A set of black and white architectural photography images - this was part of my portfolio a couple of years ago

Fire appliances at Dorchester Fire Station  

Bench. Architecture photography in Dorset taken at one of my favourite photography locations

Swimming pool in a lovely private country house in Dorset

A new private library, Dorset. Stunning interior space. 

Just a room in a farm in Dorset

Spinnaker Tower, Portsmouth. Love this fantastic structure. 

The new sports hall flooring at Bournemouth University  

The RNLI Memorial in Poole, Dorset, located amongst the complex of buildings forming the RNLI national base

Picture of a wine rack in a restaurant in Lucca, Italy

Duomo, Florence. This has to be one of the most imposing buildings I have photographed. 

This picture of The Shard in London is one of my favourite black and white pictures of London

The Shard, London.  Extreme leading lines in this London cityscape

A lovely waterside kitchen with a view of Poole Harbour - the most expensive bit of estate agent photography I never did! 

Duomo. Sienna. Just love the details in this stunning ceiling. 

Back to one of my favourite places in West Dorset. Check out the roof then look at the next image. 

This is the ceiling of the new church dome

And these are the tiles on the roof. I'm in danger of story telling here!

Seats at the University of Southampton

A new kitchen in Southampton

Poundbury architecture photographed for John SImpson Architects

Another picture of Poundbury architecture in Dorset

San Sebastian Cathedral in Spain - an immense structure with a stunning roof

Bordeaux Cathedral. Just breathtaking

Art in a vineyard in Bordeaux, France

Barrels, Remy Martin, Cognac, France. In case you didn't know which country Cognac was in? 

Travelodge Central Southampton, Hotel photography in Southampton. 

Construction product photography in Poole, Dorset

A picture of a funky building in Portsmouth

Horndean Technology College, completely refurbished for Hampshire County Council

Barton Stacey School. Panoramic architectural photography in Hampshire. 

Hamworthy Park Junior School, Poole Dorset, extended for the Borough of Poole

School dining room in Hampshire

Winchester School of Art

Hamworthy Park Junior School

Floor in a new house, Poole, Dorset

Stunning new house, Poole, Dorset

Picture of a private housing development, Poole, Dorset

Interior of a new house, Poole, Dorset

Light fitting three storeys high!

A couple of years ago I put together a portfolio of colour and black and white images for submission to the BIPP. I never submitted them. I was never happy with them.

This is the black and white interior set, which to be honest I found in the draft folder of my Squarespace Blog.

I have redone my portfolio for submission to the BIPP, so am finally happy to publish this post with this set of images.

My architectural photography work has come on a lot since then, and I am looking forward to publishing my new portfolio submission when I can.

Rick McEvoy Photography - Black and White Portfolio

Photography tip number 1 - How do I take a photograph in a building full of people?

Point your camera up. People gone. Honestly it sounds too good to be true but it works.

If you are happy with the composition of an image that you get when you just point your camera up then great. I often do this when I am photographing the interiors of churches and cathedrals in Europe.

Like this picture of the grand interior of  Saint-André Cathedral in Bordeaux. An awesome, stunning structure, which on the day was packed full of people.

Using this simple trick I transformed the scene from one full of jostling tourists to a picture of calmness and emptiness.

I like tips that are simple and work.

Check back to my photography blog for photography tip number 2 next month.

Rick McEvoy Photography - Photography Tips

A picture of picture of locational art amongst the barrels at Chateau Chasse-Spleen in Bordeaux, France

Still in Bordeaux for today's black and white interior photography image, taken at the Chateau Chasse-Spleen in Bordeaux. I wish I was still in Bordeaux!

This vineyard has art all over the place - including in these wine cellars. Check out their website at http://www.chasse-spleen.com/#!/home. The wine is great too. And the wine-tasting was fantastic there.

In this image you can see 9 triangles painted on the walls, which all come together only when you stand exactly where I took this photograph from. I believe this is called locational art.

The black and white image obviously loses the colours from the image, but these are replaced with strong crisp textures and lots of mood and darkness in the image.

I have transformed the space from what it actually looks like to what you see in this image.

Check out my previous blog post where I write about the production of the colour image this picture in black and white is made from at www.rickmcevoyphotography.co.uk/blog/2016/8/1/interior-photography-picture-of-the-barrels-and-art-at-chateau-chasse-spleen-winery-in-bordeaux-portfolio-image-number-12

If you have gone back to the old post, you can see the difference in mood and feel.

Processing in Nik went like this

Preset

I used "Full Dynamic Harsh", which I quite often use for my interior photography work. It brings out all the depth and textures. Not something you would use for a dreamy landscape picture, but great for the interiors of buildings.

Filters

Next I went through the colour filters, and settled on the green filter. The colours in this image are quite specific, and the green filter worked well adding a further level of depth to the image.

Brightness

I then reduced the brightness down to -30% to darken the overall image, and to finish off increased the Dynamic Brightness to 51%. This made the edges of the image, which had already had a vignette applied, darker, but meant I could brighten up the centre of the image giving the overall finished image a greater dynamic range and making the barrels in the front stand out.

All of which produced a really different black and white image which I am very pleased with. Join me tomorrow as I post and write about a picture taken at ISO25,600.

Rick McEvoy Photography Blog

Sunday 9th October 2016

www.rickmcevoyphotography.co.uk

A new and stylish picture of the barrels at Chateau-Chasse Spleen, Bordeaux - this time in black and white

Bordeaux, France. Wine. Barrels. Cellars. Add to this art in the room and you have a great subject to photograph.  And even better in black and white.

So this is the image of the space containing the barrels and the 9 triangles on the walls that come together if you stand where I was for this shot.

The colour image worked really well, and is in my portfolio. The black and white version I really like too.  

Back on track with my writing - I know exactly what I did in Nik Silver Efex Pro

Firstly, I perused the presets. I went through my favourite presets, although sometimes I do go back through all of them just to see if there is something else that works.

But not for this image.

I used "Full Dynamic Harsh", which I quite often use for my interior photography work. It brings out all the depth and textures. Not something you would use for a dreamy landscape picture, but great for the interiors of buildings.

Next I went through the colour filters, and settled on the green filter. The colours in this image are quite specific, and the green filter worked well adding a further level of depth to the image.

I then reduced the brightness down to -30% to darken the overall image, and to finish off increased the Dynamic Brightness to 51% . This made the edges of the image, which had already had a vignette applied, darker, but meant I could brighten up the centre of the image giving the overall finished image a greater dynamic range and making the barrels in the front stand out. You can ready my previous post about the production of the portfolio image on my blog somewhere at www.rickmcevoyphotography.co.uk/blog

I am getting closer to having a black and white portfolio now which is nice. I am enjoying producing new black and white images, which feels a bit old fashioned to be honest but makes a nice change. 

Tomorrow I will be posting another black and white image on my blog. 

Rick McEvoy Photography Blog

12th August 2016

www.rickmcevoyphotography.co.uk

Rick McEvoy Photography Image of the week - Friday 5th August 2016

This is my image of the week for this week. Barrels and art - great interior photography subject matter!!

I love the feel of this shot. This is one of my most considered edits yet. 

Thats all there is to say. 

Hope you like this interior photography shot.  Check out my page www.rickmcevoyphotography.co.uk/interior-photographer/ for lots more interior work.

Rick McEvoy Photography

5th August 2016

www.rickmcevoyphotography.co.uk

Interior photography portfolio image number 12 - barrels and art in a Bordeaux vineyard at Chateau Chasse-Spleen in Bordeaux

Interior photography picture of the barrels and art at Chateau Chasse-Spleen winery in Bordeaux – Portfolio Image Number 12

This image is taken in one of the cellars in this famous winery in the Moulis-en-Medoc appellation of the Bordeaux Region of France.

As well as the barrels there are the 9 dancing triangles, which come together when you stand where I took this shot from. This winery has art within its grounds, not just wine. And for someone like me this makes for an excellent subject. This is an interesting and different internal space, like no other I have been in to be honest.

As well as the red od the triangles, there is the deep claret colour in the barrels. These are the things I need to focus on.

Triangles and barrels.

I have processed this image before, which I posted yesterday, but now Monday is here I am posting the final edit of the image I have done today for my portfolio. I did say I was going to write down the editing I did step by step, so here goes.

Firstly, here is the starting point, the RAW image, taken on my Canon 6D with Canon 8-15mm lens at 15mm.

I had to use this lens to fit the whole scene into the frame.

On import I apply some basic adjustments, the things I do all the time to give me a start. Lens Corrections is one of those things, removing the fish-eye curvature.

So now the image(s) are in Lightroom I do the following.

• HDR Merge – of the two stop over and two stop under exposed images.
• White balance – using the dropper I selected a piece of grey.
• Verticals – I need to fix these
• Crop – this took a long time as I wanted to exclude the things I did not want in the image. This image is all about the barrels and the art. Nothing else. So anything else need to go.
• Once I have what I want in the frame looking how I want it to it is time for some slider work in the Basic panel.
• Exposure -.24
• Contrast +43
• Highlights +45
• Shadows +31
• Whites -100
• Blacks -11
• Clarity +36
• Vibrance +17
• Saturation – I never use this slider.
• Dodging and burning to brighten the features and darken the less important parts of the image.
• I also painted negative clarity on the walkways, and positive clarity with a dash of sharpness on the barrels.
• Vignette – a subtle one to help draw you into the picture
• I boosted the colours in the reds.

And then went over to Photoshop where I removed the CCTV installation and other stuff on the ceiling, and some of the distractions in the walkway. There were also some things on the wall to the left which I removed. Finally, I went through the whole of the image at100% magnification and removed any blemishes, marks etc.

Then saved to Lightroom and added to my Portfolio Collection.

Quite a bit of work….

Hopefully tomorrow I will have time to produce the next image for my Portfolio

Rick McEvoy Photography

1st August 2016

www.rickmcevoyphotography.co.uk

Portfolio Image 11 - an interior photography shot of art in a Bordeaux vineyard barrel store

31st July 2016

And now for something completely different. An unusual interior photography shot of the Chateau Spleen barrel store in Bordeaux, France.

I am not sure if this image works in my interior photography portfolio collection to be honest, but I am going to re-edit this image in Lightroom and Photoshop and see what I come up with.

I really like this image. It is picture of the internal art within the room. You have to stand exactly where I took this picture from, and the nine red triangles form themselves. I think this is brilliant, especially in a barrel store in a French vineyard.

The colours of the barrels add to the interest in this shot.

The reason I am not sure if this image fits into my portfolio is purely because of what the subject matter of this image is. I don’t have any other interior photographs like this one, so I will look at this when I have collated my set of 40 images. This is exactly why I am producing 40 images when I only actually need 30-35 images – it gives me a bit of flexibility and options.

So the image you see today is the original edit of this image, taken with my Canon 6D with Canon 8-15mm fisheye zoom lens, using the 15mm ultra wide but not circular fisheye lens.

The exposure was 1/80th second at F8, using an ISO of 640.

Tomorrow I will post my newly edited version of this image (it is Sunday after all so I am giving myself a bit of a break). As I am deferring this edited image posting I will write about each and every step of the processing I do in Lightroom and possibly Photoshop. I know what I want to get out of this image which I think Is a strong image with a good subject well composed (and captured technically well which I would expect).

Rick McEvoy Photography

31st July 2016

www.rickmcevoyphotography.co.uk

Black and white architectural photography image number 4 - Chateaux, Bordeau, France

Settings in Nik Silver Efex Pro for this black and white architectural photography picture of a Chateau in Bordeaux, France

The preset I chose for this pictutre of a French Chateau was the "Full dynamic harsh" preset with the following tweaks.

Brightness -7%

Dynamic brightness 13% 

control point on the gravel structure 70%

Dynamic brightness 30% 

Then unusually for me I added Blue toner no 8. I had not really noticed these before!

And finally a vignette using lens fall off 2. Which I changed to 1 as 2 was too much

All done and saved. Time 3 minutes.

Here is the initial edit

Picture of a Chateau, Bordeaux, France - the initial edit

And finally here is the RAW file

Picture of a Chateau, Bordeaux, France - the fish eye version!

Yes this was taken using a fisheye lens, the Canon 8-15mm lens on my Canon 6D. At the 15mm end of course! 

More black and white architectural photography tomorrow on my blog at

 http://www.rickmcevoyphotography.co.uk/blog

Bordeaux Cathdral - a new architectural photography image on my home page

Bordeau Cathedral, France - more architectural photography by Rick McEvoy

Bordeaux Cathdral - a new architectural photography image

It is time for a refresh on my home page. I like to regularly update the images and text to keep things fresh and relevant, and hopefully return visitors to my site enjoy seeing new work.

Today I have added to my home page one of my favourite architectural photography images from a trip to France last year. It is part of the inside of Bordeaux Cathedral. A vast, imposing, stunning, hugely impressive structure in the heart of this great French city. I love interior photography. Trying to do justice to the space constructed over years and years in one image is a tough challenge.

One of the problems I had with this shoot was the number of people. It was packed everywhere I turned. I did manage to get some other shots, with people in, partially blurred by me using a long exposure. But these images just weren’t doing it for me. I also learned a valuable lesson in this cathedral.

You can overdo shooting with a fisheye lens!

I use the fisheye lens for Google Maps Business View work, where you are providing a 360-degree virtual walkthrough.

And it is great to bring out on a shoot to get a different perspective.

And that is it. No more.

So this shot is one of the few inside the cathedral taken on my favourite 17-40mm F4 lens. 17 mm is wide enough for most situations. And if it is not I now take a pano sequence and stitch together later. (I have just done some great architectural photography work using this exact method).

I like this shot, principally of the huge pipes of the cathedral organ, framed by various elements of the structure, because it is sharp, crisp, clean and has lovely light and colours.

And no people.

To get this shot I had to use a high ISO – 3200, which gave me 1/80th second at F8 on my Canon 6D. Quite amazing really.

There is no visible noise.

I have not done any noise reduction, and sharpened as I normally would! Incredible what cameras can do these days.

My home page is my shop window, and I want it to always represent where I am now with my photography work.

Thanks for reading this post, and please call back to my blog tomorrow at

www.rickmcevoyphotography.co.uk/blog

for another photography related post.