NEW IMAGES, NEW SHOOTS

As fast as I make improvements to the layout of the Kevin Leighton Photography website my trusted band of advisers give me more to do.

I've read time and time again that it's the reader that should dictate the content, services, layout, etc offered by a website or blog but this is the first time I've managed to put the theory into action.

Every time I think I've got it about right I sit back, smile and say .. 'OK so what about that' to which the response is .. 'well you could do this and you should really do that' ... which in times past I would have found  annoying to say the least but now I'm taking it all on board, and if I say so myself, it's really starting to come together.

New images from the The George At Backwell Summer Garden Party have been uploaded, copy is in draft for my services page and I'm in contact with two bands about the possibility of doing some shoots with them.

It's all coming together .. more soon ..

Refreshed Homepage Slideshow

As the next step in refreshing this website I decided to really try to understand how the slideshow on the homepage works and is implemented. It's not a simple thing to get working properly but I got there in the end and I think the final result from the changes I made is much cleaner.

Gone is the awkward border that didn't dynamically change to adhere to the size of the images and image sizing is now understood and under control. There are new pictures in the slideshow and in time I'll be expanding the breadth of images available.

What's important is to show images that you enjoy seeing and are relevant so in the weeks to come I'll be asking you help to select those which you enjoy seeing the most and I'll add them into the slideshow with a link to the website of one of the participants.

More soon .....

Site Under Reconstruction

I've been posting to my blog for over a year now and my website has been up and running for about 9 months.  What I've noticed in that time is that nothing stays the same. Life, the universe and everything continues to evolve around you and the internet and your visitors expectations are no different.

In the world of web design, content and blogging I think it's important to remember to step back, to take advice and make sure that your design and content is still relevant. You have to remember you're not just designing and writing for yourself. It's the visitors and readers .. your customers, or potential customers .. that you need to bear in mind so I've taken the decision to refresh my pro photography site, to make it simpler and easier to navigate and for you to find photo galleries relevant to your visit.

During this time content may appear or disappear and pages or information may randomly move so I hope you'll bear with me while this process takes place.

For now I believe I have the design I like but let me know what you think via Twitter, send me an email or leave a comment at the bottom of the page.

Galleries have been temporarily removed and content needs to be refreshed but I'm getting there and I'll keep you up-to-date with progress.

I hope you're all having a great January. Back with you again soon.

TIME .........

Skies Over Bristol

Sometimes time just seems to run away. I've been really excited with the idea of participating in the Twitter #photochat on the 14th being run by Darcy & Kent, started a new Blipfoto series, been taking pictures and blogging.. and then there's Christmas .. how will I fit it all in?

A new endeavour I've started on since my last photo blog entry is a 30+ Blipfoto endeavour. Partly inspired by an idea I had a couple of months ago about wanting to track 'a month in the life of' and partly inspired by my Twitter contact @leena_photo who has set out on a marathon 365 on her Facebook page (yes, a photo a day for a year)!

I hope you'll stop by and enjoy both our sites.

I wanted to share these colourful images with you - in my home city of Bristol this summer there was a street art festival called #seenoevil. Various street art took over the sides of many of the buildings in Nelson Street and gave them a once in a life-time makeover.

These are just a small example of what they managed to achieve. 

TWITTER #photochat WEDS 14TH DEC

Two amazingly talented photographers, bloggers and Twitter contacts in the U.S. have been running 1 hour #photochat sessions in North America to bring together photographers of all standards to answer questions, give advice and swap ideas.








Darcy & Kent have agreed to run a session at a time that fits in with the U.K. & Europe so that a new audience can benefit for their expertise.


If you’re on Twitter (and if you’re not yet you ought to be) then we’d love you to join us at 9pm GMT (21:00 CET) on Weds 14th December to participate from this side of ‘the pond’ using the hashtag #photochat. 


For more information on how to participate Kent (@kw_daddio) has a great reference on his site at http://kentweakley.com. 


Darcy (@my3boybarians ) says on her site at http://my3boybarians.com/

Also, next week is the twitter photography #photochat. We’re trying something new this time! By request of our friends across the pond. (I love saying across the pond, as if it’s nearby. The internet does make the world seem more accessible.) Anyway – our friends in Europe are always sleeping during the usual #photochat time, so we’re having an afternoon in the US / evening in the UK and Europe time that will allow more people to attend. Several amazingly talented photographers from England, Ireland and Italy have said they’ll be there. Hope you will too!

Twitter: @kevleighton

STORM CLOUDS, SUNRISE and SILHOUETTES

Well it's a day later than I like to publish but sometimes other things just have to come first.

It never ceases to amaze me how people love to take pictures of the sun. Be that sunrise, sunsets or for me the sun shining through storm clouds and it amazes me even more the feedback photographers get from having taken them.

I certainly like taking the pictures, I think you can get some stunning effects with the sun in the right place even though you sometimes have to play with the exposures the point where your family has got bored and wandered off into the distance.

The joy of the modern camera phone is that it's possible to get very good shots without having to lug your dSLR around with you so I wanted to share a couple taken with my Pentax and a couple taken with my Samsung Galaxy S2.

These first two are taken in Cardiff Bay, Wales and are from the 'mobile' set on my Flickr site taken on my Samsung Galaxy S2.

For me the low sun on both of them gives the opportunity for some nice silhouettes. I liked the sun coming through the light fitment on the top of the lightship and on the other, I was keen to capture the silhouettes of the tree, church and cranes in the background. Neither of these shots used any special settings and were just taken 'point and shoot'.

This shot taken on Brighton Beach, Sussex one overcast and stormy afternoon was the last of a number of images I took in manual mode trying to get the balance between the contrast of the bright sun and dark clouds.

And finally ... this one has been around before and featured in my blog of 11th January based on around Clevedon.

I'd be really interested if anybody has any advice or guidance for me on taking this type of image I'd be really grateful for your feedback.

THE RETURN OF THE PHOTO BLOG!

It's baaaaack. Well the photo blog is anyway After a break of a few weeks I thought it was high time to get back to the basics and bring the photo blog up-to-date.

So much has happened in such a short while I thought I'd start this week with a brief resume of events. My photo blog may have been quiet but looking back I seem to have been quite busy.

There have been photo shoots and events to capture, air-shows and a news article with my pictures. The Flickr app for Android made an appearance on my smart-phone which has led to some new work on the Kevin Leighton Photography Flickr site and I've been busy with my dSLR trying to shoot ever more awkward subjects in a manual mode.

When so much has been going on it's difficult to know what to concentrate on so I thought I'd just bring you some of my favourite images and just go with the flow. I hope you enjoy them.

Taken in Cardiff Bay, Wales. This was taken with the new Flickr app on my smartphone using the Tokyo filter and is one of a recent set of mobile phone images on my Flickr site.

I've been trying to capture seagulls in flight and have found it and extremely difficult task to get the exposure correct especially with the autumn skys being so changable depending on where you point your camera.











And finally November 5th and the inevitable fireworks displays were another photographic challenge and is one I'll write about in another blog.








So what's up and coming? I'll be writing about some of the photographic challenges I've encountered over the last few weeks and asking for some advice.

 I've also been in touch with  Darcy from my3boybarians and Kent Weakley from kentweakley.com who run very successful Twitter #photochat Q&A sessions in North America and they have agreed to run one for the UK & Europe hopefully in December. I hope to be able to confirm dates & times for the UK & Europe Twitter #photochat session shortly.

See you all again soon.