Hello! Welcome to my website. I’m Rick. I photograph buildings, nice places and buildings in nice places. And I write about photography on my blog.
I am a professionally qualified photographer based in Dorset. I specialise in architectural, commercial, landscape and travel photography. And that is all!
I am an all round nice chap. Please get in touch so we can create some great photos.
Landscape photography in Hampshire by Rick McEvoy
I had such a great couple of hours this day - here is another picture taken in the woods around The Vyne, the National Trust site in Hampshire.
Taken on my Canon 6D with Canon 17-40mm lens, using the following settings.
Aperture - F22
Shutter speed - 1/50th second
ISO - 400
Rick McEvoy Photography
Black and white landscape photography at The Vyne
Here is the black and white version of the picture of the sunshine in the woods at The Vyne, the National Trust site in Hampshire. Posted the colour version yesterday here on my photography blog.
Rick McEvoy Photography
Black and white landscape photography in Hampshire
Saturday 27th May 2017
Landscape photography in Hampshire
Black and white landscape photography in Hampshire
Landscape photography in Hampshire by Rick McEvoy
A picture of one of the paths in the grounds of The Vyne, the wonderful National Trust site in Hampshire.
Rick McEvoy - Hampshire Photographer
Saturday 4th February 201
Landscape photography in Hampshire by Rick McEvoy
Another picture of the wonderful woods at The Vyne. Check out the National Trust website for more info.
Rick McEvoy - Hampshire Photographer
Friday 3rd February 2017
The stunning New Forest - new landscape photography in Hampshire by Rick McEvoy
The New Forest – the starburst sunshine picture in black and white – more new landscape photography in Hampshire
I love the colour version of this image. And I really like this black and white picture. I like the feel of this image.
I hope you all like this image.
However.
I am not going to talk in this post about the processing in Lightroom and Nik Silver Efex Pro. Instead I am going to talk (well when I say talk I of course mean write, but I write how I talk anyway – you know what I mean!) about something completely different.
Oh no I hear you all groan.
Where did that come from?
Well this is where I am coming from.
I have been looking at my black and white imagery. And there is a style emerging. I am enjoying my black and white experimentation, but have decided today that I need to settle on a style. And that got me thinking.
How do I do that?
This is how I think I might do this.
But what I want to do is produce a consistent style of black and white landscape photography.
No key words. Not keywords. That is an altogether more boring subject!
I have produced a number of different styles of landscape images, and have decided I am going to try the following to a selection of images.
I think three different styles will be enough.
I am going to pick my 10 favourite landscape images, covering the widest possible variety of subjects, and will produce three images. For consistency I will produce new edits of the images in Lightroom, using similar settings and styles on each of the 10 images. I will approach my new friends, cropping and removing things, in a similarly consistent way.
Since I had this thought, I have been looking at the content of my blog, and have added this idea to my planned list of contents. I will be producing this new range of monthly content in January, including the monthly development of this idea. I am still going to do this, it will just take longer and be incorporated into my blog posting strategy for 2017.
Back to today's image finally. I might not have said this before, but I really love this picture.
Wednesday 23rd November 2016
Black and white landscape photography in Hampshire by Rick McEvoy
Hmmm. Which way to go with this one. One thing I can promise is that this will be the final edit of this picture. I have already started on the next picture and am excited to publish my next new piece of landscape photography work.
Back to the image on this post, which is the black and white version of the image posted yesterday.
And no digressions today, I promise. Apart from that digression….
I scrolled through the presets. Full Contrast and Structure is the last one in my favourite presets (you can assign favourites so you don’t have to go through all the presets, some of which I have never used – far too funky for me!). . I got down to this preset and that was that. Instant choice. Loving the effect. Preset done and a great start to the production of this black and white image.
My current favourite thing to do. The green filter gave the image a bit of a dreamy feeling, which is what I was, well I cant say looking for, but having seen this effect I can say I was hoping for.
The blue filter made it look completely different. Very very different.
I want the light on the floor and through the trees to be bright. Meaning the rest of the image needs to be dark. Lens Falloff 3 did the job here nicely.
The final piece of my black and white production jigsaw. A big boost of the Dynamic Brightness. 74%. Brightened up everything nicely.
That's it for this image. I have too many new images that I want to work on.
One final bit of housekeeping in Lightroom was to remove some of the edits. I don’t need them all so they just confuse. The two final edits I assigned a 5 star rating, and also a pick flag to be clear.
Oh yes and I went back to the import folder and actually keyworded the images. I have been posting images without keywords recently which is not a good habit to get into.
Tomorrow on my blog I am going straight to the final (colour) edit of another brand new picture of the New Forest. And this image I am liking even more than the one you see above. And the black and white image will follow on nicely on Friday, leading me into picking my image of the week for this week.
Thanks for reading this post, and I hope you are enjoying my new landscape photography work.
Friday 18th November 2016
The light in the New Forest - Landscape Photography in Hampshire by Rick McEvoy
I know I said that I had done the final edit of this image. But it turns out I hadn't. I had to do a few more things, as I wasn't completely happy with the final image.
I made a virtual copy of the tif file in Lightroom. This means I can create something new from that previous edit.
Anyway, I now have a copy of the image with all that has been done to date.
What was I not happy with? It was a bit too lightweight for me. So I did this.
Yes, I have reduced the exposure by one whole stop.
It was at -26, but I have a added a lot more vignette.
Now the light on the ground is more prominent, and the image has a bit more oomph about it.
Next I painted some streaks of brightness onto the floor. I did this by selecting the brush, with the dodge option, and dragging the mouse pointer over the lighter parts of the ground, towards the front. This works really well, and is easier if you select “Show Selected mask Overlay”, so you can see what you are doing.
I increased the dodging by sliding the exposure slider to the right by nearly a stop, and also added in a boost to the shadows. And a lump of clarity.
This is the beauty of localised adjustments in Lightroom - you can add to and take away whatever you want.
I increased the exposure in these localised adjustment in the end to 2.38 – yes nearly two and a half stops more.
And stopped there. That is what I was after, and I am happy with this final image. Erm well not quite. There is a black and white version of this to be done. I might even post this today as well if I get a move on.
So tomorrow a brand new image I promise – no more pictures of the New Forest.
Honest
Thursday 17th November 2016
My chosen picture of this Hampshire scene
An IPhone shot taken from the same place 3 weeks later
This Hampshire photograph is all about timing. Timing of the seasons, and timing of the light. Well timing of what is happening with the light in that location at that time on that day!
Both images were taken at the same time form the same location. The second image was taken three weeks after the first image.
It was what the light was doing to the trees.
I drove past this scene, then having thought about what I had seen turned round and went back. There is a small parking space by the road next to the footpath entrance into the field. Very handy!
So I got my trusty Canon EOS6D out of the car, and went with my Canon 70-200mm lens, the F4L IS version. I had surveyed the scene, and knew what I wanted to capture.
And that is what you are looking at.
So what caught my eye? It was what the light was doing amongst the trees still which were not fully grown for the summer. This picture is telling the story of the light playing amongst the developing Spring trees.
I saw something and captured it and like the final image.
So to the second photo.
I was driving the same route at the same time three weeks later. I drove past the same spot and stopped.
So what did I see?
Nothing. A dull scene.
The same place, same time of day, three weeks later.
Photography is about seeing things and capturing them. And a scene different from one day, week, month, year to the next. A great scene one day can be a nothing scene the next day.
I am not saying that these two pictures of Hampshire, or rather the first one, is a great landscape photography image. Far from it.
But the two images make the point!
Technical info about this shot
Canon EOS6D, 70-200mm F4 L Lens at 70mm, 1/250th second, F8, ISO200. Single exposure taken handheld using the fantastic AV mode.
Thanks for reading this post and please head over to my new Hampshire Photography page at http://www.rickmcevoyphotography.co.uk/hampshire-photographer for lots more photography stuff.
Thanks and best regards