Imsticking's Leica D-Lux 4 Blog

The Hand That Feeds

Prima 'paca

OK, so lets answer your first question first. They're Alpacas. They look a lot like the common dromedary camel because they share the same ancestor. I'll spare you the natural history lesson, mainly because I want to spare myself from the same. They're much smaller and better behaved than what we just refer to as a camel though, so quite popular. I didn't see a single one of them spit or foam at the mouth, and it's not as if they didn't notice me enough to get all riled up at the sight.

I've been threatening to post these images since my previous post "To Win a Bear" who's images were taken on the same day at a street fair in the town of Alton, Hampshire. "Where exactly were they?" I hear myself think one or two of you may ask. To the left of the war memorial in front of the Town Hall.

What you looking at?

Well, what you're looking at is the penultimate post here on imsticking.com. Don't get too excited, I'm not actually going to stop blogging about photography. I will reveal all about this in my next and final post here. I started this blog a little over 2 years ago purely as a personal extension to Twitter's 140 character limit, but soon became fascinated with the technical principals of photography, and even more so with visual composition. I find the ability to lead the viewer's eye through the art of composing and capturing moments in time, beyond my control, that can then be further developed before being presented to, or rather inflicted upon, an unsuspecting public, very satisfying. It's a wonderful way of implicitly defining your experiences in this world in a way that makes you feel as if your life has more meaning to you, than it does when reflecting on the often repetitive grind of daily life.

Burrow Down

Don't forget to get your entries in for the London Street Photography Festival's International Street Photography Award 2012. The deadline is Thursday 5th January 2012. The 1st prize includes an Olympus PEN camera and £2000 in cash. Oh and you get international recognition! Let's not forget that part, ha.

This will most likely be my last post of 2012, so I'd like to wish you all a very merry holiday season, and Christmas if you do celebrate, as well as a happy and healthy 2012. May we all live in peaceful times. Bloggin inspiration provided by the super talented Richard Marx with Christmas Spirit

The Self-Conscious Close-Up

Chasing The Hand That Feeds

Filed under // Hampshire Leica Street photography

December 23 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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Nothing Changes on New Year's Day

Nothing Changes on New Year's Day - 5.1mm at f/2, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/400 sec

It's 2011 and I've made my resolutions. Have you? Do you even feel you need resolutions or are you simply content with how things are progressing for you? I think that anything that motivates you to do some good in this world, is inherently a good thing. If that New Year's resolution guilts you into action, then great. Me, I'm excited about this new year. Excited about what it will bring, and what I'll make of the time (not making of what it brings, but I suppose taking, in a way). Life is for the taking. I think I've always been too introverted or polite to even realise that up until now. Greed is something that doesn't sit well with me.

But enough self-disclosure. The scene above was shot on Tottenham Court Road, London, in mid-summer 2010. I took it as a snap shot with my Leica D-Lux 4, while walking past. I couldn't believe my luck. The contrast between applying oneself, and not applying oneself screamed at me so loud I could no longer hear the traffic. It's easy to judge. It's human, but it's often not humane.

The Great Leica M9 Give-Away Contest

A new year can be filled with promise, but there are no promises of course. Much like The Great Leica M9 Give-Away Contest! Musician Seal has generously provided Steve Huff with his previous black Leica M9 camera body (worth $6559 US) as a prize to a competition who's rules are yet to be published. The competition is free to enter and it is open to everyone. So help spread the word! If you're a photographer, or you own a smartphone, check-out Seal's new photo-sharing site PicOrTwo. Hrmm, I wonder if an iPhone app for the site will be released or at least an API to hook into existing iPhone photo-sharing apps.

Exhibits

San Francisco - Henry Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century at SFMOMA until 30th January 2011.

London - Imagine: John Lennon by Tom Hanley at Proud Chelsea to 16th January 2011.

I haven't seen either, but I will definitely make the effort to see the, until now, unpublished photos of John Lennon by Tom Hanley in London. I love to see, what is often referred to by the media as, 'behind the scenes' photographs. Beyond the point where their access to someone usually ends. For me it's where the illusion ends too. I can't relate to illusion.

Blogging inspiration provided by U2's New Year's Day ♫

Filed under // Leica London contest exhibit photography street

January 1 2011

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"Mired In Denial and So Afraid"*

After reading Leica Camera's final blog post of the year, "Thank You For a Great 2010!", I thought I'd end 2010 on a what was a personal high note for me during the year: photographs from the photo-walk I enjoyed the most in 2010.

It was a friday after work on the 21st May 2010. England heading into summer (summer in England is only 2 weeks long ;), with the sun being kind to photographers and staying up enough after 5pm to make street photography something you can actually really enjoy. Winter it's dark by 3:30pm, so you either go out and shoot during your lunch hour (and starve — I have given this serious thought on occasion) or wait until the weekend. Of course you then have to keep your fingers crossed that it doesn't rain on the weekend. You see where I'm going with this? This is one of the reasons I haven't done much photography lately.

2010 will go down for me as quite possibly one of my most significant years on planet Earth. Not just because of photography and this blog, but for many other reasons too. I got to see Guns 'n Roses for the second time in my life, and this time right against the front barrier to have Axl singing "mired in denial and so afraid" from the song Madagascar ♫ , right to me. There I was, shaking my head at him. hehe. To hear Chinese Democracy live again after so many years, was for me, something really special. I know this isn't a blog about music or Guns 'n Roses, but I'd like to reflect a little on what went on in my life behind all the photo-blog posts. I'm not going to tell you everything of course. Getting to see Europe live was even more meaningful to me, because hey, I still listen to them after all these years, and it was a first for me.

I really enjoyed experiencing my first Apple store grand opening. You can read all about my experience in the post titled "The Largest Apple Store in the World Grand Opening". I attended two courses at the Leica Akademie at their Mayfair store in London. They were great, so thank you to Leica for running them and to Brett and Will Cheung RFPS for passing on their hard earned and valuable knowledge. You can read about the introductory M9 course I attended, given by Brett, in my post titled "Leica M9 Akademie Day (Camden Town Remains)".

Now onto the lowlights of 2010. I've thought long and hard about the merits of sharing this next piece of information, but enough time has passed and the good that may come from it, far out-weighs the bad. You only have to look at Lance Armstrong, to see what can be achieved – not suggesting I could achieve what Lance has, of course. On the 7th December 2010 I was diagnosed with Cancer. It was a huge shock, and I was devastated to learn how advanced it is. But without going into detail, it looks like I will bounce back. You simply can't describe the emotions that come with the highs and lows of the first few weeks of tests and scans and waiting for the results, that ultimately inform you of your fate. That time is almost over, and soon I'll be starting treatment. I'm yet to decide whether to photograph any of it, never mind share it. I'm not Lance Armstrong, so probably not. I'm not going to turn this into a Cancer blog. I won't pester you to donate to Cancer Research UK. But I may share photos I take while helping out at marathons and other events that help raise the awareness of Cancer. If you follow me on Twitter, you might hear more though.

And if you're still reading, congrats! Because the quitters won't read about how I plan to relaunch this blog in 2011 as Leicable.com. When? I don't know. Why? See above and I've outgrown the Posterous feature set. It all takes time though, and I have a lot of other important stuff on the go too. So there will still be blog posts on here, that's for sure!

Imsticking.com has gone from humble beginnings where it wasn't even a photo-blog with each post getting around 90 views. Looking back at the viewer stats in Posterous it's no surprise to me that the 2 most visited posts had nothing to do with me but everything to do with some else's success (and maybe google's SEO algorithm). To go from around 90 views a post to now getting over 20,000 views a post, leaves me feeling rather blessed. So thank you very much for reading, or just looking at the pictures. In particular order the most read posts were:

Have a great holiday season, and thank you very much for following my photo-blog.

*this is not true

Filed under // Cancer Leica London photography street

December 24 2010

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Pushing Forward Back

Pushing Forward Back - 6.8mm at f/2.5, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/160sec

I took this photo in the summer of 2010. I was actually trying to take a good photo of the bike seats, but sometimes you come across individuals that are only a few decibels away from crying out to be photographed. I think this guy was working at stall in Camden Market and was busy talking to another seller when he spotted my camera and made a beeline for the fame. I mean frame.

It was one of those images I'd taken, with my Leica D-Lux 4, but was stuck with a ridiculously large amount of contrast due to shooting in the shade and catching the sunlight in the background. So anyway, it's taken me all the rest of summer and autumn to process it. ha.

Now onto something I had nothing to do with. Something on the topic of composition in photography. Pierce Martin has created this really cool infographic of the Fibonacci Sequence (which is very closely related to the Golden Ratio & Rule of Thirds, and used heavily in photography) and asked me if I'd feature it on this photoblog. You can grab a full scale copy of the infographic at http://www.onlineschooling.net/fibonacci-sequence.

I've tried to export the Silver Efex Pro preset for this image I processed, more times than i'd care to remember. For some reason the plugin won't display the list of presets in the sidebar. I've restarted Photoshop. It's crashed. I've restarted my Macbook Pro. Nothing. I'll post the preset soon when things start to gel on my system.

Blogging inspiration: Pushing Forward Back - Temple of the Dog

Filed under // Leica London photography street theory

December 16 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 // Leica London kodachrome 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)

I post it here and it sticks.

The Hand That Feeds

The Crushed Metal of Your Little Flying Machine

I'm a Color Collector

I'm a Collector

A Room With a View

Nothing Changes on New Year's Day

"Mired In Denial and So Afraid"*

Pushing Forward Back

Gumball Raccoon and the Kodachrome Tribute

Incident At The Window

Ray Scott

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Cancer Support

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