Gardens by the Bay Shoot and Editing

Just before Christmas my good friend Stuart Jenner (www.stuartjennerphotography.com) and I headed down to Marina Bay and took some shots of Gardens by the Bay. The 'golden hour' in Singapore is more like a golden 3 minutes, so you have to be ready to catch the few moments of good light, if it comes at all. So we stood about chatting like a couple of camera bores with beers in hand and cameras poised on tripods, waiting for the perfect blue sky. 

It didn't really get very blue but we took some shots anyway. A few minutes later we were scoffing Japanese food and refreshing ourselves with a bucket of Asahi after a tough 3 minutes work. Job well done.

I took a a few shots in an attempt to create a panorama which I would stitch together later in Photoshop. The original four shots looked like this...

Nothing special really. But I thought I'd give it a go in Photoshop anyway. Well, actually all I did was select the images in Lightroom, right click and choose EDIT IN > MERGE TO PANORAMA IN PHOTOSHOP. Photoshop did the rest and creating a great panorama. I then saved the panorama back to Lightroom where I spent sometime making it look pretty. I think the result is not too bad considering I'd had a few beers when I took it. Thanks Photoshop, thanks Lightroom. You rock!

Shooting info: Tripod, shutter release, Nikon D800, 70-200mm nikkor lens at 70mm, ISO 160, f16, blend of 4 images (10s, 13s, 15s 25s). Aperture Priority.

Closetful of Books - Portraits

Denise and Kelvin are young entrepreneurs with a passion for books. Being in their mid 20s they are too young to secure a loan from the Singapore Government but they decided to start their own business anyway and now provide books to many schools across Singapore. The way they talk about literature with such knowledge and passion it's not surprising to see that their business www.closetfulofbooks.com is growing really quickly. Good luck Kelvin and Denise!

Recent shots taken at a butterfly farm in Phuket, Thailand

One of the great things about living in Singapore is the opportunity to travel to nearby countries. When on these trips I look for people with interesting faces to photograph. Generally this means old people! Their crinkled, lined faces give wonderful depth to photographs and watery, rheumy eyes often add a sparkle to a smiling face.

I try not to rush and spend a few moments chatting to them before I take out the camera. And, if appropriate, I will always buy something from them or offer them a few dollars to say thanks.

I generally shoot these photos with a pretty shallow depth of field (somewhere between f2.8 and f4) which I hope, along with accurate focussing, draws the viewer’s attention to the subject’s eyes - the window to the soul!

A few days ago I was taken to the the fantastic new Gardens by the Bay in Singapore by fellow photographer Stuart Jenner (www.stuartjennerphotography.com). We wanted to capture some pictures of the new space-age structures in the park which support a walkway for visitors. There were also great views as the sun set behind the Marina Bay Sands Hotel.

For some photos it was tricky to expose the whole scene correctly as there was such a wide dynamic range from very light areas to very dark areas. This is often the case when a subject is back lit. I therefore decided to bracket five exposures for each set up (each shot having a slightly different shutter speed therefore letting in more or less light). I then combined these shots to create one combined photo in the HDR programme Photomatix.

I’m not usually a fan of HDR, especially the grungy look the photos sometimes have. But I think the ones I’ve posted here work quite well.

All Saints Church, Otterhampton, Somerset

My step-father-in-law volunteers for a great organisation, The Churches Conservation Trust, a charity saving at-risk historic churches. He took us to visit All Saints, a church which is no longer in regular use, but is well-maintained and has some interesting features, including a large oil painting and a rickety old organ. The visit was a great opportunity to test the low-light capabilities of my shiny new Nikon D800 and it performed pretty well I think, looking at the images below.