@WhyArai depends upon how much @jameswilson1983 will pay for my silence. Here he is concerned about flying
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Digital Publishing - What Could Possibly Go wrong?
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Regular readers will know that we’re big Capture One fans, using it as our weapon of choice for creating clean files with good details. However, many people still regard Capture One as simply a RAW file converter and not a stand alone image processing application in it’s own right. I know many Capture One users who still output a fairly flat file and then spend a significant amount of time in Photoshop. While it make take a little time to learn, Capture One does a better job, in my view. This walk through video by Phase One specialist Peter Eastway does a good job of showcasing some of the image capabilities of Phase One’s software, taking a flatly lit shot of a bird and making it far more dynamic, while still remaining faithful to the base subject.
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Do you have a freind like Walter?
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If you’re into Porsche, the 911 in particular, you may well have heard of writer and Porsche magazine editor Philip Raby. His passion for the 911 probably surpasses even mine, which is saying something. These days, he’s running his own Porsche consultancy business, supplying advice on buying all types of Porsche in the UK and beyond. His eBook guide, titled ‘You Can Drive a Porsche’ approaches ownership in a very fresh way and it explains a car owning methodology that I’ve wholeheartedly supported for many years. That is, that the single biggest expense in car ownership is not maintenance, fuel or insurance, but depreciation. Remove, or minimise, that element and you suddenly find car ownership a lot less painful. Apply that to Porsche ownership and you have a winning formula. [click to continue…]
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Whether you’re fresh out of college or an established freelance writer / photographer / cameraman or any other avenue that relies on your ideas for a result, this is a great video to watch. It’s a presentation by writer Neil Gaiman to a university arts class in 2012. I must thank Chris Jones from Guerilla Film Maker for the heads up. The main reason I’m writing about it here instead of just pointing you to his blog is because I think it’s an inspirational speech and one that’s good to refer back to when the clients are way past 60 days, you’re staring at a blank page or a dull photo scene and you’re wondering “Why on earth do I do this?”
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I first saw Goldfinger as a small child, thought it was really cool to be allowed to stay up so late. And that was it, I’ve been a Bond fan ever since. The days of double entendre are long gone, along with Roger Moore’s amazing eyebrows. In it’s place, the gritty, tough, Steve McQueen like character played by Daniel Craig. It’s been four years since a Bond movie, with delays from MGM’s difficulties making it seem longer.
Yes, I’ll be going to see Skyfall, yes, I’m glad it’s not in 3D and yes, Mr Graig is certainly the Bond of his moment.
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As global online writing grows more prominent, as opposed to country-specific traditional print writing, I’m considering the important question of which language to write in. Before you all think I’m incredibly intelligent and multi-lingual, let me just stop you. I’m not. I can speak enough German to avoid being arrested and enough French to buy Mussels and white wine. For Italian, I just wave my arms around a lot.
I’m talking about what George Bernard Shaw called “Two countries separated by a common language.” British English and American English. In particular how it relates to automotive writing for North American readers and British readers. There’s a lot to think about.
There are the obvious things that spring to mind, such as Tyre or Tire, Colour or Color. But these are fairly simple, obvious terms that pale into insignificance when it comes to other aspects, some quite fundamental. America has very different words for many, indeed most, car parts, the roads they drive on and even the act of driving compared to the UK, so if you’re writing for a global audience, [click to continue…]
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The image of Sir Stirling Moss and the beautiful blonde model continues to generate traffic to my inbox, with quite a few people asking how to buy a print for framing, with the odd request for a shot with Sir Stirling removed, just the model, thank you…
So in response to a demand that I hadn’t actually considered may be there, here’s your chance to own a copy of that image. Printed on metallic photo paper at a generous size of 20″x30″, the prints can be ordered online and shipped globally. This size will also make framing very easy, from a simple WalMart type frame, to something from Ikea or even a custom framing service will all find this dimension simple to cater for. Click this link, or the image below.
Sir Stirling and That Blonde - Now In Print....
PLEASE NOTE. The images you’ll see in the gallery have a watermark on them, but this will not appear in your print. The title text and the border do appear on the image.
Ordering is simple. Just click the thumbnail to display a larger preview, then click ‘licence or buy print’ to add to your shopping cart, then follow the instructions to the checkout. Payment is via a PayPal gateway, but you DO NOT NEED to have a Paypal account to use it, you can simply enter your credit card details and pay online without creating a PayPal account. We can ship to pretty much most countries and you’ll receive your print within around one week if in the USA and two weeks for the rest of the world.
There will be more prints added to the selection based upon my personal favourite images, but if you see an image you’d like to order a print from, let me know and I’ll see if we can arrange it.
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So, those of you (and there were a great many) who read my previous post about the Stirling Moss and the Blonde stolen picture may well be wondering what on earth happened after the dust settled. Well here’s the story…
Within hours of the post going live UK time, Jalopnik in the USA were in my inbox with a big apology. My first thoughts were, “Here we go, another cut n paste, boiler plate response”. But no, this was from Jalopnik editor Ray Wert with some interesting info. It seems that Jalopnik know full well how Flickr works. And indeed how copyright and intellectual property works. You see, they’d seen the image on Flickr, with All Rights Reserved on it. And indeed, they contacted the owner of the Flickr image page, believing he had the rights to the image, Ray asked for permission. And it was forthcoming….
Yes, it's my image....
So Jalopnik, quite rightly, thought that they were publishing totally within the law and showcasing what they thought was a great shot, giving credit to the great Mr Galanos. Only, of course unknown to them, they were getting stolen goods.
The second interesting part of the story is that several other photographers contacted me with tales of similar experience with Mr Galanos and his liberal attitude to other people’s work. They also had issues with him and had to contact Flickr to get him pulled into line. So if you’re a photographer, you might like to check out his feed and see if there’s anything there belonging to you.
As for Jalonilk, like me, they seem to be glass half full guys. Editor Ray came up with an offer to run the image again, this time with a fully paid up article from me telling the real story of the picture that day, the bright red 250F Maser, the gorgeous blonde, the sunshine and Sir Stirling.
I’ll drink to that…
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Click here to read. Sadly, no..
I’ve written before about how I feel video is so important [click to continue…]
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An interesting shoot last month via my friends at Ice Driver in Sweden was this newly refurbished hotel. Bruket is based in the hamlet of Mitandersfors, in a mountain area to the west, literally on the border with Norway. Purchased by 2003 World Rally Champion Petter Solberg, the hotel is a traditional log timber building, the type I’m very fond of. It’s refurbishment included the traditional redwood colour exterior and pastel shades inside.
Indeed, were it not for it’s commercial stance, Bruket would probably make a really nice homes and interiors feature at some point. Certainly, this particular part of Sweden is populated with a great many timber homes of considerable age and significance, including some that wee a refuge for the King of Norway and Norwegian resistance fighters during World War Two. There’s a whole raft of ideas for interesting stories in the small area.
The week leading up to departure and we’re constantly checking Weather Pro for the nearest town of Torsby. It’s showing dull, overcast [click to continue…]
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Russell Bulgin - Ayrton Senna, Rally Driver
In it, Mel tells the timeline of his own career, from a student writer in Tazmania, all the way through to becoming editor of Car magazine and other very well known titles.
It’s around 19 pages of A9, so grab a coffee and read it, as he reminds us of some of the great automotive writers over the last four decades and analyses what it is, or was, that made them so successful. He touches on Jeremy Clarkson’s argumentative style of writing and what inspired him to take that route, plus stories about David E Davis, Steve Cropley and LJK Setright.
As a young student at college in the early 1980′s, I can recall reading many road trip stories and test reports, being inspired by the writing of Car Magazine and Fast Lane. Somewhere in the attic, [click to continue…]
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Back in 2008, there was controversy on Teesside when a selection of ex-US Navy warships arrived for disposal. Controversy due to the fact that while they were bringing work to the area, they also brought along a significant amount of Asbestos as part of their structure. This shot is what I call a ‘target of opportunity’. Not a planned shot, just grabbed in the process of shooting another client’s project.
Ghost ships - Ex- US Navy ships awaiting dismantling on Teesside.
These types of shots often present themselves when positioning for a shot, whether flying fixed wing or helicopter, so it always pays to have the camera wide awake and ready to shoot. I’ve not flown over that location in a while, so not sure what’s left now. For those interested in the technical details, shot on the Canon EOS 1DS, with 70-200 f2.8IS telephoto.
As for the ships, as far as I know, the company eventually got permission for the work from the local authorities and they were broken apart and disposed of.
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Sorting through some recce shots for some house and property features, I stumbled across this shot. Taken in Sweden a couple of years ago on a recce for a project that didn’t progress, it’s an odd looking object.
Guess The Object?
But what is it? It was free standing, situated in the central hallway / staircase area of an old Sweden house, formerly the residence of a timber mill foreman. Despite being made from timber in the traditional Swedish style, the house dates back to the 1800′s. I love the feel of traditional log and timber homes, the have a natural warmth in winter that I find relaxing, yet are [click to continue…]
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Just a very brief post to share this with you. This is a beautiful, short and thought provoking commercial. Far too often, road safety commercials are dictatorial and accusing. This one by TV commercial director Roni Kliener makes the point very well.
Glassboy from roni kleiner on Vimeo.
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So today, this is a personal post. I’m feeling cross and also depressed. I’m generally a pretty upbeat kind of person, not given very often to the ‘glass half empty’ attitude. Whether I’m working on location or just going about my day to day stuff, I think that life’s too short. I’m a glass half full kinda guy.
EDIT – after reading this, take a look here at how the Jalopnik guys stepped up to the plate and sorted this mess and how they were also victims in all this
So this week, someone gave me the heads-up on a new way of tracking unauthorised images. With time to spare, I used it. And was dismayed. [click to continue…]
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… was the headline for this feature on a car I had fond memories of. Back in the 1980′s it was a quick machine, holding class records at pretty much every speed hillclimb course in the UK, driven by Tony Bancroft. Total 911 Magazine gave me free reign to write about the car, then and now, once I’d tracked down it’s current owner.
911 Turbo double page spread.
It’s great to see images used large and T911 designer Neil Freestone did a great job, with three full bleed DPS pages. Watch out for it on a race circuit in the UK or France this year and read the full story in Issue 84 of the magazine.
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This shot could quite easily be mistaken for something it’s not. Shoot south into the sun in the early part of the year, make sure there’s a power station chimney in the shot and you have the perfect aerial stock picture for use in greenhouse gas stories and many other topics. But that’s not the full story.
This is what’s known as an inversion layer. An inversion is a deviation from the normal change of an atmospheric property with altitude. It almost always refers to a temperature inversion, i.e. an increase in temperature with height, or to the layer (inversion layer) within which such an increase occurs. An inversion can lead to pollution such as smog being trapped close to the ground, as you see here. So yes, what you’re seeing is indeed polution, though it’s not all from the power station, instead it’s a whole soup of stuff created by all of us going about our daily lives. Because of the inversion, none of the polution can escape and it’s trapped until a weather front moves in.
Inversions are the bane of the life of aerial photographers. Not always apparent to a casual bystander on the ground, it can sometimes take some explaining to The Client when they’re enjoying some sunshine and call to ask how the aerial photography they commissioned is coming along.
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It’s hard to believe that just a few months ago, we were sitting in some sunshine photographing this car. It’s a genuine ALMS series car from 2002, finding refuge in the UK as a track day car and potential fun investment by it’s owner. Watch out for it on track days in the UK this summer.
First published in Total 911 Magazine, the car attracted fond memories from North American readers. As I’m archiving away some material, with grey clouds skidding over the rooftop, it feels like it’s going to be quite a while before the sunshine is out and we’re able to venture out to some of the places we’ve planned this year.
Still, we’ve Classic LeMans to look forwards to and if we can manage it, I’ve a sneaky need to visit Tour de Ramparts in Angouleme,an event I’ve heard big things about in recent years. Roll on summer.
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