Mononeil

By : Peter Cox

In March 2011, myself and two colleagues (professional photographers Roger Overall and Neil McShane) blocked off a day in our calendars. We met up at my house in the wilds of rural Co. Cork in the southwest of Ireland. Our goal was to produce a pilot episode for what we hoped would become a long running and profitable series of videos about the art and craft of landscape photography.

The equipment we brought to the table was pretty simple – a pair of Canon 5D Mk IIs (Neil’s & Roger’s), an assortment of lenses, some tripods (including one that had an actual video pan/tilt head), a field digital recording deck and a pair of wireless lavalier microphones to plug into it, along with a Rode Videomic to mount on one of the cameras as a poor man’s boom mike.

Read the rest of the article on The Luminous Landscape website here

In episode 16 of the podcast, Roger is missing in action so it’s up to Peter & Neil to carry the can. Sorry about that. We promise to return him (mostly) unharmed next week.

In this episode we discuss the troubles at Kodak and make comparisons between the failing film giant and Apple. This sparks a lively debate between the two digital photographers about the merits of digital vs. film.

Sorry about the Darth Vader sound effects. I had a new microphone which was not set to correctly. It will be corrected for the next post.

The reason Why I entered into the world of Photography and Black & White.

A Documentary film about ANsel Adams by PBS American Experience

This image was taken a couple of years ago but only last week did I process the RAW file into something I liked.

Why ?

The answer to that question can be found the the Circle of Confusion Podcast No 15.

New Raw programs are getting better at processing the files to bring out more detail in the shadows and highlight areas. This was one such image.

I was going back through my old files to load a few into a new library to test Lightroom 4 Beta. I never use a Beta program on my master files just in case. You never know.

Taken one morning on the east coast of Ireland in a place called Annagassan which is between Drogheda and Dundalk Co Louth. The problem with this image is shooting into the very bright sun. The camera sensor was not able to capture the large dynamic range in the scene ( Dynamic range explained here ). Even with the use of a couple of ND Grad filters I was still not happy with the final image.

That has changed a bit when I opened the image in Lightroom 4. I was able to bring out the detail in the shadow in the foreground and keep the highlight from blowing out. I am really starting to like this image. I like the way the light hits the water and the rocks in the foreground. It also has a nice calming mood to the image.

Here is The Circle of Confusion Podcast No:15

In episode 15 of the podcast, Neil admits he will get medieval on you if you steal his photography, Peter describes the logo for the 2012 Olympics with a reference to Lisa Simpson, and Roger admits to killing a bird.

We talk about SOPA and PIPA, and copyright legislation – but try to be helpful rather than boring. We also discuss gear and seminars.

I wanted to get a images of the mist and fog on The River Boyne but ended up with this image instead.

If you listen to the AudioBoo you will understand that the low level clouds worked against me today and kept the ground temperature high enough not to create the conditions I wanted.

However I think I came away with a cracker of an image all the same. This is a personal project of mine started a couple of years ago to photograph The River Boyne from Navan to Slane in Co Meath. Running along side the river is a pathway which you can walk. It’s a frequent place to see people walking their dogs, running and even cycling. For me it’s photography and I think there is another couple of years left before I’m finished this project. What then ? A book, an Exhibition. Who knows ?

But I will post some of the images as I go along and have about 15 in the bag already with another 3 from today to be added.

Here is The Circle of Confusion Podcast No.14

In this episode we talk about a Shoot by Roger for a Blue Chip Client, the death of Eve Arnold, Rogers new Love and much more.

You can now get the complete series of the podcast on iTunes now. Search for “The Circle of Confusion” and then subscribe.

OK I did Tweet that I had planed to goto Port Head but things changed……

Looking at the weather sat feed in the morning showed a bank of cloud moving in which looked like no visible sunrise. Also with the tide neither in or out the location was going to lack an interesting composition. Clogherhead and Port Head being right beside each other was an easy choice to make. Also knowing the position of the sunrise on the compass made for an simple walk along the shoreline to a spot I was at a couple of weeks ago while out for a family walk. I even took am Instagram from the very same spot here.

The above image was taken after the sunrise but that didn’t matter and the clouds on the horizon but a stop having any visible light shine on the foregrounds rocks so I changed the composition slightly and used the rocks as a lead-in to the image. I also darkened down the shadows to give a little extra mood to the image.

I have also included an AudioBoo form the location below and a iPhone snap of my camera setup above. You can see the LCD viewfinder, Bubble level, Geared head and ND grad filters. I had to use a 0.9 and 0.6 ND Grad together to give 5 stops of exposure to help stop blowing out the  bright highlights in the sky.

I will be embedding a quick 1-2mins AudioBoo with all images posted from now on just to give you a little extra info so you can listen to while to view the image.

The Circle of Confusion

Podcast No 13

Dragons and Polar Bears

In episode 13 of The Circle of Confusion, Peter discusses his recently announced Arctic workshop for 2013, Neil meets a dragon on a mountain, andRoger has nothing. All three discuss their own favourite photographs of 2011 and they talk about remarkable videos filmed in remarkable locations.

I love Maps.

I use them all the time for my homework when I’m going to a new location.I have nearly the complete coastline of Ireland covered with the OSi Discovery Series 1:50 000 scale maps. However I also use these hand painted maps by Richard Chandler from Fir Tree Maps.

The map above is the one of The Iveragh & Dingle Peninsulas and along with the Beara Peninsula & South West Cork map I would use the most and stay in my camera bag. I love the 3D effect of the mountains which gives me a better understanding than the normal map relief features.