How much do you need to spend on your photographic equipment?

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Promotional Flyers

Which one(s) should I choose?







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Ecclesall Woods Flowers.jpg

Ecclesall Woods Flowers.jpg, originally uploaded by Jon W. Howson.

A recent trip to Ecclesall Woods to photograph some flowers, mainly daffodils and windflowers as they were the only two I could find. I have seen lots more varieties in the past, but it may still be a bit early in the year for them.

Also, it was a chance to try out my collection of close-up lens on my canon camera, having been originally bought for my fujifilm one. An interesting lesson learnt that the working distance decreases as the strength of the close-up lens increases. I had completely forgotten about that happening.

Anyways, more images, besides the ones posted here, can be found over on my flickr photostream.

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How I created the LE52Weeks-9: CD Cover

LE52Weeks-9: CD Cover, originally uploaded by Jon W. Howson.

The specifics for this assignment was as follows:

The music group is a String Quartet. The music they are playing is this piece:

String Quartet in F, By Maurice Ravel

This image will be a square... as CD's are square.

You have two options:
1. Musical instrument on location. (Violin, Viola, Cello)
2. Musician with instrument on location

Yes, I know most of you do not have a spare cello sitting around for a prop... So we will make a third option:

3. Get creative... How would you make a CD cover without a quartet, or the instruments? I can think of a few ways... can you?

How I approached the shot

I knew just before the deadline for this assignment that I would be attending a residential orchestral weekend away so I knew that I had access to a number of instrument and players. I choose to work with a cellist that I had worked with before, and decided to go for a close in shot of the instrument with the idea that it could imply any of four instruments within a string quartet.

I decided to approach the shot with a single light source to have a dark and mysterious feel to the image. To narrow done the beam of light from my off camera flash I decided to go with a black straws snoot grid with the aim of targeting the light solely around the bridge area of the cello. The resulting shot is as seen below.



From here it was a matter of selecting a crop, obviously square, and then processing it in photoshop. The part where the image really started to come alive with more contrast and bringing out the colours was when I converted the image from the colour mode of RGB to LAB. From here I chose to apply the image, changing the blending mode to Soft Light and experimented with the different channels. Finally a text layer was applied to complete the CD cover.

What do you think to the final result? How would you have done things differently if given the same assignment?

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Jon W. Howson Boudoir Photography

In dividing up my photography into pages, I am now promoting three different pages, this one being my boudoir photography page. I hope to appeal to both photographers and potential clients with a mix of my imagery and links from around the web to help build ideas and projects that we can work on together.

Please visit the Boudoir Photography page and click the like button to keep update with information and imagery.

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Alternative Look For Things To Give Up For Lent

Lent begins this Wednesday which means you have less than 48 hours to figure out what you’re going to “give up” for the next 40 days.

It can be difficult trying to figure out just the right thing to give up for Lent. So, in the spirit of good ‘ole fashion American Chrisitanity we have decided to do all the work for you.

Top 10 things to give up for lent

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Come Along and Join My New Facebook Pages

I'm reaching out to everyone and hoping that you will take a few minutes to browse around and see what I am doing. I am still working on some minor fixes and will be filling out the portfolio sections over the next few weeks, but I'm up and running!

I have recently taken the decision to split up my original photography facebook fan page into three areas of photography. The original page is being dedicated towards Fashion Photography, whilst the two pages are aimed towards advertising and editorial photography and boudoir photography.

Please check out the above mentioned sites, "like" them, and suggest them to friends or anyone who may be interested!

Any feedback is not only welcome but appreciated.

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The Cellphone Portrait

LE52Weeks-7- Option 1.jpg, originally uploaded by Jon W. Howson.

The portrait to go with the bid set out in an earlier post.

The lighting set-up for this shot was very simple - a 430EX flashgun fired into a 60cm soft-box that was set at roughly 45 degress to the camera right.

What would you have done differently within the constraints of the assignment.

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