Chateau Ribagnac virtual tour - live!

I am delighted to announce that the virtual tour I shot for Colette and Patrick at Chateau Ribagnac, near Limoges, is now live. This was shot last September and after a winter hibernation, things have moved quite quickly to bring the tour to their website. I must admit that I probably spent far too much time creating my version of the tour but that time, I believe was very well spent as the final rendering is a cut down version that uses a number of the graphics I created. The process of recoding the movies, whilst rather repetitive and time consuming, was quite straight forward and all was running on the Chateau's server without any hitches and the tour pages fit the existing site well and the integration works.

It will be interesting to see how this is received and how useful it is to potential visitors and I'm sure Colette and Patrick will quiz future guests on exactly this subject. We will be staying at the Chateau en route to the South of France in July and we will no doubt have a few things to say about this and everything else!



Whilst with the family, one of the images they wanted to updated was their family group image to show their new arrival Gilberto and how the girls have grown and I suggested matching the original pictures composition. All gathered in the Chateau's doorway and a wonderful late afternoon ray of sunshine lit the group and I helped Mother Nature with a little SB800 flash off camera. The screengrab above shows the original and the new image that will be added to the site very soon.

Macro mode

One picture I like to shoot towards the end of a wedding is a macro shot of the couple's rings. This of course, means prising the rings from (sometimes) swollen fingers and I choose a suitable table area away from the dancing and crowd. I use a specialist Sigma 105mm macro lens that yields great results but is limited to the long lens look. It also means I have to change lenses and tie up a main camera - something that I nearly got caught out with on Saturday evening. 

Fiddling with the Canon G9 as I love to do, I tried a few macro shots - as can be seen above. The results are stunning, especially as one can vary the focus point to wherever you want it on screen and to match your composition and shoot wide - 35mm -  macro images. The other great advantage is that this could be a stand alone macro camera that would be quicker to use and not tie up a main camera.

Like Marmite . . .

You either hate it or love it, just like the veg extract - Ryanair offer unbelievably cheap travel to a vast number of close and far European destinations and as long as you accept and play by their rules all should be fine and as expected . . . The first Ryanair experience was when I flew to Limoges, to shoot a wedding at Chateau Ribagnac and I was clobbered for £60 extra on the way out and €90 on the way back and I was on a fixed fee deal and couldn't charge the client! As you can imagine, one learns very quickly and even though I tried to ditch a few items for the return flight, I still incurred their rath! 

Our next flight with Ryanair was to Krakow, Poland and using the hard won experience we as a family, packed carefully to avoid the dreaded excess baggage and successfully avoided any charges. As you all know, I always like to give credit where due and I must say, that all Ryanair flights, so far have been on time, and I hope this continues as I fly to Belfast on Friday to see Muriel and install a new iMac for Frank Senior. Cost of the flight with hand baggage only (a first flight experience!) including taxes, surcharges and bending over levy is £11.98!!! We all remember in the 80's, if we secured a return flight to London/Belfast for £150 with BA or BM, we thought we had a bargain! Times have changed for the better - flight wise anyway! We have since traveled with Ryanair a number of times to Belfast and Limoges and as we now know the rules, flights have been on time and (thankfully) uneventful.

The best bit of this weekend in NI will be a personal drive back through the Mournes on the Saturday - watch for (hopefully) some spectacular images.

A quick note about the lead picture above . . . this was the original Quaker School in Northern Ireland, sited at Brookfield, between Lisburn and Moira and as you can see. it has unfortunately fallen into disrepair. When I shot this last year, I disturbed an old boy and his yappy dogs, who lived in one of the adjacent houses and he was able to give me some background information. This house was in fact the Head Masters' residence with the adjacent house in almost as bad repair as the school behind. My Grandmother's family attended Brookfield as staunch Quakers, with my Father and his two brothers attending Friends School in Lisburn as Brookfield closed and transfered to Lisburn. My Father showed me Brookfield many years ago and the sight of its tower on the hill stuck with me through the years and it has taken a couple of trips back and a few infuriating U-Turns on the main road with Muriel to finally track it down - it was worth the effort. 

Like valleysite.co.uk, Brookfield could be so much . . . a little bit of vision and a sh*t laod of money could restore this courtyard and old school to something special.

Unfortunately, according to the old boy I talked to that afternoon, things may have deteriorated too far, floors have collapsed and the roof is shot. As with my bigMAC recently, I hear the phrase, "uneconomical to repair" and another priceless (to some of us) piece of history, quietly disappears. Such a pity but not unexpected as the Quaker community in Northern Ireland have other things on their mind but, still a missed opportunity.

I might take a detour to check on the disrepair of Brookfield this weekend as I feel it won't be around for too much longer - such is progress . . . 

HDR imaging - again!

As some of you may remember, I shot a number of test High Dynamic Range images (HDRi) for one of the top retouching studios in Central London. All exciting stuff and thoughts of moving in a different photographic direction almost materialised but as usual, nothing came of it! Naturally, my ears prick up at the mention of HDRi and the above reworking of a dusk picture of One Great George street is a very recent example. As usual my approach is to use a stated workflow but to add in my own techniques and twists to try and create something more . . .

The above image consists of an eight frame stitched panoramic, processed three ways through LightRoom, then combined as an HDRi in PhotoShop and then combined with the dark and original renderings of the image back in PhotoShop. Finally, I reveal and balance the image with masks.

There is something here and I'll have to get the ass in gear and get out at dawn or dusk and shoot some architecture to create some raw material to work from. As usual, I find it hard to make time for this sort of project, due to family commitments and the potentially awkward hours but as sunrise is stupidly early at this time of year and I would be shooting an a hour before - it could work. I'll need to work out the timings, locations and logistics and try not to get arrested at the same time!

Exploding tomato and wonderful British weather

As the title and picture suggest, I had an interesting run in with a roasted tomato at this weekend's wedding. Having secured my main course I walked the short distance from the marquee to the Bride's parent's home and kitchen and settled to enjoy the food in relative peace. The rack of lamb was delicious and the accompanying vegetables superb, until I cut into the second tomato that immediately exploded in true cartoon style, peppering my white shirt and tie with seeds from collar to waist! Thankfully I was able to instantly wipe my tie that seems to have survived unmarked but the white shirt was another matter. As most of you know I carry multiple shirts to allow a change through the long working day and Saturday was no exception and thankfully the clean shirt was still in the car, so no real panic. Lesson to be learned - leave the tomatoes next time!

As it's a Bank Holiday in the UK this weekend we are guaranteed to have the worst weather possible and this weekend has not disappointed! Thankfully Saturday was clear and sunny in Essex for the entire day although the wind was strong throughout and several hats disappeared over the hedge and veils and dresses had minds of their own. This wedding was such an outdoor event that there was no plan B - all walked to and from the Church to the Marquee and drinks reception on the lawn and all formal pictures were shot in the back garden. The day would have been ruined and very different with wet weather!

As I returned home from Essex at about 130am on Sunday morning, I could feel the first drops of rain arrive and it has been pretty wet ever since, as I write this on Monday morning . . . The weather was fine for the wedding and pictures and that's what's really important!