Imsticking’s Leica D-Lux 4 Blog

I post it here and it sticks.
 

Colourful Apple and An Englishman in New York

What you wanna do is... - 21.1mm at f/2.8, ISO 200, Shutter speed 1/100 sec

I thought I'd post a few color images from those I took 2 weeks ago at the opening of the 300th and the world's largest Apple Store in Covent Garden, here in jolly old London. Well over due, I know. I've been rather busy working on other interests and commitments that I enjoy working on too. Sadly the weather seems to be turning towards winter already in England, and so the days will soon be something most nine to fivers only experience while at the office. If you don't have an office job, well, you're lucky I guess. Although everything comes at a price.  I've started using Hipstamatic for iPhone quite a lot recently. It's pretty cool. I usually tweet those photos directly to my tweet stream, @imsticking.

Cosmic - 7.4mm at f/2.8, ISO 200, Shutter speed 1/40 sec

If you are somewhere near London and enjoy photography exhibits, Jason Bell's An Englishman in New York exhibit opened at the National Portrait Gallery on the 14th August 2010. I went to check it out on Friday evening and was very impressed with some of the work. Sadly, it's quite a small exhibit with approximately 20 prints on display. It's well worth a visit however, and there is still a lot more to see at the Gallery and I found myself spending a good hour viewing the BP Portrait Award 2010. While not photographs, the work is astounding non-the-less. You can see some of Jason Bell's work in his online portfolio at jasonbellphoto.com and you can stalk him on Twitter at @jasonbellphoto. Seeing Jason's work immediately made me want to go out and photograph somebody. I love that about other exceptional photographers. How they stir up that desire to be creative. Another photographer that makes me want to improve my skills is Lara Jade. I'm not really into fashion photography, but I like her style. It's quite dark and romantic. I think that would be a very interesting approach if you could capture that as a street photographer.

Help! I need somebody! - 12.8mm at f/2.8, ISO 200, Shutter speed 1/125 sec

All of these image were taken with my Leica D-Lux 4. Interestingly, I haven't touched a single Saturation slider while editing these images. 

I'm in line - 12.1mm at f/2.8, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/200 sec


Filed under  //   Apple   Leica   London   photograph  
August 21 2010
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The Largest Apple Store in the World Grand Opening

I decided to check out the new Apple Store in Covent Garden on Saturday. It was the grand opening of Apple's 300th and largest store in the world. Something special I think. I've never been to a grand opening before, but the temptation of another free Apple shirt was more than enough to get me up at 5:30am.

The best place to see great photographs of the inside of the new store is on the Apple UK Retail site and also on Electric Pig. They even have a video tour of the store. It was a great experience, and the staff go well out of their way to make you feel like you are the stars of the day. Two hours after the grand opening they were still doing mexican waves in a long tunnel for every customer that entered the store! Some of them must have lost their voices by the end of the day, I'm sure. 

The first photograph, top, is of the guy behind me in the queue who I got chatting to. He was on holiday from New York with his wife and was super friendly. We chatted about Apple for ages and he thought the new store was really cool, even from the outside because unlike the ones in America this one was not made of glass! It would be cool to have a glass store in the UK, just for fun, but I've always thought the store on Regent Street was very stylish, outside and in, and something special. Enjoy the photographs, I'm not going to dissect them like I usually do, but I will post more soon, and they will be in color too! I'll updated this post to include the Silver Efex Pro preset files I used to process each and every photograph in this post, so check back later in the week if you are wanting some of them.

 

 

 

 

 


Filed under  //   Apple   Leica   London   monochrome   photography  
August 8 2010
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Leica Notting Hill Film Location

RAW conversion with Silver Efex Pro - f/2 at 5.1mm, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/800 sec 

I went to Notting Hill two weekends ago to shoot a number of locations from the movie Notting Hill. The last time I'd been to Notting Hill must have been a good 10 years ago. Needless to say I don't remember which shops were where, so it very much felt like I was discovering it for the first time. 

Leica D-Lux 4 JPEG - f/2 at 5.1mm, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/800 sec

 
I've always been just slightly jealous of the quality of the black and white JPEGs the Leica D-Lux 4 produces along with the RAW files that I save with every shot. I thought that for once, I would try to replicate the black and white JPEG's by processing the RAW files with Capture One 5 PRO and Silver Efex Pro. The first image of each pair is my version processed from the RAW file, and the second, the actual JPEG the Leica D-Lux 4 produced. You'll see that they are in fact different. My version's are a little bit more contrasty and I prefer the darks a little darker.
 
The location in this first photograph is from one of the earliest scenes in the movie where William Thacker (Hugh Grant) accidentally bumps into Anna Scott (Julia Roberts) with is orange juice on the corner of the sidewalk.  And as you can see that boarded up corner shop is now a Coffee Republic. 
 
The second photograph is of the rather famous front door to William's flat. The door is no longer blue. It's actually black, and it made my day when, while looking for decent angles for a good shot, the door opened and out came some guy on the phone! I felt like the two of us were re in-acting the paparazzi scene that occurred the morning after. One big difference. I would never ever become a pap. It think it's despicable stalking people as they try to live their personal lives. I actually had to hold my breath as this guy crossed the street and walked directly towards me. I thought, "Oh God". He got about 2 meters from me, turn towards the flat, bobbed his head from side to side, and smiled at me as he continued on his way. Phew! 
 

RAW conversion with Silver Efex Pro - f/4 at 9.3mm, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/400 sec 

 

Leica D-Lux 4 JPEG - f/4 at 9.3mm, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/400 sec

 

I've included the Silver Efex Pro presets below for both of the processed RAW versions I created. If you're curious, I've processed them with Ilford PAN F Plus 50 film.  

If you'd like to go on a DIY tour of the movie's film locations, the resource I used and the best I found while doing some hunting on the web was on the site movie-locations.com. I did take photographs of four other locations in and around Notting Hill and my post those soon too. The only reason I hesitate is because they aren't the most remarkable subjects to photograph, hence not the most remarkable photographs. I know, these aren't either.
 
I am still using Exif Everywhere for Mac. It lives in my Dock and I just drag and drop an image onto it to get the EXIF info. It's a brilliant little application. 
 

Click here to download:
NottingHillRepBWF+50.sep (3 KB)

Click here to download:
ThackerPANF+50BW.sep (3 KB)


Filed under  //   Film   Leica   London   monochrome   Notting Hill   photography  
July 24 2010
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Gumball Raccoon and the Kodachrome Tribute

Gumball Raccoon Kodachrome - 12.8mm at f/2.8, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/2000 sec

 
The Associated Press carried a story last week about Kodachrome film. A film that has been produced by Eastman Kodak since 1935. That's a 74 year run up until roughly June 22nd 2009 when Kodak announced that they would stop producing the film. Kodachrome became first commercially successful color film in the world. It's a real shame that sales had declined to the point where producing it became a liability for the company.  
 
Back to the original story and that is one of photojournalist Steve McCurry, who I greatly regret not seeing talk at the National Portrait Gallery about a month ago. Steve was a photojournalist for National Geographic for 30 years, and has been shooting with Kodachrome film for 35 years. What a 'job'! And if you're wondering exactly how many frames with Kodachrome he's shot, you'll probably be shocked to know he has more than 800,000 images in his lab. WOW. A big chunk of one million images. No surprise then that Steve was the man given the last few rolls of Kodachrome film, and last week Monday he developed 36 slides in Parsons, Kansas. Why Parsons, Kansas? Well Dwayne's Photo Service in Parsons is the last place on earth you could have your Kodachrome film developed. If you had any, that was. They will stop developing Kodachrome film on the 10th December 2010, so you better get in fast. 
 
So what's on that last roll of film, and what's going to happen to the prints? Well National Geographic decided to (what else but) document the journey of that last roll right down to it being processed. Steve began shooting with it in New York, and then travelled to India and then back to New York shooting iconic filmmaking personalities along the way. This journey with the film took Steve 2 months  The last three frames, he shot in Parsons. I hope the very last one was in Dwayne's Photo Service.
 
If National Geographic do indeed publish the story of the last roll of Kodachrome, it'll more than likely be a spread in a Spring 2011 issue, but will only consist of 4 - 6 images off the roll. If you want to see the entire roll, you'll have to visit the George Eastman House, the International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester New York, where Kodak are based.
 
Kodak have decided to celebrate the films history with an online gallery of iconic images shot with the film. If you'd like to see them, head over to Kodak's Kodachrome Tribute. If you are a indeed a Kodachrome shooter, you are going to have to look towards other Kodak color films such as KODAK PROFESSIONAL EKTACHROME E100G or EKTAR 100. 
 
Gumball Raccoon Tri-X - 12.8mm at f/2.8, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/2000 sec

I took this shot last weekend Saturday after quite a long and hot shoot in Notting Hill, London, where I'd decided to go and shoot as many of the "Notting Hill" movie's film locations as I could. The top image has been 'shopped with a Kodachrome film type in Photo Tools Pro. It's also been cross processed to bring out the blues and greens. The image above was processed from the top effected image and I used Silver Efex Pro to apply a Kodak Tri-X film and a very light blue toner thereafter. You can download the SFX preset at the end of this blog post.
 
Why did he take this photo?
 
Blogging inspiration comes from a video recording of a U2 gig I was at in Jo'burg, South Africa in 1997, the song "Gone ♫".
 

Click here to download:
Gumball Tri-X Bluetone.sep (3 KB)


Filed under  //   kodachrome   Leica   London   monochrome   photography   street  
July 18 2010
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Incident At The Window

Incident At The Window - 5.1mm at f/2.2, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/250 sec

 
This first photograph was shot on the same day I took a series of shop window photographs and blogged about earlier in a post titled "In a West End Town". The title of this blog post is taken from the title of the story pasted at the bottom of the door. I have a close up of it I may process and publish for you to read. 
 
I love shooting with a really low ISO. You can get some really great results with the Leica D-Lux 4. You have to keep the shutter open a bit longer, but that only allows the sensor to drink up all that wonderful light, without generating (any/much) noise. Something else I keep getting consistently good results with is adding a lot of structure to Ilford film in Silver Efex Pro. I like the tones that film generates. The tonal range seems a bit narrower than with something like Kodak Tri-X. I could be wrong of course. I'm just going by what I see with my eyes, at this stage. 
 
That pretty much sums up how I processed this photograph above. I've applied a very dark Sepia tone to it. Preset 18 with the saturation backed off down to around 35. Check out the preset file at the end of this post for the details. One thing I didn't apply or experiment with were color filters. 
 

The Darkest Line - 5.1mm at f/2, ISO 400, Shutter speed 1/200sec

 I thought I'd publish the black and white version of The District Line image I posted a few days ago. I ran this through Silver Efex Pro and spent most of my time concentrating on the light in the shadows. I thought it would be better to bring out some of the sides of the train hoping it would give more depth to the image. The area I'm attracted to most in this photograph is the foreground with the two young women waiting for the train to pull into the station. The way the light touches the crumpled jeans looks really cool to me.

 
I've kept the post processing really simple for this photograph. It's Kodak Tri-X film and no toning of any sort. Help yourself to the Silver Efex Pro preset file below.
 

Click here to download:
IncedentfordXP2Super400Sepia.sep (3 KB)
 

Click here to download:
Tri-X Train.sep (3 KB)


Filed under  //   Leica   London   monochrome   photography   street   transport  
July 8 2010
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Take Me To The Moon

Take Me To The Moon - 5.1mm at f/2, ISO 200, Shutter speed 1/40 sec

 
[NOTE: If you're simply looking for my write up on these photographs, scroll down to below the last photograph, the rest is a rant]
 
It's been a while since I posted new photographs: almost a week I think. Things have gotten busy for me lately with a personal trainer making sure I actually train and prepare food like a normal person. This has been really good for me. It also requires a lot of sleep. I've been using Posterous as my blogging platform for six months now and when I started this blog, it was simply to see if I had it in me to blog. Am I a blogger? That's the question I was looking to answer. I started out blogging about Apple. Predictable, I know. But photography soon took over as I thought it would be interesting to document my experiences with my new Leica D-Lux 4 compact digital camera. It was never about getting out and photographing enough to give myself an excuse to run out and buy a big DSLR. When I discovered how close the D-Lux 4's manual controls were to those on offer from a big Canon or Nikon body, I thought it would be cool to do the exact opposite of what most people do who get hooked on photography. Don't run out and buy a big body that shoots 7 frames a second and kit it out with a range of lens, some of which you could use to take great photos of the moon's surface, see how far I can push forward with what I have. If I have Photographer stamped on my heart, it doesn't really matter what's in my hands. That's my philosophy.    
 
 

Surfacing  - 5.1mm at f/2, ISO 400, Shutter speed 1/25 sec

 
These last few weeks I've been thinking more and more about why I take photographs, and why I'm driven to blog about them. A Counselling Psychologist once told me, "Everything we do, we do for a reason". Even if the reason isn't immediately obvious to us, and falls towards the bottom of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, there is still a reason. I suppose I've been trying to discover this reason. Lately I've been feeling like I've outgrown my D-Lux 4. It does a great job, but it's still quite limited when compared to a Leica M9 rangefinder or Canon 5D Mk II. You can only really go above an ISO of 400 if you want that grainy look, and shooting in low light and expecting a nice sharp image, isn't going to happen. I suppose I am getting frustrated when I look at some of the great photographs others are taking with more versatile gear, and thinking "I could take that!". 
 
 

Tunnel of Love - 5.1mm at f/2, ISO 400, Shutter speed 1/50 sec

 
Something else that's cut into the amount of time I've spent on photography lately, and this is ironic, is looking more closely at moving this blog over to the WordPress platform. A new design, a new name, properly planned for expansion in the future with support for multiple blogs, a wiki, a community and other ideas still floating about. Then there's the fact that actually writing code in my spare time, is probably the absolute last thing I want to do with what little time I have to myself. My strong interest in composition in photography (it's far stronger than any other aspect of photography, the gear, the history, the endless amount of tweets on Twitter who's links I could only hope to ever consume all of) has taken me into areas of design that could be applied to other 'things' that are designed. For example, I can apply what I've learnt about gestalt principles of perception used in photographic composition to design my new blog. I find that prospect cool, but I don't find the actual act of opening hypertext files even remotely interesting. Just how will this new blog ever get created then? Coding it is so unappealing, I may actually pay someone to do it. But probably not, because that would cut into my gear acquisition. How many photographers do you know that have bought Capture One 5 PRO to use with a compact digital, for god's sake? 
 
I think more photographers should dedicate more time, and effort to creating content online. Even if it amounts to nothing more than a journal of your activities as a photographer. If you already have an internet connection, you can do it for free. Loads of blogging services out there. It's far more about creating and thinking and seeing where it takes you, than anything else. If you're happy where you are, you may gain nothing from the experience.
 
 

The District Line - 5.1mm at f/2, ISO 400, Shutter speed 1/200 sec 

 
OK time to actually talk about the photographs I've published today. I like the first one the most. It's new, and I tell myself it has a hint of the Fibonacci sequence about it, even if it's not strictly a spiral. I like to try and apply the numerical sequence to the distances on the edges of the frame where lines in the composition intersect them. I also like the colors, and how the composition is peppered with red. The curved roof, the overhead lighting, the perception of depth, all contribute to it's appeal to me. 
 
This second photograph is the original color image I took some months back and blogged about in the post titled Surfacing (a post with nothing but black and white JPEG's I'd taken during a day on the south bank of the Thames). I like it in color too. I processed this a few weeks ago, but I remember putting it through a Kodachrome process, to get that awesome red. I think I've been a little color starved lately. I can't remember the last time I actually cross-processed and image. The third photograph has been cross-processed. I think you can actually still see some noise in the white of the advertising boards. The final image is a bit of a surprise include for me, because I've had a cool black and white version of it sitting on my laptop for weeks. Unpublished, and still it sits there. 


Filed under  //   Leica   London   photography   transport   underground  
July 6 2010
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Where The Bright Lights and The Big City Meet

Zumm Zumm - 5.1mm at f/2, ISO 200, Shutter speed 1/60 sec

Ever since returning from a brief trip to New York in the spring of  2000, I've always likened London to a massive, sprawled out village rather than a big city.  I still think of it this way today. I'm not sure these photographs do a good job of capturing this village feel, but I suppose I could do a lot worse, such as venturing into The City. Regardless, these shots were captured the weekend before last in Soho and Piccadilly Circus around 6pm. 

Visually, in the Western world at least, we are trained, through reading, to look at a scene from left to right. In the photograph above, the direction in which the cyclist on the left is looking further persuades us to move our eyes to the right, where we discover yet another rickshaw and a cyclist who is looking directly at us. A person looking directly at the camera, is the strongest attachment that can form between viewer and subject. I'm not sure attachment is the right word, but I'm sure you get the gist. 

This photograph of the rickshaws was shot from the hip. No looking at the electronic viewfinder, no composing, just feel it and shoot. What a rush. 

The Big Swing - 21.8mm at f/2, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/400sec

The first 2 photographs have been processed with Ilford film in Silver Efex Pro and the bottom photograph was processed with Kodak Tri-X film. I've applied a copper tone to all 3 photographs, a toner I don't use very often, but quite like the way these turned out using Preset 10. Check out the Silver Efex Pro preset at the end of this post. I like the tonal gradation in the seat in this photograph below. It makes the image, if you ask me. Maybe it's the fact that I shot them all with a Leica D-Lux 4.

Drive By - 12.1mm at f/2, ISO 200, Shutter speed 1/400 sec

Blogging inspiration courtesy of U2 - Desire ♫

 

Click here to download:
Breakford XP2S400 Copper.sep (4 KB)

Click here to download:
RickshawByTriX400TXProCopper.sep (4 KB)


Filed under  //   Leica   London   monochrome   photography  
June 28 2010
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No Purchase

Calling Home - 5.1mm at f/2, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/320 sec

 
I had to dash to the Apple Store after work today. No purchase this time, simply returning something I didn't need. Was it a 30" Cinema Display? Hardly! You could never have too many of those. Apple have a 14 day return policy on all item purchased, just as long as you don't actually unwrap those items. I quite like the new Mac Mini that was released a few weeks back. A great little machine to sit under the 50" HD TV. I splashed out on a £14 HDMI cable this week (apart from the new iPhone 4), and I think a Mac Mini sitting under the TV with all my music and HD movies would be pretty cool. Then I could finally make good use of the EyeTV Hybrid I've had for about a year and not been able to setup permanently, and use my old iPhone 3G as a universal remote.
 
Presented in the order in which they were shot (with my Leica D-Lux 4), around Oxford Circus there's not a huge amount to say about them. So I'll keep this short because I'm off to Wimbledon tomorrow morning, and if I don't wimp out, I'll be setting my alarm for 4am.
 

 Repairing London - 12.8mm at f/2.8, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/40 sec

 

Would you like it in a bag? - 11.1mm at f/2.8, ISO 400, Shutter speed 1/60 sec 

 

Miles Away - 5.1mm at f/2, ISO 200, Shutter speed 1/30 sec 


Filed under  //   Leica   London   monochrome   photography   street  
June 25 2010
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Crystal's Room

Crystal's Room - 5.1mm at f/2, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/250s

 

I found myself walking through Leicester Square early on Saturday evening. It wasn't exactly by choice, especially as it was really busy. Somehow I managed to catch a lull in the throng, so my own photography is calling me a liar, but that's OK. There was a free concert, a West End Live gig, on in the actual square which is to the left of this photograph. The fact that it was free might give you a clue as to my impressions of the talent. Before all of this I went to the Saatchi Gallery, again not exactly my first choice. I'd gone down to Sloane Square because I know there are a few other galleries on Kings Road that regularly exhibit really great photographer's work. Turned out they were quite dull from their description in the latest BLACK+WHITE PHOTOGRAPHY magazine, so I think next weekend may just be a double-header: Wimbledon on Saturday and a most excellent (honestly I'm not a fan of Bill and Ted) photography exhibit on Sunday.
 
A world away from the free live music was this young woman. Clearly setting her own agenda and while I'm not sure anyone can really claim to have a style that is uniquely their's in 2010, I'm still impressed by her lack of attention to what's in the fashion magazines that a lot of women seem to follow as if they simply couldn't dress themselves without them. That still fascinates me. That part of the human psyche that drives people to want to conform and feel accepted by wearing what everyone else has allowed themselves to be told to wear by fashion "experts". 
 
Anyway, enough of that rant. I used to have my hair long and buzzed on a number 2 around the sides and back, but not quite this extreme.  
 
I really do love this split tone I've applied to this photograph using Silver Efex Pro. It's at the bottom of this post, as usual for those who want to play around with Kodak FP4 Plus 125 film, or the split toner preset 3 that you see applied to this image. Just bear in mind that I've put it through a green filter, so you may want to neutralise that before you get started. Shot with my D-Lux 4, what else? For now anyway! 
 

Click here to download:
CrystalK-FP4+125GreenSplit.sep (3 KB)


Filed under  //   Leica   London   monochrome   photography   street  
June 21 2010
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This Is My Playground

This Is My Playground - 7.9mm at f/2.4, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/8 sec.

I came across some truly incredible long exposure black and white photographs some weeks back. Shot by Russian photographer Alexey Titarenko. You can view his portfolio at alexeytitarenko.com. I wish I could reproduce one or two images here for you to see, but that would not be cool, so please do go and have a good look at his portfolio and the other online gallery. It's called the Nailya Alexander Gallery. I like his City of Shadows series the most. 

These photographs, taken with my Leica D-Lux 4 of course, aren't particularly long in terms of exposure and look nothing like the others, but I wanted to share them, because well, they're the best I shot at the time, and I like them, for different reasons. I wasn't trying to produce photographs like Alexey's because I didn't have a tripod. I like this one above the most. It's cool how the woman just seems to have faded away from both sides, and it's quite extreme too. Reduced to just a whisper. I was on my way to St James Park and had just descended the escalators at Oxford Circus tube station when I spotted this advert on the side wall of the tunnel I was walking down. Again, it was crazy busy with people. I think I took about 10 shots as people walked across my point of view. Even though the shutter speed was constant for most of the shots I took, this photograph seemed to just turn out better. I was very lucky I didn't get anyone else in the frame, and it was only by a fraction of a second. It's quite a rush realising you only have a split second to get a (potentially) cool shot. 

Running for Nothing - 5.1mm at f/2, ISO 200, Shutter speed 1/10 sec.

With the photograph above I was trying to keep the structure of the tiling on the floor as close as possible to what you'd naturally perceive. Not the colours of course. We like to strip those right out. If you want to see what it looks like in colour you'll have to go to Baker Street. I wanted to keep some structure in the glare from the overhead lights reflected in the floor tiles in the top left area of the frame, but still keeping the rest of the floor looking flat and smooth, as you would see it when standing directly on it. I find my eyes circling with this photograph, which is what I like about it.

Both of these photographs have been split toned in Silver Efex Pro with the top photograph being processed with Ilford FP4 Plus 125 film and the shot above processed with Kodak Tri-X 400 TX Pro. You can find the Silver Efex Pro presets below.
 

Click here to download:
VansIlfordFP4+125Split.sep (4 KB)

 

Click here to download:
BakerStKTriX400TXProSplit.sep (4 KB)


Filed under  //   Leica   London   monochrome   photography   street   underground  
June 17 2010
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