Photography competition winner.

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Petrofac picture competition winner global world wide image Battersea power station London

Well that was a nice surprise. I logged into the works email system and found out that i had won their Picture competition.

For those of you who don't know, I'm currently sub contracting to a global oil and gas company called Petrofac, as a health and safety advisor. The project is based on the Shetland Isles, building a gas plant.

Over the internal system a few months ago, a photo competition was announced. So i thought that i would have a punt......

turns out my image of Battersea power station was chosen,  out of the 5000+ images that were submitted - as the overall winner!!

Over the moon!

A nice new iPad air on route to the house. Thanks ever so much.

Petrofac picture, competition winner global intranet

The image was displayed on the intranet home page, and globally sent over email to the 10's of thousands of employees world wide.

If there is a plant manager who wants some professional images of their gas/oil plant, some where warm... please speak up. Ha

Thanks

Lee

Composite with a snow machine in the garden.

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lee ramsden, snow, cold, photoshop, composite, ski, snow board, blizzard, professional, advertising, tree, sun, garden, snow machine, fake, frozen

   Nikon D800 f10 1/125th ISO 100

Good morning, hope that you had a good weekend.

This was the set up, pretty straight forward really. Two light sources, both camera left. The elinchrom ranger in a large octa positioned in front of myself, so the light was feathered and soft.

with a bare elinchrom quadra behind back lighting the snow.

With a snow machine you can see on the left of the image.

The image was shot with grey paper background intentionally to aid in the photoshop work afterwards.

Image set up and execution around 45 mins, and all photoshop work an hour and half.

Some times these images can take a lot more, but having the final goal in your mind and through experience you can achieve that goal much quicker and have a nicer final product.

  Nikon D800 f10 1/125th ISO 100

A cold trip to Helvellyn.

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Helvellyn Lake District cold morning Nikon D800 Lee Ramsden Cumbria tent camping night

Nikon D800 f8 1.5seconds ISO100 with various flash bursts around the scene.

 

Last week i headed out to try and take some pics up Helvellyn in the lakes. I was losing light as i didn't plan on the amount of weight i carried would slow me down so much, and so i pitched up here rather then planned for the evening. 

I awoke at 3am and the place was covered in snow. At first light there was an absolute white out, and was very thankful for carrying a GPS with me as navigating would of been near on impossible in zero visibility. 

So photo wise it was a failure but a good heavy load carry is a well received for a bit of Phys after the indulgent new year. 

Helvellyn, Lakes, Lake District,  Naked, walking boots, Tent, cold

Nikon D800 f5.6 1/50th ISO800

Brrrrrrr a fresh morning.....

Helvellyn Lake District Cumbria camping breakfast jetboil stove

Nikon D800 f2.8 1/50th ISO5000 Lit with red head light.

Breakfast for a king... 

 Thanks

Lee

Volvo V50 - play with a car rig.

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Volvo V50 Car Photography Rig mounting Hague Manfrotto poles

Nikon D800 f10 1/30th ISO800 (multiple flash exposure)

I know that we are all guilty of this, i purchased some camera kit, and it has just sat there for months unused... (this is just me? - yeah right)

And so it was time to have a play. I purchased some car rig - mounting equipment. For making the movement shots you see in magazines.

Volvo V50 Car Photography Rig mounting Hague Manfrotto

Nikon D800 f5 1/13th ISO 800

Here is a final shot, with using a slower shutter speed to give the sense of movement, i would of been blurred in the shot, and so inside the car is a strobe light, set to rear curtain sync to give a pop of light to freeze me, and make me sharper. 

I triggered the camera and flash using pocket wizard 3's. I find these work a treat. I have one in my hand, and when i press the button the camera fires, and the flash. 

Volvo V50 Car, Photography Rig mounting Hague Manfrotto poles motion

Nikon D800 f3.2 1/15th ISO 400

A Shot of the mounting system attached to the bonnet. 

Volvo V50 Car Photography Rig mounting Hague Manfrotto poles motion car photography

Nikon D800 f5 1/13th ISO800

Added another pole to extend the reach of the camera. I felt the camera was too heavy for this though, as the poles were worryingly bending, and so only a very slow speed was used when driving.

Here is a short Video of the top image, being taken and processed. 

Thanks

Lee

Blackpool on a Shitty Afternoon.

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Blackpool Seasside Lancashire Lee Ramsden bad weather long exposure

Nikon D800 61sec F14 ISO 100

Hi all and Happy New year.

Apologise for the tittle to this post, but i am climbing the walls to do a shoot and so headed out this afternoon. Not much going on but thought that was kind cool.

Sorry I'm no good at making flamboyant arty titles up like most, there seems to be more thought gone into the title then the image in a lot of cases.

I aim to head up to the lakes at the end of the week if i have not returned to Scotland for my day job.

Hope you are well.

Lee

Metal Prints. Loxley Colour.

Hi all,

Hope that you are all set and ready for the festive period about to kick in.

If not...... good luck.

Just a quick one today, thought id Share an image of a print i have recently had made for me by the guys over at

Loxley Colour. 

Loxley, Loxley Colour, Alumini Print, Aluminium, Shard, London, Photography, buy, order, contact

I decided on ordering a metal print, to really make this print shine. I am truly speechless, the quality is fantastic. The turn around from order to your front door is also really impressive.

I was never a fan of the metal prints, but maybe it is just i have never seen the right image displayed. A landscape or a high saturated image really shines and looks impressive, a blurred HDR picture from your iPhone of your dog or selective colour will not benefit being printed on metal, never.....

This is Loxley's largest metal print size, 60x40 inch. I sent them an image with a size of 30x20 and they managed to double the size perfectly.

This is not a cheap print though, but i feel it is worth every penny. You certainly pay for quality.

This photo of me stood with it does it no justice what so ever...

Something you really have to see in person!

I had made some framed prints for clients and am very impressed.

We will certainly be sticking with Loxley Colour now for all our professional prints.

Have a great festive holiday and hope to see you in the new year.

Lee

IRATA rope access training course.

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IRATA rope access ropes climbing Blackpool Training TALLON TALON NDT Harness offshore oil and gas north sea 02

Big apologies for not having a post for some time now, 

with work, the new house and the baby, my hands are pretty busy, 

but i couldn't be happier. 

I am planning a trip to the Brecon Beacons in the near future, which i am super excited about,

Here are some images i snapped on a recent rope access course. I was refreshing my IRATA Level 3's ticket and so was in for a weeks beasting!!

IRATA industrial rope access ropes climbing Blackpool Training TALLON TALON NDT Harness offshore oil and gas north sea 01

I can highly recommended the training over at

C&J training in Blackpool. The training centre comes under the Talon umbrella and John is a great trainer there. 

IRATA, rope access, ropes, climbing, Blackpool, Training, TALLON, TALON, NDT, Lee Ramsden, Photography, Harness, offshore, oil and gas, north sea 05

It was an informative week. I understand a few of you are photographers. This post has no relevance to you? 

But ask your self - How many times are you at work, and at height? up step ladders? on roofs? hanging out of a window? I know even you wedding photographers are guilty of this. This course is not for you, but take some time and look at the working at height guidelines. Hurting yourself is just not worth it. no work - no cash right?

Say your assistant takes a tumble, your insurance will turn their back if nothing is in place. Say good bye to your business, once you pay out the court fee's and the settlement. 

Here is what the HSE say about it. Thanks for reading. 

IRATA, rope access, ropes, climbing, Blackpool, Training, TALLON, TALON, NDT, Lee Ramsden, Photography, Harness, offshore, oil and gas, north sea 03
IRATA, rope access, ropes, climbing, Blackpool, Training, TALLON, TALON, NDT, Lee Ramsden, Photography, Harness, offshore, oil and gas, north sea 04

A subtle technique, but goes a long way..

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Hello, here is a little tip which i have recently picked up and thought id share as it makes such a lovely difference.

When working on images of buildings here is how i now add contrast.

Rather then use contrast adjustment layer, i created two levels layers, one darker and one lighter - both with black layer masks.

Now take your time, and paint in, where the face of a building is lighter, make it lighter and the dark side darker. It takes a little time, but certainly gives your image much more depth and a 3D feel to them.

Tutorial Photoshop dodge burning layer

 This image has the effect turned off. 

The extra layer you can see is a contrast adjustment layer to the lighter layer.

Tutorial Photoshop how to make your image look more professional

Here is the final image with the contrast technique added. 

Subtle but certainly makes a lot of difference to the image.

canary wharf London Photography Train line Long Exposure light trails


Canary Wharf London.

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London river Thames canary wharf ponoramic iPhone photography

With recently spending some time at the in-laws waiting for the baby to arrive, i have used the time to head out and about at sunrise 

Above is an iPhone image of my location on the Thames. 

Alarm call for 02:15hrs - and headed out, just a shame the weather did not really play ball, but thats landscape photography for you. 

Below is the image created by the d-slr.

This is certainly a location ill revisit to try and capture an image of more what i had in my mind. 

Thanks

Lee

Canary Wharf London Isle of dogs Thames financial

15 minute exposure using Lee filters big stopper and circular polariser. 

Polarising Filter.

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 Hi,

Today is just a quick post, but wanted to try and show the importance of using a circular polarising filter. Here you can see from a shot of London from the View at the Shard, i had to shoot through a window.

With out a polarising filter

This image you can see the reflections in the glass from inside of the building. 

With a polarising filter fitted

By using a polarising filter, it is not perfect, but seriously cuts out the reflections and so saves you much more time having to edit less.

Like always if you have any questions please feel free to post in the comments. 

Hope that you enjoy the rest of your Sunday... 

 

London view at the Shard gallery London Uk Tower Bridge HMS Belfast

The above image would not have been able to been created so clean without a polarising filter. 

 

 

Please feel free to share this post on your social media, giving credit to the photographer Lee Ramsden www.leeramsden.com

 

Thanks

The view from the Shard London HDR image break down.

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Hi, hope your keeping well and have had a good weekend. 

Here are some images from the previous London landscape image that i have posted. 

I wanted to show the images used to create the final image. 

I clamped the camera down to the handrail using the Manfrotto Magic arm and using a cable release i rattled a few bracketed frames. 

I have included the metadata on each image, but other then converting to jpg, they are straight from the camera and in the order the camera took them and i added to Nik softwares HDR efex pro 2.

London Shard The View HDR image Photography tutorial Nikon D800 award winning

Here is the first base image. In face i quite like this exposure but i personally prefer having the extra range to play with. 

And finally this is the out put from the software. As you can see it has little punch, no halos. or even much contrast going on. But the key is to get a nice base to start with, and then bring this into photoshop and make it your own.

I have tried many different HDR software on the market and not one will you be able to click process- done.

But i do think that this is a good thing, no 2 images will ever be processed the same and so this way it makes you take your time and make something unique and more realistic.

london View from the Shard HMS Belfast river Thames Tower Bridge

Here is the final image. 

Thanks.

Lee

The View at The Shard London photography tips.

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Hi, how are you? 

I hope that you are well, while I'm stuck out at work on the rig for a month....

mobile, iphone, Lee, Ramsden, London, The View From The Shad, Landscape, Photography, Lancashire, HDR

Last week I took a trip to the new viewing platform in the Shard building- London.

72 floors high you get an incredible view of London.

You have to book in advance and pick your time slot, I was particular in that I wanted the sunset to dark.

After googling the timings I was happy that we would catch the setting sun, but just had to have our fingers crossed for the weather :0)

london View from the Shard HMS Belfast river Thames Tower Bridge

As you can see, we were so very lucky in the weather front, after so much snow and bad weather recently.

I wanted to give a couple of tips that i found so handy while shooting here.

and these tips will not only help if you fancy going up the Shard but I'm guessing 99.9% of tourist locations.

Tip 1

- The venue Tripod ban...

A lot of tourist venues have a tripod ban and so you are not allowed to enter with / or use one.

Manfrotto G clamp

As you can see i over came this by using a Manfrotto magic arm, and super clamp. 

The security observed me using this and did not bother in the slightest. 

While using the clamp and magic arm, i treated it like a tripod and so was using my cable release to gain much longer shutter speeds. 

Tip 2

- Don't for get your polariser filter.

To try and reduce the reflections you gain shooting through the glass, a circular polariser filter is not perfect, but cuts down the problem loads. 

Nothing will stop the other members of public and their point and shoots, using the flash - still amazed at what they recon the on camera flash will light up. 

That its, i can really recommend the Shard, it was a fantastic experience. 

Keep in touch in the comments bar bellow...

Thanks 

Lee