photoshop

Portrait Photography

Mark Stanley

I’ve always loved taking photos of people. A good camera, lens, good lighting and a great subject really make for the most interesting photos and for me, especially when I know the people well. As I always say, “if you take enough photos, you’re bound to get a good one eventually” and so here are some examples of the ones that I am most proud of both old and new. These were all taken with a Canon 7D Mark II and processed in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC. Would love to hear your feedback in the comments

Cruagh Woods, Dublin Mountains

Mark Stanley

Last weekend I spent some time doing two things I love and two things I haven’t done in a while – hiking and taking photos. My family and I (parents, wife and kids) walked up to Cruagh Peak from Cruagh Woods in the Dublin mountains where I took the following photo on my Canon 400d. I processed the photo in Adobe Lightroom.

[flickr size=”small” float=”left”]http://www.flickr.com/photos/ragorder/4873167484/[/flickr]

Digital cross processing technique

Mark Stanley
turtle cross-processed
turtle cross-processed,
originally uploaded by Ragorder.com.

Meet ‘Clown Buachaill’ – my strangely named (by my son) male turtle. We have a female one too. Her name is ‘Clown Cailin’. Buachaill is Irish for Boy, Cailin is Irish for Girl, but that’s not what this post is about 🙂

For as long as I’ve seen it, the cross-processing effect in photography has really appealed to and interested me. And as with all things in photography, it’s usually possible to imitate film effects in Photoshop, and as my interest in digital post processing just increases all the time, I’ve been on the lookout for a good digital corss processing tutorial for Photoshop.

Well it seems I’ve found a good one here. The results are in this shot of my friendly turtle, and I’m quite happy with them. Feel free to comment here or on flickr.

Long Exposure Photography

Mark Stanley
car lights
car lights
originally uploaded by Ragorder.com.

Don’t tell anyone, but while driving home on Friday night I put my Canon 400d on the dashboard of my car, set the shutter speed to 10 seconds and started clicking. There were some interesting results – this one being the best of the lot. I think what makes it stand out are all the colours, and the fact that some of the streaks are in the top of the picture. The signs in the approach to the Port Tunnel on the M1 in Dublin are what generated these nice colours. I’ll be trying this again while bearing in mind that the more dispersed the colours are in the frame, the better.

As usual, I processed this in Adobe Photoshop CS3 for Mac to bring out the colours, and to add the movie-like borders at the top and bottom. These were inspired by one of my favourite photographers on flickr, concretewindow. Hope you enjoy the shot as much as I do. Click the image to see it larger.

My photos feature on schmap.com

Mark Stanley

Its always nice to get some external validation of your work. Sometimes thats people saying it to you, but in this world of the web it’s also pretty cool to get some comments from strangers on flickr, or my photo pages. Even cooler though, is when an online publication asks for permission to use your pictures on their site.

Schmap.com contacte me recently to say they had ‘shortlisted’ (makes one feel important, I guess!) one of my shots taken in St. Anne’s Park in Dublin for use on their website. I agreed, and guess what – it was selected ! Surprise surprise. So you can pop over to schmap.com and see it here.

This isn’t the first time this happened. They also ‘shortlisted’ my shot taken on Sandymount Strand in Dublin, this was also selected and appears here.

Photography post-processing

Mark Stanley
lock
lock,
originally uploaded by Ragorder.com.

Another recent rework of a photo I took. I’ve been doing some more Photoshop work recently – an area of digital photography I’m getting more interested in. The more I get into it, the more I realise it’s a fantastic tool to get more out of what you take with a digital camera. Some say it’s cheating but I personally feel that it’s as much a part of the process of taking digital photographs as professional developing is with standard film cameras. In this example, I feel I’ve managed to turn what was quite an ordinary picture of an interesting subject into something a little more special. While not technically perfect (the padlock is a little overexposed), I think I’ve improved the original and if nothing else, I got some personal satisfaction and enjoyment out of the process and the end result.

Click the image to go over to my flickr account and compare the processed version with the orifinal shot. Enjoy !

Seascape – Cahore, Co Wexford

Mark Stanley
seascape
seascape,
originally uploaded by Ragorder.com.

I’ve been doing some photoshop work recently – updating shots I took in the past – to improve my photoshopping skills, but also to get some photography work done without having time to get out and about with my camera. This shot is one of my more successful efforts. If you click the photo it will bring you to flickr, where you can see the original for comparison. Enjoy.