20120609 Jessica and AJ Roberts

Wonderful day, with wonderful people.

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Lightroom 4, now available !!!

Adobe download link

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Create amazing images that inspire, inform, and delight. From first look to final image, Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom® 4 software provides powerfully simple one-click tools and cutting-edge advanced controls for every step. Easily organize, perfect, and share all your photographs.

It’s significantly cheaper than prior versions: the full program costs just $149, while the upgrade costs $79.

Glorious Red Moon tonight, 8th Feb 2012

Glorious Red Moon tonight, 8th Feb 2012

Lightroom 4 BETA in action

I've just stumbled across a great Youtube video showing some of the great new toys that are part of the new Lightroom 4 BETA release !



drool, drool, drool.

Lightroom 4 BETA - Catalog Upgrade Message

I've just done some background reading, and the LR4 catalog upgrade message is only a concern with the BETA version.

Important notes from Adobe are (Primary Known Issues):

Lightroom 4 beta is not complete but please provide feedback on the available enhancements.

Lightroom 4 beta will not upgrade Lightroom 1.x, Lightroom 2.x or Lightroom 3.x catalogs.
The beta is intended to be used for testing and feedback purposes. Lightroom 1.x, 2.x, 3.x and 4 beta libraries will be able to be migrated to the finished version of Lightroom 4.

While data loss is not expected, this is an early ‘beta’ quality build and you should always work on duplicates of files that are securely backed up.

Lightroom 4 beta will not overwrite or interfere with a machine that currently has Lightroom 1, Lightroom 2 or Lightroom 3 installed.

Develop settings applied in Lightroom 4 beta are not guaranteed to transfer correctly to the final version of Lightroom 4.

The Lightroom 4 beta will expire after Lightroom 4.0 is available

In the link from Adobe : http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2012/01/lr4betanowavailable.html

On that page, there's a rather extensive list of improvements, ranging from better brushes, robust video support, photobook creation to name just a few.

I love it already just for the brush enhancements !

Adobe Lightroom 4 - features, and video

I know it's "old hat" to some of you out there, but I'm finally getting round to reviewing and using Adobe Lightroom 4.
It's currently in the beta testing phase, but I've been hearing alot about it from the likes of Scott Bourne - Photofocus.com, and Scott Kelby - Kelby Training.

I'm most looking forward to the new features:-

Highlight and shadow recovery brings out all the detail that your camera captures in dark shadows and bright highlights.

Photo book creation with easy-to-use elegant templates.

Location-based organization lets you find and group images by location, assign locations to images, and display data from GPS-enabled cameras.

White balance brush to refine and adjust white balance in specific areas of your images.

Additional local editing controls let you adjust noise reduction and remove moiré in targeted areas of your images.

Extended video support for organizing, viewing, and making adjustments and edits to video clips.

Easy video publishing lets you edit and share video clips on Facebook and Flickr®.

Soft proofing to preview how an image will look when printed with color-managed printers.

Email directly from Lightroom using the email account of your choice.

Scott Kelby has uploaded a youtube video of his recent trip to India, and the KelbyMediaGroup video shows you some of the new features of Lightroom 4, and a brief glimpse into Scott's thoughts during his workflow - a must watch !

Scott's Visit to India - The Grid 18th January 2012

Can you tell what it is yet

My Sunday afternoon fun.....
Can you tell what it is yet?

It's my DIY speedlite grid.

Cheshire countryside, Runcorn, Daresbury

Some shots I took whilst on an afternoons walk last week, late autumn, early winter, 2011.
They were taken on my ordinary HTC DESIRE HD mobile phone, at 3megapixel resolution !

Hope you like them.

Lagos, Portugal, Algave, 7th August

1. Introduction
2. Friday 5th August 2011
3. Saturday 6th August 2011
4. Sunday 7th August 2011

TAGS: 2011, Holiday, Lagos, algave, PhotographyByFai, Portugal

Sunday 7th August 2011

Today was my beautiful wife's birthday.




 To celebrate this special day, we continued to wander around the Old Town, and take in the sights.








We initially tried to dine at "A Forja" (known locally as the Blue Door) but the we arrived quite late in the evening and the queues here were quite long (it's reputation proceeded it) so we wandered around, and stopped off for a quick drink in the "Green Room".

<trying to find my image of the bar>

As it turned out, this was a great little place with friendly bar staff, reasonably priced drinks which were suitable stronger than expected, and huge portions of Mexican food.

Lagos, Portugal, Algave, 6th August

1. Introduction
2. Friday 5th August 2011
3. Saturday 6th August 2011
4. Sunday 7th August 2011

TAGS: 2011, Holiday, Lagos, algave, PhotographyByFai, Portugal

Saturday 6th August 2011
One of Lisa's recommendations especially since we were self catering was a visit to the weekly farmers market down opposite the marine, housed in a couple of buildings in the bus stations area.
On our walk down, we past an interesting opening in the city wall.

"Can you guess where we are?"

Lagos

I think this is near the main town hall?

This is the little "harbour ferry" that takes tourists across this small stretch of water to the beach on the other side.

Local market man selling jars of honey.

Another farmer waiting for customers.

After the market, we wandered back across the street, to the harbour for some food.

There were lots of sales pitches where you could go for the local boat trips around the local area to visit the grottos.

After a busy first day, we relaxed back at the apartment.

Lagos, Portugal, Algave, 5th August

1. Introduction
2. Friday 5th August 2011
3. Saturday 6th August 2011
4. Sunday 7th August 2011

TAGS: 2011, Holiday, Lagos, algave, PhotographyByFai, Portugal

Friday 5th August 2011
Our first full day in Lagos, and we didn't really know where to go.
What we usually try to do on the first day, is walk around, and pick up a few free local maps to see what is the "touristy" suggestions for places to eat, and see. We had a walk around the old town to familiarise ourselves with the location, and found the marina which is only 5 minutes from the apartments.
If anyone can comment on who this statue is, that would be great !


Me on the wall down on the harbour front. (with a "fashion" preset)


The "Boa Esperanca"



"Street" shot of "Bar 53" in Lagos


"Late night menu critique"

Hoya Pro1 UV MC filter

Ghostbuster !

Say no to ghosting with a Hoya Pro1 UV MC ultra violet multi coated filter.

Filter purchased from
7DayShop.com

Lagos, Portugal 2011 Holiday with Photographs

1. Introduction
2. Friday 5th August 2011
3. Saturday 6th August 2011
4. Sunday 7th August 2011

TAGS: 2011, Holiday, Lagos, algave, PhotographyByFai, Portugal

On 4th August 2011, my wife and I took a lovely 14 day break away to Lagos, South Portugal in the Algave.
We bought the package direct from Thomsons (via topcashback).


Over the next few posts, I'll document some of the great restaurant, and places to visit, and some of the sights I managed to photograph.



Thursday 4th August
Our destination in Lagos, Portugal, was a lovely self catering apartment "Porta da Vila" over in the west side of the old town in Lagos.


"Lisa" out rep at the apartments was fantastic. She was very welcoming, and had plenty of suggestions of places to visit, and restaurants to try which I'll cover later.

re: Quick baby photoshoot

Finally finished the edits of the baby shoot, what do you think?
(slideshow from PhotographyByFai Photobox gallery)

Quick baby photoshoot

A quick photoshoot over at a friends house on 15th October 2011.

I'm still finding my feet as to getting the setup right, I think I'll need to get my hands on some studio gear, and some backdrops for high and lowkey shots.

Confessions of an Aca/Fan: Transmedia Storytelling 101

Confessions of an Aca/Fan: Transmedia Storytelling 101

I've just read a Henry Jenkins article, as suggested by PHONAR, discussing Transmedia.
A very interesting and insightful article, mentioning how the art of story telling and involving the reader in more than one way through different entry points in media.

It mentions Star Wars and The Matrix as fine examples of transmedia.

Excellent !!!

DIY Photography – Beauty Dish, Strobe Hood, and ebay UV filter

I made myself a cheap DIY flash gun hood, speedlite beauty dish, from a IKEA standing lamp today.

I cut the flash gun hole into the lamp shade, to turn it into a hood, then took a very quick remote shot to see what the results were like.

I was more than happy with the results, however, it did highlight something that I'd thought about in the back of my mind.

 

My super cheap ebay UV filter was causing GHOSTING on my shots.

It has cropped up in the past in my previous shots, but I never really knew why till today, as I'd guessed it might have been a reflection caused by my lens hood !

With cheap EBAY UV FILTER

Without filter

With cheap EBAY UV FILTER

Without filter

Looks like I'd better get a good multi-coated UV filter from now on !