Beyond the obvious

Candid portrait of Willy. Click on the image to see a large version. Before working on the portrait of Willy above I spent an afternoon desk bound carefully retouching another portrait in Photoshop. It got me thinking about how many hours I spend working on images in front of the computer. The conclusion: way too many! All around us we are inundated with images that strive to portray human perfection, from the sublime to the ridiculous in some cases. Just take a look at Photoshop disasters to see what I mean. How many books, articles, tutorials are there showing you how to smooth skin, remove the faintest wrinkle, whiten the eyes, change the jaw line and the list goes on till nobody looks like themselves anymore in a photograph. Well I'm declaring myself out of that particular race for unnatural perfection. Keep it real, raw and natural. If you've got laughter lines it's because you earned them and you should be proud of them. As for the photography: get it right in camera...

The Abbey ceiling on the Mont St Michel, Normandy, France presents and extreme exposure challenge. Do histograms on your camera's LCD really matter and what benefits could you derive from understanding your histogram? First though, what is a histogram? At it's most basic level it is a graphic representation that uses a bar graph to show the proportionate distribution of the pixels in your image, ranged from black on the left to pure white on the right. In other words the bars that peak the highest in your histogram show that there are a lot of pixels with that particular tonal value in your image. If most pixels are on the left of your histogram your image is mostly dark. If on the other hand the longest bars are on the right then most of your picture is bright. Simple. So if the bars are all heaped up on the right hand side then your image is 'clipped' in the highlights, which means there are tones of pure bright white. Another phrase commonly used is that you have are...

Book covers featuring photographs by Magda Indigo. Click on the image to see the large version. Today publisher Harper Collins officially launched three books, Romeo & Juliet, Pride & Prejudice and Wuthering Heights, all featuring book cover photographs by Magda Indigo (aka my dear wife). Needless to say I'm rather proud that her images were chosen for these classic novels. In the last three months Magda's images have been chosen for seven different books by a variety of international publishers. With the quality of her work she deserves every success in my opinion, and it seems that some pretty renowned art directors in the book publishing industry agree. Anyway I wanted to share this little bit of news with you and take the opportunity to brag about my favourite photographer, who I just happen to be married to. If you'd like to see more of her work head over to our website www.indigo2photography.co.uk and there are links from her portfolio page to a lot of her...