Image of the Month January 2012 – Coastal Grizzy Looking Out to Sea

Well what a busy month January has turned out to be! I don’t know about you but the last few weeks have flown by. January started off with my first exhibition at the Eastbourne wedding fair. I then had to catch up with a batch of images from the Christmas festive shoot at Ashdown Park Hotel. Progressing onto the annual (PITA) compiling of my tax records ready for the accountant. Also finishing up editing a few weddings and lastly a designing a couple of wedding story book albums. Thank God I have now caught up with almost everything I needed too and can return my efforts back to my new office/studio. So before I pick up the paint brush I would like to share with you my image of the month.

This image was taken in Alaska and appears on the January page of my Wildlife calendar 2012. I hope you like it? I’ll have another image for you next month.

Festive Photography – Ashdown Park Hotel

The sparkle of  Christmas lights and the joys of Christmas may be a dwindling memory in your mind as we move well into 2012 but not for me.

The day before Christmas Eve I was commissioned by my favourite wedding venue Ashdown Park Hotel to produce a set of Christmas and Festive stock images for promotional use.  I spent a fun filled day kindly assisted by Warren and Melissa (thanks guys), setting up various displays of mouth watering delights ranging from Starters to Main and Desert courses. We were under timing constraints and had to work extremely quickly as the restaurant was about to open for a Christmas lunch sitting with a large amount of guests ready to descend.

Afterwards we moved onto the reception area and lounges for the rest of the afternoon where we photographed various set ups of mince pies, cream teas, cocktails and the famous Ashdown Park Teddy Bear!

Late afternoon I departed only to return a few hours later to photograph the restaurant, which had been set-up for the evening session.  It looked fantastic with all the table candles lit giving it a really warm, welcoming and Christmas feel.

However, no rest for the wicked, I continued working for another few hours photographing table set ups in the chapel area and a Christmas party night in the Harry Clarke suite. Once I returned home later that night I downed tools for the rest of the Christmas holidays and only began working on the images this week.  A few of which you can see on this page.  I hope you like them and remember it is only 11 months to go before we do it all again!!!  :o))

Wedding Fair – Eastbourne Winter Gardens

Late last night (Sunday) I returned home from a two day wedding fair in Eastbourne held at the Winter Gardens in aid for “Help the Heroes.”   It was a first for me to attend a two day wedding fair and I personally think it was a well organised and successful event.  Both days went extremely quickly and I had the pleasure with speaking to so many couples I lost count.  Before the event I prepared flyers, sample CD’s and business cards to give out to prospective clients to a level which I thought would be an excessive amount. However at the close of the show I only had a few items left, so a rough guesstimate I must have spoken to at least 100+ bride & grooms.  I pride myself on never pressurising anyone showing an interest in my photography and prefer to let them decide in their own time.  I also try to educate couples into the pro and cons of selecting a wedding photographer and the possible pit falls of choosing a poor photographer for their wedding photography.

The feedback I received from many people speaking to me was wonderful;  comments such as…

“Your…….”

“photography looks so natural, everyone looks so relaxed in the photographs…”

“wedding albums and display all look extremely professional….”

“photography is a level above others…”

“black and white images look amazing…”

“Storybook wedding albums really tell the story of the day…”

To hear and receive such complimentary feedback was fantastic.  Normally it is difficult to judge the successful level of a wedding fair as you can receive bookings instantly, 6 weeks later or even months pass before you receive a booking.  After this weekend I am extremely encouraged by speaking to so many people that the wedding industry is still very much booming with many couples looking at 2013 weddings and some for 2014.

Also I  met and made some new friends at the fair by after speaking to other wedding suppliers, it was a very friendly atmosphere at the show.

Finishing on a positive note, I hope the event raised a great amount for the “Help the Heroes” trust and would like to thank the organisers Ann & Phil for all their hard work in putting the show together. I am already looking forward to next year’s event.

Happy Christmas from Darren Charles Holloway Photography

May I take this opportunity to wish you and your families a very Happy Christmas, I hope that Santa brings you all the presents you hoped for and more importantly that you have a wonderful Christmas where ever you may be, perhaps with friends, family or both.  And please spare a thought for all the people that have to work at this special time of year to keep us all safe, secure and to keep the country going so we can all kick back and enjoy ourselves.

I hope 2012 proves to be a wonderful year for you all..!!!

Darren Charles Holloway

Sussex Life Magazine Front Cover – Ashdown Park Hotel

Some good news to share, I have been recently informed that one of my images will feature on the front cover of January’s edition of Sussex Life magazine.  A leading magazine publication for the Sussex area.  The image features a snow covered scene at my favourite wedding location and one of the best hotels and country clubs in the UK – Ashdown Park Hotel.

The magazine is available now in most good news agents, book stores in the South East so look out for it and I hope you like the image.

Eastbourne Wedding Fair – 7th & 8th January 2012

I am really looking forward to exhibiting at Eastbourne’s Wedding fair in January.  The event is being held over two days; Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th, at The Winter Gardens, Eastbourne.  What better way to kick-start the New Year and beat the Christmas blues by coming along to this free event and seeing top wedding suppliers from all over the South East, Sussex and Surrey.  Doors open 10am – 5pm on Saturday and 10am till 4:30pm Sunday.

I have written below my thoughts about choosing the right wedding photographer for your special wedding day.

Wedding photography is one of the most important aspects of planning any wedding day.  Getting the right photographer who will undoubtedly capture the day with images that will last the test of time is not an easy task.  Wedding photography in general has become an over saturated market with many new photographers appearing on a weekly basis. So to some Bride and Groom’s the choice can be a daunting one.  Choosing a good photographer should be an easy task if you stick to some simple guidelines:

Images that appear on photographer’s websites can often be made to look better than they actually are! I would suggest never choosing a photographer until you have actually seen their work in portfolio albums.  Only in photographic printed form can you really judge the quality of their work and hopefully the result that you will end up with.  I always insist that couples view my work so that they can see for themselves the high quality of albums and prints I produce.

Make sure the photographer is a true qualified professional photographer.  My photography has been judged and assessed by two professional photography  associations and I have passed qualification with the Master Photographers Association (MPA) and the British Institute of Professional Photography (BIPP).  This means that you know my work is of a very high standard.   A prerequisite to joining both the MPA & BIPP is that I have both public liability and professional indemnity insurance.  Make sure if you are choosing a photographer that they are fully insured.

You cannot beat experience!!  Asking a member of your family or a friend to photograph your wedding because they have a good “expensive” camera is no substitute for a truly talent professional photographer.  They may only have the one camera, what happens if it malfunctions on the day?  What would they do if the weather is bad or is an extremely sunny day?   What happens if they are ill before your wedding?  There are lots more scenarios I could use to justify why having a professional photographer is the correct thing to do.  A true professional will put you at ease on your wedding day and will capture images you will treasure for the rest of your life.  Throughout my wedding photography career I have received numerous compliments on my work and how I approach each and every wedding.  One couple even said “it was like having an extra guest at our wedding”.

My style of photography is a mixture of formal and causal with the emphasis on fun not fuss.  Feel free to come and say hello at the Eastbourne wedding fair and view examples of my work and ask me more questions regarding my wedding photography.

I look forward to meeting you there.

Darren Charles Holloway

Wildlife Calendars 2012

Good news, I have began production of my wildlife calendars for 2012. There will be a limited number of 50 available and each one will be numbered and signed. The cost is a minimal £25 + p&p

A variety of wildlife will be displayed ranging from a Grizzly Bear to a cute Fox Cub, plus a few surprises.

If you would like to order one and have not contacted me already please get in touch ASAP to reserve one.

As suggested by a few of you, I will be including a foot note on each image detailing where the photo was actually taken.

The calendars should hopefully be with me by Mid-December or sooner depending on the lab producing them.

As mentioned these are truly limited and not available elsewhere!! They make great Christmas presents and I know quite a few people keep them after the year is through as collectors items.

If you know of anyone that may be interested in purchasing a calendar please spread the word!!

MPA International Awards – Award of Merit

Coastal Grizzly Charging

Coastal Grizzly

Time to share some good news, I had pleasure in attending the prestigious Master Photographers Association (MPA) International Awards this weekend, in Newcastle UK.  Due to work pressures I entered just one image this year and was delighted to find out that this image won an Award of Merit for the Landscape and Travel category.  I have previously won the same category in 2008 and was a runner up in 2009.  Unfortunately I did not enter in 2010 but was determined to enter this year.

The image was taken last year in Alaska at the end of a very long day, which was over 12 hours of photographing. I was returning back from the inland coastline to a boat where myself and two photography friends were staying as our base. As I came over a sand dune I saw this huge boar bear staring at us.  We set up our cameras side by side and as we were doing so the bear starting running straight at us from a distance of 80 metres. By the time he stopped he was less than 20 feet away.  It was a heart stopping moment and one that I will never forget, to date this is the biggest bear I have ever seen and I nick named him Bruiser, as he was full of battle scars.

This image was taken in very low light around 10:50pm when the sun had long disappeared. It was taken using a Canon 1D IV Camera and Canon 500mm lens.  1/500th sec @ f4 ISO 2500.

This image will feature in the Limited Edition Wildlife Calendars I am now preparing for 2012.  For more details please contact me.

i1 Display Pro – Monitor Profiling

Just before my holiday I ordered the new i1 Display Pro trade-in deal from Native Digital. Since returning from holiday  I have had to hit the ground running and catch up with quite a few things.  So now I have at last some spare time to look at this new device and the i1 Profile software.  This is not a full geeky review as I do have a life  just a basic introduction to the device, which you may find useful.

I have been using a NEC SpectraView 1980 SXi  monitor for the past 5+ years and I am still very pleased with it.  When calibrating previously I used the SpectraView profiling software and my old Eye One Display, which has subsequently been traded in for the new i1 Display Pro.   I have just learnt that the SpectraView software will not work with the new i1 Display Pro, apparently this is down to X-RITE not allowing third-party software to use the new device? So this means I will have to use the i1 Profiler software to perform the profiling.

Installing the software supplied seemed somewhat slow, but I won’t hold that against them.  Once done I immediately registered, which was quick and painless.  The next stage I checked for updates and a new version was available 1.1.1. Before continuing I downloaded and installed this. I mention this now as it took a little time and you may want to allow for this before performing the actual profiling. Especially as you have to reboot your PC after installing the latest software.

The device itself is small, compact and could easily be transported if needed.

One thing I was impressed with was the size of the lens on the front, much larger than any previous calibration tool I have used.  Also, it has an ambient light diffuser which goes over the actual lens of the device and can be used to constantly measure the changing ambient light in your working environment.  Personally I don’t think I will use this as I always work in certain light conditions when colour correcting images.  I always perform profiling in the dark with no other light sources available and I make sure the monitor has been on for at least 30 minuets.  This is just something I have always done and works for me.   If you work in an environment where the light source can change, such as near a window, you may want to look into using this feature. I have never used the i1 Profiler software before so on the first glance I was quite impressed with all the options available.  I started by  using the BASIC set up option and choose Display Profiling.

My first attempt at using this resulted in the calibration appearing like a badly over exposed photograph LOL.  One option that I choose on the measurement stage was Automatic Display Control (ADC) big mistake!! Taking this option allows the i1 Profiler software to change your monitor’s brightness and contrast controls. I have found out this is only useful if your monitor actually allows it and further use of the software I set the option to manually adjust brightness and contrast.

So next I stopped trying to figure everything out and decided to watch the training videos supplied with the software.  It’s so easy when you know how  After watching the videos I decided to start from afresh and do the profiling all over again.

Watching the training videos supplied helped explain the full features of the software and how you perform the calibration in a step by step approach and save each step in the advanced mode as part of a workflow, these steps are called assets (Display Settings, Profile Settings, Patch Set, Measurement, ICC Profile) and you can save them as different assets names or load them in at any stage.  You can even set up different workflows, I can see this being very useful to help fine tune your monitor’s profile and try different options in the profiling process. Plus if you have a whole bunch of monitors to profile perhaps for a company, you can save the Assets/Workflow details and load them on other machines during the profiling stage to keep everything consistent.

I would describe the i1 Profiler software display layout as spilt into three different perspectives; Left hand vertical column (pink)  is the Assets perspective, along the bottom horizontal row (yellow) is the Workflow perspective, the rest of the display (blue) is the  perspective used for the Profiling options and this changes according to the Asset currently being used and what part of the workflow you are using.

Stepping through each stage of the workflow you can select options for each asset.  On the Display settings I took the default options as they suited my monitor set up and made sure the boxes for flare and ambient light were unchecked.  The flare option allows the software to measure and adjust for flare from stray light sources appearing on your monitor.  I use a monitor hood so I don’t have to worry about this.  If you don’t use a monitor hood you may want to see if this works for you.

For the Profile settings I used the default settings.

For the patch settings I used the largest patch available.

For the measurement settings I unchecked the ADC as previously mentioned and choose to manually adjust the brightness and contrast.

The option to change the colour patch settings to small, medium or large patches, use a spot colour or even an image was quite impressive. I used the largest patch set as I found it gave the best results.  The actual calibration is done very quickly, using a small patch it only took 2 minuets compared to the largest patch which was done in around 8 minuets.

Once the profiling is finished you can check a before and after comparison of supplied images, when I tried this I could easily see a difference.

After creating and saving the monitor profile (I always include a date in the name) you even have the option to QA the profile and see if it meets certain criteria, the result of QA is a pass or fail status.  If your monitor fails it’s suggested you may need to change it as the results are either inconsistent or not up to scratch. Thankfully my 5 year old monitor passed dare I say with flying colours!!!  (Yes that’s bad..).  You can also save the QA results as part of tolerance reports,  you can look at these over time and check if the monitor is degrading.

Conclusion
After performing the calibration several times and tweaking the different options to give the best possible result, I compared the newly created profile with my previous profile, which had been created with the Eye One Display.  Immediately I noticed a significant improvement in my monitor display with the new profile. I compared a few of my own images with the before and after profiles and could easily see a huge gain in shadow details.  The images looked much crisper with the whites looking cleaner and more pure white, I also noticed an improvement in the greys as well.

One tiny thing I would have liked to be included with the device is a protective case.  However, if this is the only thing that’s missing then fine by me.

If you are a photographer, designer or someone who just wants to have accurate colour on your monitor, I would recommend looking at this relatively inexpensive device and also consider the trade in deal with Native digital whilst the option is still available.  If you have any questions regarding the i1 Display Pro please feel free to get in contact.  I hope this review was of some use and provided a little insight and introduction to the new i1 Display Pro.

There is nothing like a little pressure!

Over the last three long days I have been working all hours to prepare a ton of photos for a new book. The book was suddenly brought forward by the publisher and I was asked to assist Dr Geoffrey K. Platt with editing all the images and preparing them for issuing to the publishers. I have worked with Geoff previously on the Guide to lifting heavy weights book which is published next month. So he asked me extremely nicely to drop what I was working on and pull out all the stops to get the photos ready by a tight deadline. The good news is I have at last finished working on the photos and I can resume normal service

Here is a little write-up, by Geoff, about the book that you may find interesting. The objective is to help children who are left-handed and are taught incorrectly in some schools to use their right hand. The book will be published later this year.

Traditionally, being left-handed has been seen as being a problem and a number of books have been written to assist parents and teachers of children who are left-handed. Over the last forty years scientific research has identified that being right-handed, being left-handed and being mixed handed all have their own advantages and disadvantages and that there are many more serious problems than simply being left-handed.

Recently, since 2008, primary school teachers have recognised that approximately 25% of children arrive at school unaware of whether they are right or left-handed and as teachers have never been trained to resolve this issue, difficulties have arisen in basic skills such as scribbling, colouring, tracing, drawing and writing. The children are, however, even at the age of 4 years, skilled in keyboarding and the use of mobile phones.

The old ideas of “persuading” all children to use their right hands to write, even restraining and punishing them to secure compliance, has been left in the past, but more discrete techniques, such as demonstrating with the right hand and taking the pen or pencil from the child’s left hand, demonstrating again, and then returning the implement to the child’s right hand, persist with very serious consequences for the child’s health.

The book attempts to educate parents and teachers and to introduce them to the latest scientific research on the subject.