We’ve moved to CVertigoPhotos.co.cc!

Yes indeed, we’ve moved.

I decided that having your own hosting and having access to a whole bunch of awesome plugins is kinda good, so new place it is.

You can find the new site, including all of the content originally posted here at CVertigoPhotos.co.cc.

See you there!

CVP Returns!

After many an exam and tense wait for the results, CVP returns to, well… CVP! Due to my being back, there’s a bunch of stuff that I’m hoping to do this summer, photography-wise.

No, not me. My brother and his mildly startling red suitcase make an appearance. Also, bright orange shoes.

First thing, eyes. Specifically, macro of eyes. I had tried this before with mirrors and a tripod, but had too many problems focusing to do it effectively. However, I now have a field monitor, which means I don’t have to mess around with mirror shenannigans. This should make the task of focusing much simpler.

Sadly, this flowerbox is no longer here. I sometimes wonder where it’s gone. Flowerboxthieves.jpg.

In addition, the summer has yielded another job. I’m not yet at liberty to say what exactly it is, other than that it involves some varied photography, including portraits and possibly a bunch of still life. Rest assured though, I’ll be posting about it if and when I can.

Stained glass at night. Unfortunately, not the most stable shot, and I suspect in-camera sharpening has ruined it a bit. I might try again some other time.

So, what about video? Currently, I’m not entirely sure. I now have the resources I need to feel at least reasonably confident of putting out a good quality video, but I’m not quite sure what kind of video to do. That said, a friend of mine might have a collab project for us to work on, so if it comes through, I’ll let you guys know.

On a side note, Valve recently began beta of their Source Filmmaker software, and that’s looking pretty interesting. I might try something with that, if I can.

Better than burgers produced by any other bodily appendage.

Finally, photography/AfterEffects tutorials. Ergh. I had wanted to do some up during December last year, but things got busy, and I had no idea where to start. I figure I should probably start drafting some plans for tutorials soon if I have time, but I fear things will get busy again and it’ll just be swept further down my schedule yet again.

I wish wandering around rail lines on foot were more possible. There’s often so many good shots to be had there.

Anyway, I have a fairly large number of photos I’ve accrued over the time I was free enough to photograph stuff but not free enough to type up blog posts. I’ll put them up as and when I can. I hope you enjoy them.

One World Week – Carnival

So I was called to help out last minute, because the One World Week people needed photographers.

President of Warwick Illusion right after performing a paper-cutting illusion.

All things considered, it wasn’t one of the better conditions I’ve found myself having to take photos in. The event started proper at about 7pm in the evening, so it was dark. It was also surprisingly cold, so my fingers were almost too numb to feel the shutter release. There were floodlights, but they were quite small, and set to strobe throughout the performances, meaning that I was restricted to taking my photos in time with the strobing. Throw in the crowds milling around and jostling me while I was working, and all in all, it was a somewhat challenging evening.

Took a bit of repositioning and stretching to get the flag in the background where it is, but it was totally worth it.

For pretty much the entire evening, I was working with my 50mm 1.4. Eventually, I had settings floating around a 1/100s shutter speed, F/1.8, ISO 800. It probably helped that I was shooting in RAW as well, so I could bump the exposure around a bit after the fact. Because I also figured I needed to be moving around quite a bit as well, I used a monopod instead of a tripod. Glad I did – there probably wouldn’t have been enough space for a fully extended tripod anyway.

If I recall correctly, one of the dancers from the Carribean Dance Society.

 Of course, the problem with photographing performances at night is that the use of flash isn’t a good idea, since the last thing you want to do is distract the performers. In that sense, the floodlights were important if any photos were to be taken at all.

The Warwick Devils, our university's cheerleaders.

But if there’s one thing that darkness does help – it’s long exposures.

One day, someone is going to keep their body still for half a second when they're spinning fire, and it'll be awesome.

 It’s been busy, but hopefully I’ll have more up at some point. Until then, have a nice day. 😀

Salmon, motorbikes and a photo long overdue.

I had a look through my semi-recent photos and found three photos that I thought I should put up. I’m not going to say too much for the first two. First, grilled salmon.

Grilled salmon, some of the best.

Second, just a photo I had of a motorbike.

It's like Malaysia, but with cleaner bricks.

And finally, the important one. This was a photo I took of my parents in London a month ago. It’s one of the best ones, so I thought I’d share it. Enjoy.

The graduated filter tool in ACR is awesome.

Happy New Year!

Those chairs are actually incapable of supporting a reasonably sized human being.

Just thought I’d just wish everyone a happy new year. So, happy 2012, everyone! Here’s hoping for a year of great light and awesome photos. I wasn’t in Central London to witness the fireworks close up, but it wouldn’t be much of a photography blog if I didn’t bring you at least -something-. So, here’s a token photo of the fireworks from my balcony with a 300mm Sigma. Enjoy, and once again, have a great 2012.

Oooooh. Aaaaaah.

Aurora Borealis – The Revengening

Merry Christmas – I’ve been busy (yet again), but Day 4 brought Aurora. Everywhaer.

There are actually faint red sections that were brought out when I messed with the curves. You can see it more clearly in the next photo.

Shot in RAW, the ground illuminated with a little light painting. All the photos I took were shot at the wider end of my 16-85mm, at the widest possible aperture, ISO 800 and a shutter speed of 30 seconds.

Car was lightpainted with a headtorch I borrowed.

Also, I’m switching back to the cornermark again, with a simpler mark.

Trying out a new cornermark. I've just realised it's a bit big, but it'll probably roughly look like that.

The Aurora Borealis

Standing in the ice and cold from 6pm to 2am, I thought they wouldn’t show up. But they did.

The photos I uploaded this time are 800×530, but WordPress won’t do more than 600×397 right now for some odd reason. I’ve included the direct links under each photo.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-wWhDYz9yTyE/Tus0_BjWTJI/AAAAAAAAAQw/w67BqPOLzLU/s800/DSC_0099.jpg

If you’re wondering, all of these appeared after 1am or so. The lens used was a 16-85mm at 16mm, F/3.5, at ISO 800 and an exposure time of 20″.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-yI_-mZOwYnQ/Tus0-Bat-7I/AAAAAAAAAQs/EHY9s_vfpY8/s800/DSC_0098.jpg

Although I’m fairly happy with the Lights last night, apparently they’re not as strong as they could be. I’ll be here for just under a week or so still. If they show up stronger, expect to see more Aurora photos from me.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-GGNk0e5P14c/Tus1Ao6XjGI/AAAAAAAAAQ4/6mjeNL7I-Ko/s800/DSC_0139.jpg

I’ll be out there on a sled with reindeer tonight, so with a bit of luck, I’ll see some.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-ed3CVXudgpM/Tus0_kKUN0I/AAAAAAAAAQ0/4ituw1SToIo/s800/DSC_0119.jpg

SUDDENLY, NORWAYS

I’m in Norway now, and I’m hoping to catch the Aurora Borealis tomorrow. But just to let you know I’m still alive, enjoy this:

10 second exposure, from in town. I can't wait to get into the mountains.

Edit: Yes, I know the new watermark is a pain, but certain people have been stealing my photos without acknowledgement. And that’s just not on.

On the books, but never too busy for photos.

Busy days are busy. With two essays on the books and a number of other commitments, updates are going to be pretty intermittent up until December. However, I’ll bring you photos when I can, and maybe even a LTA post. Meanwhile, enjoy some photos I took walking around during what free time I had.

White balance set to flash for this one.

England finally decided that it might be a good idea to invest in road grit for the winter.

BLOW OUT ALL THE SKIES

I would have liked to remove the sign and posts, but I think that might have been a bit more trouble than this photo is worth.

One of these days, I'm going to find a white-barked tree to take this photo. And it'll be awesome.

Edinburgh – Some Epic Skies

I was in Edinburgh last weekend covering a basketball game again. However, the photos I have for you today aren’t of the games. Maybe next post. Since I was on a fairly tight schedule, I couldn’t take my time with taking photos, but I took what opportunities I could to get a few anyway. Being very busy, I don’t have the time to write a full article, unfortunately, but enjoy these four selections from last weekend.

The sky in particular was quite something.

Metering the sunlit part of this building meant that the sky was properly metered as well.

Sunrise, not sunset, if you were wondering.

Part of Arthur's Seat. Realised after we came down that I had chosen to climb up the harder path.

Will bring you some basketball later this week hopefully. 🙂