Imsticking's Leica D-Lux 4 Blog

Champagne Life

Champagne Garden

This is a series of images I wanted to share with my post entitled "How to Unwrap Christmas". They didn't quite fit with the colourful images of that blog post and I don't like overwhelming readers with bad images, so I thought I'd split them across two posts. As is typical with not blogging about images as soon as you're done importing and processing them, in my memory, scenes from the occasion seem to vanish which makes writing about them a challenge to put it mildly. This top image always makes me think of champagne and the styling is a deliberate attempt to hint at that, without shoving it in your face.

If Wishes Were Filthy Cars

So while viewing these images may well be the lowlight of your photography experience this week, I can at least point you to the highlight of mine. BBC 4 aired a documentary called "America in Pictures: The Story of Life Magazine" last night. It was hosted by Rankin and although I was skeptical before I started watching it, I was soon put at ease by the sight of a Leica camera. It was actually a very good documentary as Rankin tracked down some of the photographers who used to work for Life magazine and they were very candid and open about what it was like working in an era where getting a gig shooting film for Life magazine turned you into a celebrity. Some of the most iconic images of the 20th century were shot by photographers working for Life magazine, and I'd be lying if I said Life's black and white images of Marilyn Monroe weren't a strong influence in me picking up a camera and choosing to shoot black and white most of the time. There's something timeless about black and white. It removes some of the clues I guess.

Working Hard

Gramps

Filed under // Leica London Rankin photography

December 2 2011

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How to Unwrap Christmas

The Somerset House Christmas Tree

OK so, how often have you read this blog and thought, "wow! that was really helpful!". Never right? That's because this isn't a "How To" blog. So you can relax, I'm not about to try and show you how to unwrap Christmas. Why the title you may ask? Well, I was out shooting on Thursday after seeing the Amazon exhibition at Somerset House and I came across workmen finishing off the installation of the ice-rink shacks. They were also busy putting up a grotto so they could sell you stuff you didn't know you needed. To me it just looked like they were unwrapping Christmas. I hung around for a bit because I wanted to show you the Christmas tree they'd installed. There was a security guard standing in front of it that bemused me. Maybe some of the baubles really are coated in real gold? Who knows. Perhaps they're hiding the crown jewels in that box? I was waiting for the muscle to move, and once he did, the sun came out. Very. Very. Briefly. I cannot impress this upon you more. 30 seconds and it was gone.

Dont' you just love the colours in this image? And it's all 'au naturale'. No photoshop required to get these tones. I simply swapped out the colour profile of my Leica D-Lux 4 for the Leica M9 profile in Capture One PRO and nudged one of the dark sliders in the histogram tool a few increments, and this is what you get.

Covent Garden Piazza

It presents the work of Sebastião Salgado and Per Anders Pettersson and some of it is really amazing. Black and white images taken in the Amazon. Huge arial shots of rivers weaving through the jungle beautifully composed. One of my favourites is an action shot of a native chasing a monkey through the trees and he's in mid-flight. A really incredible shot. It's not the first time I've seen an exhibition in one of the ground floor sections of Somerset House and as soon as I walked into the room my disappointment surfaced immediately. For all over every print on the wall was the reflection of the sun streaming through the windows. I've seen exhibitions at the Embankment level and it was nowhere near as bad (there are no windows, of course). You have to wonder if anyone working at Somerset House has ever viewed anything that's gone up on the walls. What a waste. It really did absolutely spoil the entire experience for me. Could you just imagine if Apple did photography exhibitions? I wish they did. They'd use their super cool glare-free screen material and we'd all get to see what we came for. Brilliant!

Vanity Glare

Filed under // Christmas Leica London photography

November 18 2011

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The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2011

Friday Night Out + 1

I thought I'd get in early this year and go and see the finalists of the 2011 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery in it's first week of opening. I went on Friday after work and was pleasantly surprised this year. Last year I wasn't particularly thrilled by the finalists. My viewing is usually a 2 stage process. First I go through the exhibit and read every single writeup on every single portrait: it's context and the bio on the photographer. I have a look at the photo but I don't get wrapped up in the experience. I want to learn about the portraits and the photographers who took them. This often involves the very mischievous activity of photographing the writeup on the wall next to the portrait. You're not allowed to take photos but I allow myself the undeserved privilege of relaxing this rule for my own personal gain. Seriously, it's not my fault the print version of the exhibit only contains write-ups for the 5 grand finalists. What else, pray tell, am I to do? Let a golden opportunity to learn about some talented photographers, pass me by? Uh. No.

Strange Foreign Beauty

Once I've done my homework I circle the exhibition again. Yes, a lot like a vulture, sweeping in-between other viewers (with little or no exhibition etiquette - them, not me) and this is when I sense which portraits shake my soul. It's remarkable when it happens. The polite part of my mind says "move on so others can view the portrait". The guilt builds up, but "it's not an actual crime" I remind myself, and so the soul shaking continues. My take on the exhibit is interesting, mainly (for me) because some of the portraits I wouldn't post on this blog, never mind hang them in the National Portrait Gallery. Have a gander at the university portrait with the round frame and you'll understand the term "snap shot". Of course I'm sure the explanation that the subject was trying to re-experience his university days must have swayed the judges, but to me it was an instantly forgettable photograph. If only it really was. I circled a third time and then went up to the Victorian section because I enjoy walking around pretending that I own the place, and am nice enough to let the public in to view my private collection. I really could just move in to the gallery and never leave. #OccupyNPG anyone?

Hot Chef

Because I enjoy street photography and the challenge of capturing the lesser spotted homo sapien unawares, I do tend to find highly staged portraits too contrived to be taken seriously. So when a photographer has spent 6 months attempting to colour the subjects skin like porcelain or they've deliberately thrown a fluffy pink bunny rabbit onto the bed of a teenagers bedroom to make a point, I generally have to fight a gag reflex. No one said viewing photography would be pleasant or easy. Remember that as you fight your way to the front of a crowd only to discover freak photography. That rather popular attempt to win a photography competition by taking an unremarkable photograph of an unfortunate person who's suffered some physical disfigurement, and then passing it off as a great photograph. Would we be looking at this photograph if this woman's nose hadn't been ripped off her face? No. Personally I just see it as exploitation, and I don't think judges should be rewarding photographers for that.

Technicolor

If you've made it this far, well done! Millions haven't even seen this page on the internets. My favourite portrait of the exhibition? Tatiana and Belene from the series Venus & Furs by Yann Gross. I took these photos with my Leica D-Lux 4 across the road from the entrance to the National Portrait Gallery.

Filed under // Leica London National Portrait Gallery photography

November 16 2011

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I Close My Eyes and Slowly Dream Away

The Reverend Eric Martin

Let's begin with the obvious! The colourful versions of some of my images of Mr Big from a gig they did in London recently. If you want to read my write up on the gig, check out my previous post entitled "Mr Big Time".

It's taken me a while but I found more motivation once I realised there was a new version of Color Efex Pro 4 to trial. It's awesome! I would buy it in a flash if I was shooting more often. In fact, it actually makes me want to shoot for colour more too (a lot in fact), which can only be a good thing. It's really easy to go overboard with CFX filters. I don't recall the ins and outs of CFX3 but I don't recall you being able to layer filters on top of one another in a single session. So to see this in CFX4 was a BIG deal for me. I'd usually resort to using another tool. It's been so long since I used it, I can't even remember the plug-ins name (might be PhotoTools Pro). But in the end I found I was only really using it to sharpen and cross process images. With CFX4 I just found there were so many options with regard to light editing, that you could spend hours not even touching the colours at all, and still come away with unbelievably cool images. In fact I'm almost done with an autumn shot I took on the weekend, making it look sinister. I lot like a still from a horror flick. That's what I was going for, and I'll post that image soon. Feel free to download the CFX4 preset zip, or recipes as Nik call them, for 4 of these images at the end of this post!

Memories Never Fade

I really love how this image above of the band came out in the end. I spent about an hour on it on the train home one evening and when you get into those long contemplative processing moods you can really get bogged down, or just lose hope entirely. It took about 6 filters and although it looks like a simple split tone, it isn't. The spotlights are actually shining bright red and green. It's really easy to bump up the saturation on an image and make it pop. But I like to try and make images pop for other reasons. Like getting as close to the realistic tones I was seeing at the time (not hard with Leica gear, admittedly), or using desaturation and light.

Bass Slapped

Enough about processing though, because I wanted to encourage other compact shooters to get to a Leica Store, in particular the store in Mayfair, London, because last week I went along to a M9 Interactive Workshop, run on the day, by Edmond Terakopian. Brett also does them, so there are plenty of opportunities to get out and shoot with a Leica M9! The workshops are free, so why not? It was a baptism of fire, but a necessary one. Looking at my results, I don't think I had any problems with the manual focus aspect of range finder shooting. It's really not that difficult. And I think once you've become familiar with the camera and the style of working to the point where some of it just becomes automatic, I think you would get awesome results, like the pros. I found that I was suddenly having to use my left hand, for almost everything besides pressing the shutter release. That was a big change from a little compact like the D-Lux's. Everything with a D-Lux I do with my right hand.

A Little Too Deep

You get to shoot with an M9 and a 35mm Summicron lens. I was relieved to find the M9 is a LOT lighter when you take the Noctilux f/0.95 off and bolt on a smaller lens. The first time I ever picked up an M9 was during Brett's excellent intro workshop to the M9 I did last year and it had a Noctilux on it. I'm not sure, but it felt like the lens was much heavier than the camera. Anyway, with a more conventional lens on the M9 it really is a small camera. It was much lighter than I expected an easily comparable to my D-Lux 4. I've held my brother's Canon 5D Mk I, and I can honestly say I'll never own a camera like that. 'Ridiculous' is the best word I can use to describe the 5D, and then 'insane'.

I Close My Eyes and Slowly Dream Away

Click here to download:

Archive.zip (3 KB)

Filed under // Leica London Mr Big music photography

November 7 2011

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Mr Big Time

I went to an amazing gig last night. Mr Big having reformed with Paul Gilbert back on guitar and touring on a new album "What if...". I listen to Richie Kotzen too and I think his "Into the Black" album is stand out. If you manage to find his album "Slow", give the song "Gold Digger" a listen too. It's a real heart-felt "fuck you". I'm super glad Paul's back though. Some things were just meant to be. Call it Voodoo, call it mucka lucka honey... ;) Gig in-joke successfully deployed.

So I was waiting in the queue and heard someone ask the guy next to me if he'd heard any Mr Big stuff at all. I thought "what a crazy question". Long story short: There's another band that were named Mr Big, that only old English people have heard of. I know what you're thinking. I live in England, but I'm not that old. Really, I'm not.

We all filter in, and wait for the show to start. ETA 8:15pm, no support act. Perfect. Unless the support act was going to be Van Halen with Eddie actually being able to play the damn thing properly, I wasn't interested. A dream come true, to see Pat Torpey on drums just laying down the law. What a legend, and one of the very few drummers I aspired to being as creative as, more than a decade ago when I used to play.

Mr Gilbert was as funny as ever. His feigning ignorance when described as a phenomenon by Eric was worthy of a. Well let's just say, I've paid money to see professional actors who weren't that good. It reminded me of his guitar lesson videos and the presence / presents joke.

The band are as tight as they ever were. I was truly scarified. They even brought the drills with them! I knew they were never going to play a Racer-X tune but I found myself slipping into a hyper-speed solo trance from time to time. There was even time to say your prayers because the Church of Eric Martin was open for blessing all believers. And it seeems as though Mr Brian May of Queen is a believer. Billy Sheehan on bass was deflintely the crowd favourite when it came to introducing the band. When I see him do his crazy solos with both hands and every single finger tapping away on the fret board, I can't help but think, "somebody buy this guy some Nord gear!". I'm sure Mic Michaeli will hook you up Billy.

If you're actually here for the photography, and you haven't read my blog before, all these images were shot with my Leica D-Lux 4 and processed with Silver Efex Pro. I loved the evening and the images I was seeing on my Leica EV. Might take a few more photos in the coming weeks. Before winter comes and ruins it all again. And a last thank you to the four guys on stage for coming to England to play. It's very much appreciated. Some US bands *cough*Aerosmith*cough* just can't be arsed. Do buy these non-touring band's albums anymore? No. Oh wait, when was the last time they released a decent album? Hrmmm. Speaking of decent albums Mr Big's reunion album "What if..." has at least 4 killer singles if you ask me. How you gonna top an album like "Lean Into It"? Keep trying ;)

Filed under // Leica London Mr Big music photography

September 21 2011

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The Crushed Metal of Your Little Flying Machine

Tri-X Film - 12.8mm at f/4, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/1000 sec

I thought I'd share a few more photographs of the busker I watched play in Trafalgar Square a month or so ago. His look reminded me a lot of Morten Harket from A-ha. You can read my previous post entitled "I'm a Collector" on the circumstances surrounding my being in London that day. Those images where processed using Ilford film in Silver Efex Pro 1. I spent some time processing the 3 images in this blog post, again, with Ilford film. For some reason they just didn't look right. Even with a yellow filter applied (hoping to boost skin tone), the background was just far too light compared to the subject, and it completely threw the eye off into an area of the photos that was not meant to be the main focus of the composition.

Tri-X Film - 12.8mm at f/4, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/1000 sec

There can be real value in trashing something that just doesn't work and beginning again with a fresh eye or approach. That's exactly what I did with these 3 images. I've never really taken to using Kodak Tri-X film in Silver Efex Pro. It's quite a popular film choice with Leica shooters and even those shooting with digital Leica's like the new Leica M9-P, using Silver Efex Pro. You don't really need a £5000 camera body coupled with a £2500 lens to shoot cool photos, although sadly, you won't get that unmistakable look, but you will get pretty close with a Leica D-Lux 4, which these were shot with. So these images were processed with Kodak Tri-X 400TX Pro film in the Silver Efex Pro preset that can be downloaded at the end of this post. There's a hint of Selenium in them too.

Tri-X Film - 9.3mm at f/4, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/1000 sec

I don't recall the song this busker was playing when I took the photos, although I do know I'd never heard it before. Nevertheless, he could quite easily strum along to Bruce Springsteen's "You'll Be Coming Down". The track features Clarence Clemons on Sax, who sadly passed away recently due to complications from a stroke. The "Big Man" will be missed.

Click here to download:

MortTriX400TXProSel.sep (4 KB)

Filed under // Kodak Leica London photography street

July 6 2011

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I'm a Color Collector

Trent - 5.1mm at f/2, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/200 sec

I wrote a post recently, titled "I'm a Collector", about my trip to the Apple Store in Covent Garden London. It was a mercy mission. I went on a photo-walk while my MacBook Pro was in ICU, and posted a few black and white shots that I thought were least offensive. I said my next post would bring them into the color spectrum. Then a funny thing happened. I got a tattoo, and far too excited about it, to stick to my original plan. So after non-existant howls of protest from disgruntled readers, and to clear my conscience, I thought I'd post the color versions of them now.

Morten - 9.3mm at f/4, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/1000 sec

But seriously, have you seen the new Leica M9-P? No red dot and a new chrome finish, *swoon*. That and a 35mm Summilux f/1.4 ASPH lens and I'd be a satisfied Leica fan. As they say on the Leica product page "The new reference standard for Leica M photography" and "Perhaps the most versatile M lens". Which to me, just says "if you can only afford one lens, this is the one you'll get the most use out of". You can always do with more lenses, but living in the not-so-summery England I'd have to say a Summilux would be essential. Unless results with those larger lenses are different to what I get with my little DC Vario-Summicron on the front of my D-Lux 4. But then what do I know? Often I find that I have to sacrifice on the ISO just to illuminate the shot. #justsaying

Petra - 5.1mm at f/2, ISO 80, 1/160 sec

These images aren't straight from my D-Lux 4. They've been enhanced a bit in Photoshop, but just a bit. I have some free time to myself on Friday so I may go out shooting some more. Depends on the weather to some extent. Either way, I hope no one runs into me on the corner of a market street, coffee and camera in hand.

Filed under // Leica London busking photography street

June 22 2011

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I'm a Collector

Morten - 9.3mm at f/4, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/1000 sec

It feels like yesterday was the first real time I'd gone out shooting properly since last year. It may well have been, but it certainly wasn't planned that way. I'd been up till 1:30am trying to get my MacBook Pro, the machine I write these posts on, to boot up. The White Screen of Death, is what it's called, apparently.

Anyway, while Baltasar (a Genius at the Covent Garden Apple Store) was fixing my MacBook Pro, I wandered down to the National Portrait Gallery to see the Hoppé Portraits Exhibition. To be honest, I found the explanations next to the photographs more interesting than the actual photographs. The problem for me was that a lot of them just seemed out of focus *gasp*. Nevertheless, it was still very inspiring. And it made me want to go out and shoot more, buy a stack of newly published design books and create something unique.

Petra - 5.1mm at f/2, ISO 80, 1/160 sec

All of these photos where shot with my Leica D-Lux 4, and processed using Capture One Pro, and Silver Efex Pro. The top photograph reminds me a lot of Cecilie Harris' work. Not the composition of course, but the guys seems quite stylish and had model looks. The photo above gives me this swirling sensation when I look at it. Maybe it's just the walls. That photo was taken inside the Piazza Cafe in Covent Garden, London.

Trent - 5.1mm at f/2, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/200 sec

I'm tempted to bring these three photographs into the color spectrum in my next post, this one above especially. I love the look of the Ilford D400 Pro film I used to process it and I added a red filter just to boost the light and give it a slightly unnatural look. You can do the same, with the "FlyCollector" preset below!

Blogging inspiration provided by the Nine Inch Nails track "Collector".

Click here to download:

FlyCollectorD400ProSel13.sep (3 KB)

Click here to download:

PiazzoWaitressD100Pro.sep (3 KB)

Click here to download:

MortenHarketPAN-F+50.sep (3 KB)

Filed under // Leica London busking photography street

May 14 2011

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A Room With a View

'Central' - 12.8mm at f/2.8, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/1000 sec

This post goes out to anyone who's ever had a really poor view from a hotel window. I took this photograph above from the top floor of a bus just after we'd crossed south over Waterloo Bridge, London, and I was looking East as I pressed the shutter. Fleeting? Yes. Free, more or less, and I didn't have to wake up to it. Perfect. Unfortunately I will get to see it again. Nevertheless it's quite a site in color, as you can see from the image below. Quite realistic I think. Obviously because on close inspection you'll notice two labourers towards the the foreground of the photograph. One digging a hole, and the other expertly supervising him. No comment on the headline on the Sky advert, me being a McLaren supporter. Which reminds me, McLaren recently teamed up with Specialized to develop a road bike, the Venge, they are calling the fastest bike ever made. We're talking bicycles here. Perhaps they strapped it to roof-racks on the MP4-23 to perform the speed-test.

Back to photography, and I quite like the colors of this photograph, so it's in color below. What you're seeing is not straight from my Leica D-Lux 4. It's been enhanced a little. The black and white above is Ilford Delta 100 Pro film in Silver Efex Pro.

'Central' - 12.8mm at f/2.8, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/1000 sec

Before I got to Waterloo Bridge I was getting reacquainted with my camera on the bus, and although I was horrified to notice that I battle to even keep the camera on the horizontal plane after so long away from shooting, I did take one or two shots I don't mind sharing. I like the light around this guys beanie and again I quite like the colors so it's in color too. I've put it through my M9-ification process that I use Capture One PRO for, among other things, but other than that, it hasn't been photoshopped. The black and white has actually been processed with Kodak TMAX 400 Pro in Silver Efex Pro. It's not a film I usually use, but I was looking for something different, and think it worked really well on this occasion.

Caught on Camera - 5.1mm at f/2.0, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/50 sec

Don't forget to visit the Hoppe Portraits exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London if you can make it. It closes on the 30th May 2011. If you can't get there and you're a photographer, you only have 6 weeks to get an entry together for the Hoppe Portraits Flickr Competition.

Caught on Camera - 5.1mm at f/2.0, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/50 sec

Click here to download:

WaterlooViewD100Pro.sep (4 KB)

Click here to download:

BeanieBus400TMAXSel.sep (4 KB)

Filed under // Leica London photography street

April 16 2011

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Leaving Heartbreaker

Leaving Heartbreaker - 5.1mm at f/2, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/1000 sec

Leaving Heartbreaker - 5.1mm at f/2, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/1000 sec

Shot around the Notting Hill Gate area of London in the summer of 2010 with a Leica D-Lux 4. The Silver Efex Pro preset can be found at the end of this post.

I post it here and it sticks.

Champagne Life

How to Unwrap Christmas

The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2011

I Close My Eyes and Slowly Dream Away

Mr Big Time

The Crushed Metal of Your Little Flying Machine

I'm a Color Collector

I'm a Collector

A Room With a View

Leaving Heartbreaker

Ray Scott

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