iPhone Long Exposure at Durdle Door, Dorset

Headed down to Durdle Door in Dorset the other week; just over an hour away so not a long drive, but wow … what a great place.

I met up with my friend Steve Healey with the intention of photographing the sunrise but lack of local knowledge put a stop to that. Little did we know that there’s a gate preventing access that doesn’t open until 9am BUT you can take a short coastalwalk from nearby Lulworth Cove to access the beach and the famous arch … didn’t know that until later in the day though.

Still, we drove off for a while to grab a coffee and came back an hour or so later and got down to take some photographs; Steve with his Fuji and me with my iPhone and SmallRig combo.

Here’s my favourite; a 5 second long expsoure that was taken using the Lightroom Mobile App camera and a quick edit in Lightroom CC and Photoshop …

5 TIPS to INSTANTLY IMPROVE your PORTRAITS

GREAT Portraits start with the person in front of the camera feeling relaxed.

BUT how do you help someone to be relaxed?

Here's 5 ways that I use ALL the time and work a treat!

VIDEO CONTENTS

• Introduction

• Connection

• Slow Down

• Eye Contact

• At and Past

• Show Them

• Listen

• The 5 Tips

• MMFI

The 'Friends' Portrait Project

Yesterday … a great day with friends which also saw the start of our ‘Friends Portrait Project’ which, over the next couple of months is a project that will intentionally mean we get to know each other way more than we currently do.

Back Row (L to R): Ian Munro , Gerwyn ‘Gez’ Williams , Anthony Crothers

Front Row (L to R): Brian Dukes , Dave Clayton & Yours Truly

This is to be a very personal project that’s going be quite a ride with the conclusion seeing us each revealing a portrait , composite , design … whatever, that visually describes and explains who the person is, what they mean to you, and how you ‘see’ them.

What really makes that person tick? Why are they like they are? What is important to them? What is there in their past and present that makes them the person they are? Their values. Their motivations. Likes, Loves, Dislikes. Life events.

There are no rules. There’s no competition. This is a project with the sole purpose of not just knowing, but understanding each other, and an exercise that will make close friends, even closer.

Each and every part of the process is being filmed, with the final part bringing us together and revealing to each other, the pictures we’ve created.

The first part today … Who will Photograph Who?

And so it begins …

iPhone Long Exposure at Portland Bill

Since getting the new iPhone 14 Pro Max I’ve been getting out and about as much as possible taking photographs, and this was another of those ventures…

Portland Bill in Dorset; an iconic location with the famous Portland Bill Lighthouse …

I’m using the Lightroom Mobile App more and more. It has a great camera built into it that has both automatic and manual functions as well as a great Long Exposure function. In addition to this any photograph I take with it, is automatically synced with Lightroom CC which means it’s immediately available for me to edit on my desktop or my iPad.

Here’s a long exposure I made of the coastline at Portland with the Lighthouse behind me …

This is actually made up of a series of images that I took one after the other; a one second long exposure but with the waves in different places and each image blended in Photoshop after making the initial edits in Lightroom CC.

HOW I made these PORTRAITS: Complete Workflow including PHOTOGRAPHY, LIGHTROOM and PHOTOSHOP

In this video I cover EVERYTHING that I did to create these Portraits including: KIT , SET UP and RETOUCHING in Photoshop and Lightroom …

Here’s a list of all the kit I used to take the portraits, which you’ll also find on my GEAR Page …

• Westcott FJ80 II Speedlite

• Westcott FJ-X3 Remote Trigger

• Westcott Rapid Box Switch Beauty Dish

• Westcott 32” 2-in-1 Reflector

• Westcott X-Drop Poro Background Support

• Glyn Dewis Vintage Grey Canvas (for X-Drop Pro)

Do you own a BenQ SW or PD Display? If so, BenQ have a gift for you 🎁

Whether you’re a photographer, an Illustrator, a Graphic Designer , Video Editor , Retoucher … in fact no matter what you do within the creative industry , you will have definitely heard of Pantone; the World’s leading authority on Professional Colour …

Well, if you own a BenQ Display OR if you buy a new BenQ Display and it’s from their SW or PD range this means as part of BenQ’s Pantone Connect Premium Campaign, you now have One Year FREE access to Pantone Connect Premium which brings benefits to your smart device without the need for cumbersome and expensive equipment like a colorimeter …

Colour is everything … from setting a mood and atmosphere all the way to a feeling and that’s in everything … a movie through to a piece of material and accurate colour and colour that is interpreted correctly.

So what is Pantone Connect Premium

Well basically it enables you to measure and capture colours, be they in digital format or something physical, and by simply using the app you can disvocer what the matching Pantone Colour is from the thousands in their library, discover colour harmonies (i.e. what colours work well with others), create swatches, save them and use them in software like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and so on …

This makes working with colour so easy and accessible … and doing so quickly!

Pantone Premium Connect App open on my iPhone and on my BenQ SW321C Display

Imagine seeing a colour and thinking how you’d like to use the exact same colour in a design, maybe you’re looking to capture the colour grading in the Shadows, Midtones and Highlights from a movie you’re watching on your Display (BenQ of course 😃 ) OR maybe you’re restoring an old photograph and colourising clothing and skin tones. Pantone Connect Premium would enable you to very easily sample colour for the clothing and even better than that, the skin tone that you could then add in.

How do I get Pantone connect premium?

Easy! If you have a BenQ Display from the SW or PD range purchased in recent times OR you purchase a new one, all you need to do is to go to the link below fill in your details, BenQ display serial number and then you’ll receive a code (withing 5 days … although mine came through the same day just a short while later) and then you’re good to go 😃

Oh, also there’s some great videos on the Pantone Premium Connect APP and the Pantone Premium Connect website, there’s some grrat videos on there showing all the what, how, why etc …

Enjoy 😉

XENCELABS Pen Tablet … Still the WACOM KILLER??? 💀

After 3 months using the Xencelabs Pen Tablet ... is it still any good?

Is it still the BETTER option compared to Wacom?

In this video I give my honest feedback, point out customisation options and answer questions from the first video … even the mean ones 😃

Long Exposure Sunrise with my iPhone and Lightroom Mobile

This Mobile Phone Photography is addicitve!

A couple of weeks back I headed over to West Bay, Dorset to meet up with my friend Steve Healy and to catch the sunrise.

Taking only my new iPhone 14 Pro Max and SmallRig Univeral Holder, whilst Steve shot away with his Fuji XT-5, I shot using the Lightroom Mobile App and experimented with the long exposure settings.

This is my favourite from our time there before the rain came down and stopped play; still … we were recommended a great café the round corner so alls well that ends well 😃

West Bay, Dorset

iPhone 14 Pro Max
Lightroom Mobile App Camera (Long Exposure)
Edited in Lightroom Mobile on iPhone and iPad

Westcott CYBER SALE 2022

The folks at Westcott where I get all my lighting and backgrounds currently have their BIGGEST EVER Cyber Sale running across LOADS of their MOST POPULAR range…

I’ve bagged myself a new FJ200 Flash as well as 2 x Quick Mount S-Brackets which are going to make it so much easier using my Speedlites and Flashes with the Rapid Box Switch Softboxes…

The BIG thing I’m going to be pusghing myself with more and more this coming year is portability; how mobile and portable can I make my kit and set up with the portraits and content I’m planning on creating.

I’ve certainly found over the past 12 months that the more portable, compact and convenient I make my kit, the more I produce, and it’s using some of this new kit that really excites me about the possibilities ahead.

Looking forward to sharing some results and behind the scenes from some of the shoots I have coming up 😃

Sorry SONY but I tried the CANON R5 and LOVED IT ❤️

I’ve been shooting with Sony kit for a few years now, but recently Canon sent me some kit including the Canon R5 and bunch of RF lenses to have a play with to see what I thought, and well...