Andrew Birch Photography

Narcissus

2010-04-25T04:27:00.000-07:00

A new gallery set can now be seen at my website. link

© AB 2010

Conwy Gulls (part 4)...

2009-11-04T11:11:00.000-08:00

WAKE UP!!

There's a seagull on your roof!!

© AB 2009

Conwy Gulls (part 3)...

2009-11-04T10:57:00.000-08:00

CONSTIPATED!??

© AB 2009

Conwy Gulls (part 2)...

2009-11-04T10:39:00.000-08:00

It's not funny!!

© AB 2009

Conwy Gulls (part 1)...

2009-10-07T16:25:00.000-07:00

I sat and ate... It stood and watched.

© AB 2009

Green Winged Orchid...

2009-09-07T13:54:00.000-07:00

Seagulls in Flight...

2009-09-02T15:14:00.000-07:00

Shots taken with Nikon D300 / Sigma 100-300mm telezoom.

© AB 2009
The venue was Fisher's Green, located in the Lee Valley Park to the north of London. This has become a favourite place of mine for bird photography, it is home to many species of birds including large flocks of canada geese that over-winter in the surrounding gravel pits and farm fields. Other species include heron (there is also a large heronry on site), kingfisher, egyptian geese, cormorant, greylag geese, buzzard, hobby, widgeon, teal, lapwing, goldfinch, flocks of starling and crow (a crow's roost can be found to the north of Fisher's Green at Langridge Lake), and many of the more common garden birds. The water birds are fed regularly by visitors to the park which makes for a great place to practice 'in air' bird shots on the resident seagulls. The camera was set to rapid fire (6fps) and continuous servo autofocus with ISO 200 and wide apertures to give shutter speeds of 1/2000s and faster. Post processing with photoshop elements was a quick auto contrast, crop and sharpening of jpegs straight from the camera, as these images are for web use only... I would spend more time converting RAW files for printing and higher quality images. Photographing wild birds in their natural habitat offers a nice challenge, I can't wait to go back and do some more! I will keep you posted.

Poppies in the wind (part 2)...

2009-08-27T14:47:00.000-07:00

Poppies in the wind...

2009-08-16T15:51:00.000-07:00

Poppies in the wind, Norfolk...
From a trip to Norfolk 15th to 16th August 2009.
Converted from RAW with slightly de-saturated colour.
Shot at f2.8/105mm.

Click for larger view.

© AB 2009

Sunset 1-8-2009...

2009-08-01T15:06:00.000-07:00

Photoshop work based on a shot from today's sunset, the colours are pretty much 'as shot' and the tree has been added. It was an amazing sunset at the front of the house and at the back, in the dim light, there was a rainbow!! I didn't know which way to turn.

I would have loved to have been outside on such an evening but it was too late to go anywhere... the sunset would have been over and the rainbow disappeared by the time I had got to a location, so instead I shot from the bathroom window! It's nice to be able to get such photos without having to leave the house. :)

© AB 2009

Old Picture, New Edit...

2009-07-23T16:21:00.000-07:00

  Picture - June 2006.
  Subject - Oxeye Daisy.
  Editing Software - PSE7.

Original jpeg.
Cleaned and edited for colour, contrast, levels and brightness. Increased colour saturation, selective colouring and image flipped.
Image rotated, coloured texture added, levels adjusted.

Victorian Gothic Cemetery...

2009-07-15T05:11:00.000-07:00

Recently, while Googling for a derelict church in London that I wanted to visit, I came across an amazing looking cemetery located in north London and I decided to take a look last weekend. It was a short journey by train. The place is said to be one of the best examples of a derelict victorian gothic cemetery in the area. Dating back to the 1850's it has been pretty much neglected for many years and the site has transformed into woodland with rows upon rows of headstones of all shapes and sizes running through the trees between a network of tracks... It seemed like a good opportunity for a photo or two and it proved to be quite an interesting place!

Click for larger view.

High Pass Sharpening with Photoshop...

2009-07-01T05:36:00.000-07:00

Something I learnt recently was a quick and easy alternative to photoshop's conventional sharpening filters which I think does a better job. It's known as 'high pass sharpening' which I know sounds more technical than it actually is but don't be frightened by the name! Here's how to, using photoshop elements 7...

Open your image in photoshop and first you will need to duplicate your (background) image layer, you can do this by selecting the layer and using the layer menu > duplicate layer, or a much simpler way is to click and drag your layer (in the layers palette) onto the new layer icon.

Select your new layer in the layers palette by clicking on it and set the new layers' blending mode to overlay.

Zoom in on your image with ctrl and the '+' symbol so that you can easily see the effect that the filter has on your image. You can also navigate your image by holding down the space bar and click/drag your image across the screen. When you have found a suitable part of the image to see the result of sharpening, select the high pass filter from the filters > other > high pass menu and apply it to your new layer. I find a value of between 0.5 and 6 pixels looks good.

Too high a value will result in a halo appearing around some detail in your image. Adjust this value to suit your eye. When happy you can apply the filter and flatten your image to finish.

This method is also great if you want to sharpen only selected areas of your image (selective sharpening). You can do this by setting a soft round brush to clear and use it to erase parts of the gray high pass layer that you do not want to be sharp prior to flattening.

The result - hover image to see before and after high pass sharpening.

Red Sky Tree...

2009-06-29T13:33:00.000-07:00

Flower Photography...

2009-06-26T14:22:00.000-07:00

For my most recent shoot I decided to set up a rose indoors and shoot in an artistic style with macro...

Using a tripod and the cameras built-in self timer allowed me to shoot in the limited natural light available coming in through the kitchen window. It was quite dull outside and dull inside too! I over-exposed slightly to brighten the images and help with the softness in conjunction with a large aperture. Standing the rose in a container and with an old white t-shirt placed on the kitchen floor below, to give a neutral background, I shot off a lot of shots at different angles and compositions to find the right 'look' I wanted to achieve. I also took care so as not to include the container in the shot by positioning it directly below the rose head. Apertures ranged from f2.8 to f5.6 which was enough to give sharpness in the rose and a relatively shallow depth of field to blur the background and any detail in the t-shirt and also to give a feeling of depth in the images. Post-processing was very basic colour and contrast adjustments and sharpening with PSE7.