Street Photography - London

I recently went into London  to take some photos for a street photography project at college and came out with some good results i think.

Review: Danny Santos

Danny Santos is a street photographer from Singapore who has been shooting incredible photos of strangers (as well as other projects) for just over 2 years. I managed to be lucky enough to stumble across his website and project; "Portraits of Strangers". This was particularly exciting as i had already embarked on a project looking at facial expression on a journey where i am looking at portraits of people, strangers. So instantly i had a connection to the photography. However i kept on looking through the site and gallery and found that Danny is clearly a distinct photographer with an amazing ability as well as talent for street photography and clearly, with interacting with the subject. I asked him through his facebook page if i could make this review on him and within an hour there was a reply; "Sure thing, man :) and thanks for the kind words!". I'm glad as i really want to get his photography out to even more people, though Danny St Photography is clearly doing very well with features on websites and magazines alike as well as new clients etc. In the future i hope i can come to similar achievements and have been very inspired by his work and can't wait to grab my camera and go out for a shoot! 
            
                      With his work he uses depth of field so well, creating an amazing amount of bokeh that works with the picture rather than completely seperating the subject from the back/foreground. This allows the photos to have context as well as a main focus. To compliment this, in the streets of Singapore, Danny is able to use strong lighting techniques through the buildings creating amazing shots which really make a picture stand out. Clearly, this has been achieved with intense practise (even if its been a short amount of time), an eye for composition and an overall talent for precise shooting.
                    
                      I'd like to congratulate Danny on his photography and his achievements over this time and wish him all the best! Thanks

This has been a very short review and there is so much more to say but i hope you can all check out his work and appreciate it for yourself. Here are all the links to his photography:
Website: www.dannyst.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/dannyst.photography 
or Follow Danny on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/dannysantos

MurrayPhotography site design change again!

I do it a lot, but i've changed the site once again but for a few, i think, important points; Firstly, before every  page was a new master page, meaning that is was very slow. I have now installed a series of pages within one master page allowing the site to smoothly navigate. I also have removed a couple of the pages as i felt they were unnecessary (Blog, comment). I felt that both of these would look and appeal better if they were to be at the front of the site. A third reason is that the dimensions to the site were annoying and having to scroll down all the time is pointless! So i hope you enjoy the new design as much as i did making it and leave a comment if you have any ideas for future design ideas here

A new look for editing/promotion

I have now got photoshop CS5 and am looking into some editing techniques to create new coloured masks as well as using it for text and art based ideas. I don't believe too much into creating something that isn't there unless justified but its good to mess around with new ideas. Here is a simple technique used created with text layers and colour masking which i think produces a nice effect and promotes MurrayPhotography quite well. Enjoy on a full size scale by clicking image.

Conceptual Ideas .2.

Here i was again looking at colour as being a big part of my work and using many techniques to make this photo interesting and appealing.  I like to work with paint and seeing how it affects objects and the conflict between the colours themselves and what is around. The first wheel contrasts to the 2 that are behind using a shallow depth of field under intense light to blur them out into the back drop. I really like how the colours have merged but none have affected the inner circle which remainds whole.

Conceptual Ideas

With these i wanted to try some new ideas and they once again linked in with my college work well. I was looking at colour and conflict of objects so take a look and tell me what you think if you could!

Music live room Shoot

I have just got back in the early morning from a pretty normal shoot with a couple people i know, we had a good jam and then i thought i'd get my camera out and got some alright shots. Though with my less than what is needed nikon d3000, i was almost unable to shoot as the lighting was pretty poor. Plus with my recently deceased flash point 2, my mounted flash was pretty poor. This is all because my camera can only stretch to a ISO of 1600 and it really struggles at this level and produces a fair amount of noise. There is a "hi" setting (equivelant of 3200) but this is un-usable and was pointless. After working out a good exposure i managed to get some alright shots i think and here is a couple:

S & S (Mediums)

I've decided to extend my Scream and Shout project to different mediums that i come across, or are maybe helped with as well as ones that i use and know. So i drew this image which also coincides nicely with my art project so here you can see the new drawing i did.
(Graphite, White Spirit, Watercolour Paint)

Studio

After recently cleaning my room and making a comfortable and organised work area i thought i'd get to work on my studio area. It took a surprisingly little amount of effort and time as i found out that i had many of the materials close to hand. I've recently sold my old electric drum kit and had a lot of excess metal with all its own clamps etc. So i strung up 2 sets of 3 poles about 7.5 ft high with small base units. Then found an old metal pipe in the basement, and as i do a lot of art, i had a big roll of paper lying around from a previous project. The pipe is about 6 ft long so i had a fair width and the paper is abou 1 foot or so smaller. This gave me a good base to work with, then i just rolled it down and layed a thin piece of chip board underneath so the paper wouldn't crease on the carpet. Here is the final outcome --->

SCREAM & SHOUT

I have recently started a new project looking at the overall emotion of the face. To start, this is a self portrait (seen right) and i took this with my flash gun below my head and then afterwards i edited around the rest of the image with black 'paint' on Photoshop. I really want to look at how the face strains when it is expressing a strong emotion. So, during the project i will not only be exploing screaming, i just felt  like this was a strong title that has helped me motivate my self and my art. The original idea was part of my art a level project when looking at conflict. However i want to keep delving further into the human interaction and expression. It has started with a self portrait, but i am hoping to use several different models/subjects. Also, as

the project goes on, it may turn into something else; its all an experiment to me and is my first real dedicated project so we shall see how it goes! Check up on MurrayPhotography for development in the project.

A Place to Work

I have just today made a change to my space! That space being my room but now opens up with loads of new space to start up my studio as i have a fairly large room. Also i now have a new organised area to work with all my lighting, inspiration and tools to make loads of art!

I hate doing it, but to me; having a clean and organised area can really help inspire my work and actually get me down to doing it. With this done, i can hopefully get my Fine Art and Photography A levels out the way and do more of my own photography!

Also, on another note. Rather annoyingly, my flash gun turned up (again) yesterday, brand new and after 5 hours of opening the box and maybe 100 flashes it stopped working, i know it was cheap but thats ridiculous, and its now happened twice! Not pleased at all.

MurrayPhotography Review!

MurrayPhotography Review!
I just found this when looking for MurrayPhotography across the web! MurrayPhotography was rated one of the best in January 2011! Shame i found it so late but better now that i have than not! The link to this is featured on the right of this text!

Panning and Flash

Panning and Flash
Here is just a quick pic from a little shoot i did with hector/caspar and bernard the other day when experimenting with flash and panning. It didn't turn out so well and i really want my flash to be fixed and sent back soon! Here is the pic -->
As you can see, the action wasn't exactly frozen but i look forward to experimenting further with this technique.

Also to note, at the moment my computer isn't letting me upload any more photos which is very annoying. I only got to upload this at my friend's house on a different laptop so new photos being uploaded ma be being suspended for a little while...

Equipment

Equipment
I'm thinking of upgrading my Nikon D3000 to the new D5100 but that stretches my budget a little but too far! So! If anyone wants to be photographed i am incredibly welcome to that and can discuss prices and am very flexible. However it seems i may also need to get a saturday job of some sort so im making a CV. How fun? With exams popping up soon, this is going to be a fun couple of months.

I am looking at the D5100 for its ability to also take 1080p HD video mode as i am keen to look into some videography, and when out with some skaters on a shoot it would be good to look at taking some videos too. Also as i am exploring new angles it would be great to have a camera that actually has live vew as using that darn view finder can be a bit annoying when getting those low angles, plus the screen on the D5100 has a nice swivel screen!

Welcome!

Hello and Welcome! - 13/04/11

Welcome to the new and improved layout of my website (see here )! I decided to make this change to make it look more of a professional website and a easier to navigate one at that.

One of the biggest changes is the white layout and how it fits on the screen. I also wanted the top bar to stay the same throughout every page. Another change is the portfolio which now is a mix of 1 or 2 pieces from each shoot i've done. I did this so that you don't have to go through to every little page just to look at some other photos. Photography is a very free art and i wanted people to view my work through that. So its just a gallery of about 25 photos. I have not yet decided if when the new photos go in, if the old ones will knock off the end or just add to the gallery. Though i think that i can keep them for a while and then they can go.
     
New photos can now be viewed at the top of the portfolio and also on the home page if you scroll down.

So, the dimensions, i have changed this so that the website is not cramped and fits cleanly across the page, also so that this blog can fit all the way down the page and that extras can be seen on every page without having to scroll through to another page.

I hope you like the new layout and thank you for reading this!