Watermarks?

As a photographer you want to let as many people see your work as you can. At the same time you want to let people know its your images with the hopes you might get some work from it.

With the age of the internet really taking off, there are a lot of people that use images that they don't own for there own use's. I myself have seen other people use my images without ever asking me for my permission... 

This brings me to watermarks. At first they used to put a big ugly text through an image so people could not use them without permission from a tog. This worked for a while but soon enough things changed.

After a while people did not care about having the text through an image, you still see this all over facebook now. Go on check, I dare you! I bet that at least one of your friends have a copyrighted image up on FB.

Old Style Watermark

Photographers being the level headed people that we are, just changed with the times. Our watermarks stopped being something that made people look bad but became our calling cards. This little logo in the corner is shown to everyone that see's my images. A little advert from every person I shoot to all of their friends. 

New Style!

I have used this mark (above) for a while now but have never been super happy with it. I wanted something that would look good on both light and dark photos. I could not get it working right so I added the dark backdrop to make it stand out from the image behind. This is something that fixed the problem but I really did not like the layout. 

I want something thats is not to prominent and does not disrupt the image. The two watermarked images  below are what I have been working on and I am happy with them both! 

Full Name Clear

I like that with the first image you can see my name clearly and people will be able to just google me from just seeing the watermark. Yes I have Googled myself and I am now the complete first page!

S.E.P idea

This second one also has my name but a little smaller, with the added abbreviation of S.E.P (SkinsElliottPhotography) and I think it does look nice. Only trouble is that if you put SEP into a google search you get "Software Engineering Professionals" or SEP.com.

Let me know what you guys think as I would like to hear what you have to say on my designs 

Watch Dogs.. OH MY FUCKING GOD!

I think I just saw one of the best looking, open world games I have ever seen, And after watching the trailer below I am dying to find out more info on this title.

I love games that give you choice and have more then one way of finishing it. I have always given the benefit of the doubt to games that look funky as long as they give you the option of completing the mission in different ways. Now I have been scared by buying titles from trailers before but I will always get these games in the hope they make more games like it (voting with my wallet). 

I have owned and LOVED games like Deus Ex(both the original and the Human Revolution)  Hit-man, Shemiu, Fable, Tenshi, dynasty warriors and open world games such as all the GTA, Prototype, SpiderMan2, True Crime, Red Faction... Ok ok I'll stop now, Watch Dogs looks to be the game I have been wishing for for a very long time.

Anyways... WATCH!!

Do I need to say any more?

First - The look:

Smooth is the word that comes to mind, This is something the Cat from Red Dwarf would start licking himself over, It has a look of the new Deus Ex mixed with the dark side of Uncharted. The water effects are really nice and looks like the creators are taking alot of queues from the adventures of Nathan Drake, but then all of a sudden without a world or warning - It becomes True Crime!! Personly I am hoping it comes out with the polish of one of RockStars amazing sandbox legends!

The Game Play:

The phone looks likes a heavily used hacking tool, locking into everything for coms to street traffic lights. The free flow running with the gun play and the cover mechanic does look very smooth without to much in the way of jerky movements. 

The driving does worry me a little, If felt more like the car was flying then rolling along the floor, the reason why I said more True Crime then GTA.

After Thought's

Watch Dogs is coming from UBISOFT and they are good to new IPs. Remember this is the team that gave us the assassin's creed games (Yes i'm saying NEW IP as with AssCred there slowly driving it into the ground). Fable offered you choice but under Peter Molyneux's hype they never lived up to a truly open choice game.

I loved the look and feel of  the new Deus Ex games, with its film-oir look mixed with a slice of Blade Runner. The game had a little of everything I like - Open world, Stealth and some RPG elements. Watch Dogs adds what looks like a GTA style sandbox to the Deus Ex formula. With this new dimension I can see Watch Dogs joining the list of legendary titles above.

If this game delivers on everything or even 80% of what they showed here in this Gameplay trailer... Were in for one hell of a good game!

This is one to keep your eyes on friends, As far as I have found out its coming to PS3 and Xbox, most likly with a PC relise down the line as well. Look for it in 2013 but dont be shocked to see it in the shops by Christmas!!

You herd it here 1st guys, remember my name when your ordering your copy!

The meaning of life

To work this out you have to find its opposite, Death!

Yes this is going to be one of them Deep and meaningful blogs.

Now I believe in balance in all things, night and day, cold and hot, yen and yuan or life and death. There is balance in everything and when it comes to feeling alive, you tend be be near death. There is a saying that I heard a long time ago that said "There is no point living if you cant feel alive" and I have tried to adopt this as my motto.

I might only be 27 but I have seen and lived through some amazing times, both bad and good. Someone very close to me died at a young age and even though I miss him every day his life tough me a very big life lesson. Everything comes to an end but its about enjoying it while you have it. Now this person was told he would not live long but got 4 times the amount of life that he was given, yet he did almost everything he wish.

Now this is just my belief and to a Christian this might sound mad but I believe that when you die, you energy or life force goes back into a big melting pot with all of your life's lessons energy and feelings to give energy to more life. This is both a Gian and Buddhist view, but when you find enlightenment then your soul itself will end, making true death - as in really dead, No heaven or fields full of my loved ones but a peace or nothingness.

Cold? Not really. If you think about it I will see my loved ones all around me, there energy in other items or people around me. In my heart and soul with thoughts and feelings that guide me in my day to day life.

To me the meaning of life is death as the meaning of death is life. I do not fear death as I dont fear life. Balance is the key to everything and everything is the key to balance.

Beach Burn & The Tunnel (20120608)

Last Friday was my brothers birthday, and one of my friends, make that 2 of my friends and from what I have found out there was a few other birthdays as well lol

Anyways after we popped to my brothers to wish him a happy birthday I headed off into town for the 1st beach burn I have been able to go to in over 7months, So for the first time in ages I got to shoot my friends and get some fresh burns on my arms.

Was a good event, I did not get there till after 23.00 so I most likely missed all the fun stuff but before the tired came in, We headed off to the Waterloo tunnels. And it was alot of fun with the music playing the the fire burning... Must do it again some time soon!

The full set of images are on my site so you can see them on this LINK! 

E3 2012 LIVE!

E3 (Electronic EntertainmentExpo) is the biggest weekend of the video gaming calender, It is the showcase of all of the years upcoming games and consoles. 

This is the event that we 1st saw the PlayStation, trhe revile of the new Xbox kinect and many other great things that have felled mine and many others life of joy and happiness.  

Every year i scroll the net looking for news and clips to find out the news and trailers, But this year Xbox was very nice to live stream the event on the xbox itself.

Wedding photography and editing the images!

I just exported my set of images from the wedding, I have 71 images in total and I think there is some amazing shots but I am not 100% happy with them, I wanted to give myself the task of a week to finish all the edits and have them uploaded. 

I did have some trouble with memory when I got back to London. I had 38gb of images from the trip (There is still around 10gb on a laptop thats on a trip around South Sweden) But I only had 8.75gb on my computers hard drive - The math NEED MORE MEMORY!! So after spending 2 days fixing this problem, I did not end up backing up my images till Wednesday.

Once I did get them on the computer I had around 1100 images , I found it easy to knock off the extra's down to 261. Now when it coming to editing you have to have a good workflow. What I do is start with P and X, P=Picks X= Rejects that way you can just delete the crap ones right away. Next I only view the picks and then go through them all over again, dropping the ones that don't hold up the 2nd time around or ones that I already have.

After that it gets a little easier because now you only have around 50-100 images and you don't even look at the none pick ones any more, After that I start doing my edits. Now I don't really use Photoshop that much, LightRoom4 has all my needs, with many easy and simple editing tool. I give the whites and blacks a bump use some noise reduction and spot removal if needed and thats it. For a normal image anyways, but this being a wedding I wanted to add a little something to really show off my work. 

Now here is some of the images that I have finished and I am hoping to have the final gallery up on my site in the next few days. So you checking my blog gave you the 1st online look at Rozies and Pedrams Wedding images... Enjoy!

I feel your pain!

Farther of the Bride

Good turn out!

A new start

Yes, That is a sword for cutting cake deer

Hope you liked the taster and I will post a link once the images are live on the site!

The Canon 70-200mm F2.8 USM IS Markii... Mini Review

WARNING, PHOTOGRAPHY BLOG!

As some of you know last weekend I went to a wedding in Sweden, When I herd about this i through it was the perfect reason to rent myself a lens for the 1st time. Since I now have a canon I knew the lens I would "borrow" for a weekend being only one real chose,  Canons dirty White Canon!

A good looker as well!

The Canon 70-200mm F2.8 USM IS Mark ii... This lens is going for around £2,000.00 (but you can get it for around £1,800 at a push) And most of you would ask, 

"WHY WOULD YOU PAY £2K FOR A BIT OF GLASS?"

If you don't know I am sure this blog will not tell you but I do like to try the impossible and with this lens you can make the impossible - possible.

Gives 4 stops of IS

Now this is not a full review but I can say this much... I am in love <3! They way its made, the way it shoots and even the way it looks, everything about this glass tells you that its worth ever single penny you spend to own it. This it at the TOP of my VIP warning list (donations welcome btw) The bokeh is creamy enough to spread all over a nice hot crumpet. Nom nom nom! Its sharp enough to shave with and I have never seen so many people move out of my shot then I did with this lens on my camera!

2.8 All The Way Baby!

Now I used this all weekend and it was amazing, fast and quick, the colours where perfect and the range of 70-200 on a crop body like my 7D give it a range more like 112-320mm. This is a great lens for everything you can think of when you need a little more reach then the normal lens gives you. Now here is a test shot from the lens I took in the park before I (HAD) to give it back.

  

1/800 @ 2.8 iso100

My Girls BACK!!

I remember the 1st time I saw her, Her pologones where ruff but she was a hottie, But in later years every single time she came out with a new title I just felt like I was being taken for a ride...

Its been a While!

After seeing the new trailer of her latest action game I have to say that this puts Lady Lara Croft back into the lime light with not a lemon in sight!

Get More: GameTrailers.com, Tomb Raider - E3 2012: Exclusive Crossroads Trailer, PC Games, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

This does look alot like Uncharted but with a far better and less cocky protagonist and that's always a good thing! Anything to get away from Nathan Drake, The smug git! As well as having this on my Xbox as well will also be a good thing as well, lol

The FireStation!

Last week I got an invite to check out a place where some of my friends are staying, Its an old fire station in South London and being a spinner I loved the idea of spinning fire indoors for a change.

Alex Getting a Lift! - on 2 wheels

Trouble was that I was flying early on Friday morning and this was set for the Thursday night, So I grabbed some gear and headed off to see my friends for a few hours. I had already packed and Fluff as norm was many hours behind me. I left her to the packing and Jumped on a bus.

Enough room for Poi

The fire station itself was not hard to find but getting in was interesting, Some of my friend where heading down as well so I just waited for them and we all went in together. Now when I tell you this place was big i'm really not jocking. IT WAS HUGH!! 

A mini Shoot

The main room was big enough for a full footy pitch and there where many side rooms and floors all over, We spent most of the night in the main room with some spinning going on all around us, some music playing in the background and some skaters scooting around on there decks.

As the night was coming to a close (for me anyways) We headed to the roof to see the view, and a really night one as well, I got a nice image for everyone on the wide angle with the skyline in the background.

The Gang

Photo Blogger Blogs about Photos

The other day I got a call from a friend... He could not sleep one night so he hoped onto my blog and was shocked to find there are alot of posts about Photography...

Now this might come as a bit of a shock but reading a blog writen by a photographer will alot of the time have posts to do with PHOTOGRAPHY!!

Silly I know but I just had a look and there are a few post about images and gear but on the front page there is blogs also about film, Raving and there is going to be an update as well with some more cool things, Like my trip to Sweden from a very good friends wedding and yes yes yes - A mini review of some more camera gear including the 70-200 F2.8 I rented for the weekend. 

All that to come in the next few days so watch this space and hope all this camera talk is not to off putting for my normal readers!