WOW-d_BnW_02...it's the most contrasty of the 10 WOW B&W presets. Then export to CS3. I applied a macro I developed to give the image some contreast. It involves creating a mask from a 50% gray layer and the background copy of the layer, then applying this as a mask to a curves adjustment (S-curve). I removed a couple of bits of white and then ran the white dropper from a curves layer onto the ladies scarf...this brought it up nicely.

I got the lasso tool and loosely marked around the edge of the image (press Alt when you're doing this and you can go off the side of the image too). I applied a 250px feather (that's why you go outside the edge of the image). Ctrl-J and you have a new layer made from the selection. Change the layer property to multiply and you have a selective vignette. Duplicate it if you like to increase the strength and play with the opacity (I used 2 layers with the second on 70% opacity).

But I had too much noise...the ladies face was splotchy. As always when I'm converting images to B&W I tend to get noise...not to worry. I ran the Octave sharpening routine (as previous blog entry) and removed the 500%/1 radius/50% layer and flattened the image. I then ran a noiseware removal piece of software to clear the image on a duplicated layer. They say you should do this before sharpening...it depends on the image. I would normally check for areas where definition was lost after noiseware removal but this was fine.

You can see the before/after on my site.

Yeee Haaaw!

noreply@blogger.com (Alan) — Wed, 27 May 2009 20:01:00 +0000

I don't normally do colour street stuff but this was just perfect for the job. St Patricks day, 2009 on the streets of Wexford, Ireland. The reason I'm processing this one is because of a new sharpening technique that I picked up from Ciaran Whyte. It's called Octave sharpening where you copy the image 4 times as layers and change them to luminosity. You sharpen the first image to 500%, 0.5 radius and leave opacity of the layer at 100%, The second is 500%, 1 radius and 50% opacity of the layer. The third is 500%, 2 radius and 25% radius and the last being 500%, 4 radius and 12% opacity of the layer. The threshold in all of these layers sharpening is zero. You will have to play with the opacity and strength of these so I would suggest creating smart objects of each layer first. Then ultimately make an action from it as it does take a little time.

The size of the image here doesn't give the full extent of the technique but if you go to my site you'll see a bigger version and of course the original version. If you want any other information contact me.

You're screwed

noreply@blogger.com (Alan) — Fri, 22 May 2009 18:39:00 +0000

I find competition brings out the best in your imagination and exercises the brain as well as the ability with the camera. A club competition coming up (May 25th) has the title "What the hell is that?" so I had to ge tthe thinking hat on. Did I get anywhere? No! The oul imagination had to rely on Flickr to boost it. I had seen an image like this on Flickr but I thought I'd bring it a bit further with a mirror and a couple of torches. Obviously these are screws...now that you've twigged the title. At first glance were you sure?

The 4 larger screws weren't wanting to play ball on this occasion. As they are so tall and I discovered that they were magnetised they would wobble and stick to each other before knocking down other screws. That's why there's only 4 of them.

A tight beam LED torch above the "silver" screws to the fromt as well as waving a wide angle beam torch side to side during the 4 second exposure helped to illuminate and add contrast. Will it do well? Only time will tell...

The original shot before some saturation boost and a few other tricks were applied can be seen on my site.