Black Grouse or is it?

Taken by Geraldine Davey using her D200 with 70-300mm/4-5.6 VR lens, Sophie made a noise to disturb him from his meal and he obligingly flapped his wings.

Magnum Photo

Picked up the link to the Magnum site from chrismorephotos&grafix
So thought I'd give the old agency a plug with a "PrintScreen" of its front page.

Nikon FM2N

The first FM2N I snapped up, and fitted with this bashed 50mm/1.4, was a chrome model. I parted with £175 for that camera in 1992 at Leeds Photovisual in Birmingham.
It was my main camera for the next four years of building up my photojournalism. I used it for sports pictures published in a myriad of local newspapers as I created a portfolio.
In 2010 I returned to mainly using film for my own work and alternated between my F100 and Rolleiflex. But both are weighty compared to the sublime FM2N.
A month ago I spotted this mint condition black FM2N in Cameratiks, Morningside Road, Edinburgh. Patrick, the proprietor added this neat Nikon strap and again I spent £175.
The first rolls of Tri-X from it were great as you'd expect from a virtually unused machine.
Hillwalking last weekend I handed it to a stranger to take mine and Geraldine's picture,
"What a lovely sound," he said as the shutter went off.

Kodak Tri-X (2)

Another shot on the Nikon FM2N with Tri-X + Orange filter on a nice day looking down the Leadburn Road towards the hills above Peebles.

Kodak Tri-X

Shot on Kodak Tri-X 35mm, using my Nikon FM2N + 28mm lens and orange filter, 1/250th f11.

Edinburgh's Royal Mile

A former colleague has spent much of his leisure time photographing the goings-on along Edinburgh's Royal Mile. He is now so well recognised as a street festival photographer that he is to fly out to Dubai next week to be the official "street photographer" at a festival there. No doubt he'd have something to say at this image. I liked the view of this couple enjoying the pictures on their LCD outside this tourist trap shop.

A Wedding Snapper Snapping

Everyone who has viewed this wedding photographer at work has asked:
"Was the bride happy with this shot?"
I was out and about with the trusty Nikon FM2N and some Tri-X when I happened across this guy at work on a Saturday afternoon.
At first I thought he was using a 5D MKII and shooting video but no this was a still.

Ansel Adams The American Wilderness

At Peebles' Charity Book Sale on Saturday I picked up a mint first edition of this beautiful coffee table book for £10. I'm not a great Ansel Adams fan as I prefer my landscapes to have some human interaction, such as rock climbers halway up El Capitan or Half Dome, rather than just be pretty pictures.
This is probably why my first Yosemite book was Galen Rowell's "The Vertical World of Yosemite." Also John Cleare's "Rock Climbers in Action in Snowdonia" from the 1960s takes some beating for gritty black and whites.
In modern large format photography of British mountains Gordon Stainforth's series are as good as Adams with the benefit of comprehensive shooting notes.
For something a bit more basic W A Poucher's Guides, mostly shot on early Leica's are quite inspiring.

Painting Colours in B&W Using Photoshop Elements

Painting in Layers to add colour to a Black & White:

I have opened a colour image and converted it to B/W(Enhance>Convert to Black and White).

To add colour to the black and white image and make the car blue and the driver’s helmet red. Layer>New layer name it colour. Change the layer blending mode to Color in the drop-down menu.

Select the brush tool from the tool box and set the background colour to blue or any other color you wish.

To change the colour of the brush click on the squares at the bottom of the toolbox, the default is black and white. The foreground colour is ontop the background colour underneath. Clicking on the foreground color opens a color picker window.

Using the brush tool paint in the blue colour on the car body, I used a brush size 100px, opacity at 100%.

                          

It doesn’t matter if you go over the edges as the  next step is to use the eraser to rub out those bits.

The final stage with this image was to set up another new layer and repeat the above process to paint the driver’s helmet red.

Final Picture:

Panasonic GH2

Max's latest camera and the latest one to our household! The Panasonic GH2, he chopped in his Canon 7D on ebay to get this so here's hoping it's better for video.

Unable to use as yet as the lens adapter for Zeiss has not arrived.