Liverpool is great!

Myself and Lisa had a trip out to Liverpool on friday which was great. Niether of us have been before so we weren't sure what to expect, we were both very impressed by the vast amount of cool buildings and interesting ideas that are in the city. Having lived in York for years and now in Leeds i'm used to seeing the ever changing skylines and 'new' ideas in the lines used to be inovative, but Liverpool took this too new levels. The picture above is one of the older buildings in the docks area as there were too many porta loos and workmen around to get any cool shots of the new building but we defs got back to shoot them when they are nearer to completion.

In One of my earlier posts i mentioned that i was really impressed by Mathieu Young shots of street life with a strobe, well this is my first attempt of shooting a sunny day with flash! its not 100% there but i'm happy with how it has come out. I'm sure there will be a few more of these type of shots in the coming weeks.


this shot is my fav for the day, its shows one of the coolest bits of the city, the entrance to chinatown.

Check out the rest of the stream, there is an Emin and a Bankys in there!

SET

Ripley castle

Create a Free Slideshow

Suprisingly i managed to get out and about again today! i wasn't expecting to be shooting as often as this!
Well after a search on the internet i stumbled on the Ripley classic car rally, i wasn't sure what to expect but it was great. I managed to get some experience shooting stationary cars and also some very moving falcons. i have attached the slideshow instead of a few shots, not sure if its a good way to do this but you let me know.

what next?

Yesterday i was asked to help my mate Jon photograph a photo...... complicated old affair but t was as part of the course he is doing. Basically the ason behind it was to photograpgh the scene behind jon while he took shots of anoter tog, through a mirror taing a shot, i think the photohelps explain it.
After taking the shots we had a quick pint an a good chat about general photography and how i should be looking to develop myself in the coming months. I finished my 365 in april and since then i haven't really made many efforts to push myself, i have do some cool shooting and i'm hapy wit the results but nothing has really stretched me. After some discussions i'm now thinking that i need to set myself a challenge. I am not the most creative person in the world so this could take some thinking to come up with some ideas for a mini project to stretch my creative juices and get me some cool photos
so at the moment my plan is to try and get settings correct for a shoot round pudsey in the style of mattieu young (last post) with flash street ish stuff /documentary shots, the only worry i have s the great blue skys in the states don't quite translate too well to the greyness of Leeds....
i have loads of books to read too but as i'm rushing out to watch the match....and the toon stay up i'll have to post more tomorrow.

Kirkstall Abbey

this week i have been mostly shooting.....
well for a change we organised a shoot don at Kirkstall Abbey. 4 of us went down there for a few different reasons, myself i wanted to try and practice some more stobist things with at least 1 flash. i'm actually really happy wit the results, in th past my flash shots have been a bit dark and as much as i like them i think i need to give them a bit more light! this one here for example is at f13 1/60, which is a very different set up to the ones i have done before. (check out my stobist set on flickr). Also this was a good opprotunity to shoot someone else, as much as i enjoy shooting Lisa i do need to have some diferent shots in the old portfolio! Paul aka jinky jim was a willing model.... for a bit ;-) but i had to recipricte! and yes i need a hair cut!
on the whole these random get togethers are really fun and mean that i can try ot some different shots in some locations that i wouldn't normally shoot in.

on a separate note i have been trying again to get my shots to look like they are 'mine'. this is a bit of an issue i have had since i started with the Leeds group, i was asked at my first meeting 'whats your style' ad i don't think i have foud it yet! my mate Stu thinks i have but he isn't a photographer... but thats maybe the point i don't know. i would like to be able to shoot and people be able to pick out my images but as i shoot such a varied amout of things i'm not sure if it lies within the post processing i do...... and i'm not amazing at that... lightroom has helped me a lot, or at leas the plugins that daf sent me have ;-) cheers daf. i mean being honest i'm enjoying shooting so much at the mo i'mhappy to just let things happen and see where i end up style wise.

after the comment i got from my rain shots (last post) i may have to have another go at his street malarky. its not something i 'get' as i don't see how it isnt just sots of people on the street... but maybe i'm missing the point. i do like these shots but they are done with a strobe in america when its sunny...with a flash that has more settings that the 2 settings mine has...being ON and OFF. all will be fine in the end i'm sure.

live ong and prosper, but not at my expense - dr spoook

its been a bit wet out

briggate-2
Originally uploaded by gav_forster

well saturday was a bit of a wash out! i was hoping to buy a few things like a rain hood for my shoot today.....the best i got was a couple of plastic bags from home bargins!
but while i was drying my head in the carphone warehouse door i got a couple of shots of the wet people in the middle of Briggate. After a bit of photoshopping i'm happy with these couple of shots i think....

as for today i was in manchester shooting the BUPA Manchester 10k, it was cold windy and wet but hey its always fun to shoot the runs. so many people making a difference to lives through the fantasic fundraising that has been going on.
I hot in the region of 3k images, i hope that josh is happy with them and obviously the people in the shots are also happy!

i'm not sure if i'm getting out there to shoot much this week,hopefully i can get some extras to come along to kirkstall abbey for the shoot on thrsday.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

something for the weekend!

Well this is a bit of a new thing for me but as i often get a bit cluttered i thought that this may help me clear some of it out!
As you know most of my life focuses around the pursuit of taking pictures, golfing and trying to find time to fit in work and oh yes my fiancee!
My photography has made soe improvements in the recent past, mostly due to my working with a great bunch of people in the Leeds Flickr group. I only picked up a DSLR 3 years ago and i'm shocked myself to how i can take so much better shots in such a short space of time. i started taking shots of 'things' and now my shots are starting to be a little more creative...sort of!
In recent times i have been enjoying using flashes andhave come up with some cool results!

anywa this is the first one on here so ...... hopefully i can find the time to keep this up and clear my old noggin!

laters!