River – Monochrome

July 31, 2020 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Fine Art, Fine Art Prints, HDR, Landscape, Leigh Kemp, Monochrome, Photography, River, Travel | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

Monochrome landscape work of the Weir on the River Thames at East Molesey

https://www.flickr.com/photos/leighkemp/50173721061/in/dateposted-public/lightbox/

All the best,

Leigh

Many thanks to Rob Trek.

July 31, 2020 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Fine Art, Fine Art Prints, HDR, Landscape, Leigh Kemp, Paintography, Photography, Travel | Leave a comment

Hi folks,

Rob very kindly mentioned my blog in his Youtube livestream yesterday. Rob produces some great content for those interested in photography. His videos are always very entertaining, educational and helpful. A fellow Olympus user, I thoroughly recommend subscribing to his channel especially for those with an interest in micro four thirds system cameras and lenses. He also has a very good online forum.

Kind regards

Leigh

“A last lingering look at the lock”

July 30, 2020 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Fine Art, Fine Art Prints, HDR, Landscape, Leigh Kemp, Paintography, Photography, Travel | 2 Comments

Hi folks, hope you’re all doing well.

Lock and Weir, River Thames, East Molesey. Another shot taken with my Sigma ART 60mm f/2.8 lens.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/leighkemp/50170326706/in/dateposted-public/lightbox/

Stay safe, all the best,

Leigh

“Bottom’s Up!”

July 29, 2020 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in HDR, Landscape, Leigh Kemp, Photography, Travel | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

Riverside landscape work of the Mitre at Hampton Court . Another shot with my PEN-F and much underused Sigma ART 60mm DN lens. A very sharp lens which I’m determined to try and use more. This lens along with my Lumix 12-32mm are two great sharp, compact lenses. The 60mm is discontinued but I guess that one could still pick one up used. I recommend both these lenses to Micro Four Thirds users.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/leighkemp/50166531563/in/dateposted-public/lightbox/

Cheers!,

Leigh

“Just another river shot”

July 29, 2020 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Fine Art, Fine Art Prints, HDR, Landscape, Leigh Kemp, Photography, River, Travel | 3 Comments

Hi folks,

River Thames, East Molesey. This time with my M.Zuiko 17mm lens.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/leighkemp/50166145232/in/dateposted-public/lightbox/

All the best,

Leigh

“Making an impression”

July 29, 2020 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in HDR, Landscape, Leigh Kemp, Paintography, Photography, River, Travel | Leave a comment

Hi folks,

Painterly work of the Weir on the River Thames at East Molesey. Another shot with one of my under-used lenses, this time my 60mm f/2.8 Sigma ART lens.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/leighkemp/50165385676/in/dateposted-public/lightbox/

Kind regards

Leigh

“Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”

July 28, 2020 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in HDR, Landscape, Leigh Kemp, panorama, Travel | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

https://www.flickr.com/photos/leighkemp/50163480451/in/dateposted-public/lightbox/

Panorama, River Thames, East Molesey. A little poignant as I’ll miss this location after we move. 5-frame panorama taken with my Olympus M.Zuiko 9-18mm lens.

Kind regards

Leigh

PS. If you want a good free panorama stitching software then I thoroughly recommend Microsoft ICE (Image Composite Editor) https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/product/computational-photography-applications/image-composite-editor/.

I’ve used it for a long time and it’s excellent. Make sure you allow abot 25-30% overlap in you images and try and keep level when taking them. I find the EVF image grid overlay really useful for this.

“Standoff at the shoreline”

July 28, 2020 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in digital art, HDR, Landscape, Leigh Kemp, Photography, Travel | 6 Comments

Hi folks,

Birds vs boats. River Thames, East Molesey. I thought I’d make one last trip to one of my all time favourite locations before we move to the South Coast. I took with me a few of my lesser used lenses. This shot taken on my PEN-F camera and M.Zuiko 9-18mm lens, a lens I like for its really wide angle. I’ll miss the river, it’s been a constant factor running through most of my life and always a source of inspiration and the subject of countless of my shots but, like the river, it’s time to move on.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/leighkemp/50163314547/in/dateposted-public/lightbox/

Best wishes,

Leigh

New video

July 28, 2020 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in digital art, HDR, Landscape, Leigh Kemp, Paintography, Photography, Travel | Leave a comment

Hi folks,

Following my recent # No People post, I thought I’d do an new video of my landscape works.

Kind regards

Leigh

#nopeople 🙂

July 27, 2020 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Fine Art, Fine Art Prints, HDR, Landscape, Leigh Kemp, Paintography, Photography, Travel | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

I was talking with a friend the other day and he mentioned that there aren’t many people in my shots. Whenever I add tags to my shots on the 500px website it always suggests “No People” and I find myself habitually selecting it, as, in 99.99% plus cases it’s applicable.

I wouldn’t go so far as to define myself as asocial or, if I am at all, then not on the hermit end of the scale and certainly not as antisocial, some of my best friends are people, 🙂 but I don’t really want people in my shots unless it’s absolutely unavoidable and I actively try and avoid it and I take very few shots, excluding family shots, where the person is deliberately the subject of the shot. It’s just a personal preference that I want to try capture a landscape scene as naturally as possible singularly uncluttered with people.

Apart from the guy driving the tractor, and I couldn’t really have asked him to pull up, dismount and get out of the shot, and maybe a few distant people on the beach, I don’t think there are very many people in these shots, ducks yes, swans yes, seagulls yes, geese probably, even sheep! but no people. 🙂

50141048043_1bb992ea03_c 50084356867_9f10287014_c (1) 48558322997_5a5bbb254c_c 49677314342_46c5914506_c 46881251181_5d33932d6f_c 49649421957_4ca5430194_c 49599099456_54903c5ce6_c 49592478881_023b9f2a45_c (1) 49515017356_ac48036e23_c 49511183046_bedc980411_c neighbours_48575297756_o 3-nights-in-brugge-7-new-series_47394056471_o dapdune-wharf---redux-explored_46430224114_o 50105062556_9d8e0957ae_c 48437237002_3c68cb4e6d_c 49678241408_7151b24819_c 48886224922_ac43493172_c riverbank_48537424107_o petersham-landscape_48529714967_o 48552934977_6c1926b782_c (2) 49501895288_f4e6a23e54_c park 5 50151847056_005ba894bc_c (1) 49641101922_fdefca2451_c 3-nights-in-brugge-2---new-series_46657106694_o 48782503138_9eb3eb1cf7_c 49368267641_438f55115b_c 49569594343_6532bb57c4_c

Kind regards

Leigh

As I sit here looking at my modern digital cameras I’m reminded of my first camera and, in particular, the first photograph that I ever took. Nowadays we take cameras and camera technology pretty much for granted but when I was a child I can’t remember many photographs. The only time our camera saw the light of day, and it had to be the light of day, as there wasn’t a flash, was on a few family occasions, the usual thing, school sports days, birthdays, etc.. My interest in photography didn’t start until my grandfather “loaned” me his camera to take with me on a week-long school trip, sleeping under canvas, in Snowdonia, North Wales. It was a somewhat battered old twin-lens reflex camera in which one looked downwards in to the viewfinder when taking a photograph.

I remember being very excited at being entrusted with the family camera, film wasn’t cheap and I had very little to no idea how to use it. The experience must have made some kind of impression on me as, after all these years, I still remember taking my first photograph. The coach stopped en-route at Blenheim Palace, the ancestral home of Sir Winston Churchill and it became the subject of my first photograph. Although, sadly, like my other photographs from the trip, it has long since disappeared, however, I really don’t need the photograph to remind me as the experience is indelibly etched on my mind. I wonder if this is perhaps where my interest in landscape photography stems from but that’s probably too much of an assumption. As far as I remember I was the only kid on the trip to have a camera, that’s how different things were, nowadays, just about everyone has a camera of some sort built in to their mobile phones. It also taught me to be disciplined to the point of being frugal when taking photographs as the trip was for one week and I only had a 12 exposure black and white film in the camera.

Some years later I really got the photography bug and bought my first camera, an Olympus OM-1 35 mm film camera and I went on to own their OM-2 and OM-4ti cameras and a range of lenses. Film was still pretty expensive considering I earned about £20 a week in my first job so I got in to developing and printing my own black and white and, later, colour films to help keep the costs down and make things more affordable. Not only did this experience teach me an awful lot about image-making start to finish, many of the techniques and skills that I learned in my makeshift darkroom, a small room adorned with genuine World War 2 blackout curtains fitted to keep out the light, another hand-me-down from my grandfather, these skills would re-surface and be invaluable some years later when I started working on processing my digital images.

I put myself through University as a mature student and I badly needed the money so I had to very reluctantly part with all my photographic equipment, but needs must. After I graduated I bought my first digital camera, a small fixed lens Kodak compact camera, reduced in a sale. It had, by today’s standards, a laughably small maximum image resolution of 640×480 pixels or, to put it another way, a stunning 0.4 Megapixels!. For all of this and further equipped with screw on wide angle and telephoto lens attachments, it proved to be a fabulous little camera which I took all over the place with me. Put simply, digital photography was a revelation, to me, no requirement for film, no real running costs and a lot of image capacity on a small memory card which I found absolutely liberating.

A few years before that I had discovered some free graphics editing software on the cover disk of a computer magazine and that started off my real passion for working with graphics and, ultimately, photo processing. So I then had all the tools I required to develop, pun intended and further, my interest in digital photography. Processing is where the magic starts for me, I am totally absorbed in and fascinated by the range of options that digital processing affords me. It encourages me, if, that is, I ever need encouragement, to constantly experiment with new styles, new techniques and is such an important part of my enjoyment and interest in photography.

I went on to own several DSLRs but, as I got older I began to find that they were simply too heavy and bulky. I switched over back in 2013 to Micro Four Thirds cameras and lenses. My choice of MFT system was heavily influenced by my experiences with my Olympus film cameras, maybe it was, in truth, part based on nostalgia that I decided on their OM-D system. As a landscape/travel photographer I have to carry my gear around all day and the weight and bulk saving is highly significant. I’ve been very impressed with the image quality of my Micro Four Thirds equipment, it has traveled with me extensively, never let me down and I have never had cause to question my decision to go over to that format.

So my 50-plus year photographic adventure has led me from twin-lens reflex and single-lens reflex film cameras to digital cameras, from stumbling around in a dimly-lit darkroom to working with my images on my computer. I’ve heard it said on occasions, including a comment I read some while back by a very famous photographer, that cameras being so much an every-day item now and available in mobile phones etc. devalues photography. I feel quite the opposite, I firmly believe that it empowers everyone with affordable technology to take photographs and enjoy photography and that, in my opinion, is fantastic. Although I’ve very much enjoyed my personal photographic journey I do confess to feeling a slight tinge of regret that the technology wasn’t available when I started out but one can’t put the clock back and I intend to keep on embracing all these great technological advancements, experimenting and enjoying my work.

Cameras:

Olympus: OM-D E-M5 Mk II (titanium) & HLD-8G grip, OM-D E-M1 Mk I (black) & HDL-7 grip, OM-D EM-5 Mk I (silver) & HDL-6 grip, PEN EPL-5, PEN EP-5 (silver) +VF-4, PEN E-PL8 (Silver) +VF4, Tough TG-5 (red), PEN-F (silver), Canon Powershot G10, Nikon Coolpix A100

Lenses:

Olympus: M.Zuiko: 12 mm f/2, 17 mm f/1.8, 25 mm f/1.8, 45 mm f/1.8, 30 mm f/3.5 macro, 9 mm f/8 body cap fisheye, 15 mm f/8 body cap, 9-18 mm, 12-50 mm, 12-40 mm f/2.8 PRO, 14-150 mm II, 40-150 mm II, 12-45mm f/4 PRO, MCON-P02.

Sigma: ART 60 mm f/2.8.

Samyang: Manual focus 7.5 mm f/3.5 fisheye.

TT Artisan: Manual focus 17mm f/1.4, 23mm f/1.4, 35mm f/1.4.

Panasonic Lumix: 14 mm f/2.5, 20 mm f/1.7, 12-32 mm x2 (black and silver), 12-60 mm, 14-42 mm II, 35-100 mm, 45-150mm.

PEN E-P5, 9-18mm,12-32mm, 40-150mm II. A lightweight kit with virtually continuous coverage from 18mm wide angle to 300mm telephoto.

OM-D E-M1 I, 14-150mm II, 12-40mm PRO. . Heavier than my other kits but with complete weather-sealing. Coverage from 24mm wide angle to 300mm telephoto with some overlap for backup.

OM-D E-M5 II, 17mm, 35mm, 12-60mm. A balance of two fun manual focus lenses with a weather-sealed body and zoom lens.

PEN E-PL5, 9mm, 15mm, 25mm, 60mm, 12-50mm. Another lightweight fun kit with a zoom option.

TG-5, OM-D E-M5 mk1, 7.5mm, 12mm, 17mm, 45mm, 30mm macro. M-CON.

PEN-F, 14mm, 20mm, 12-32mm, 35-100mm. Probably my favourite lightweight day-to-day kit. Two fast primes and two zoom with almost continuous coverage from 24mm wide angle through to 200mm telephoto.

Software:

Corel: Paintshop Pro Elite 2020 & Video Studio 2019.

Skylum Software: Aurora HDR 2019, Luminar 4, Luminar AI and Luminar Neo.

DXO Labs: PhotoLab 5 Elite, Viewpoint 3, NIK Collection 6, Film Pack 5 and PureRAW.

Anthropics Technologies: Landscape Pro Studio 3 and Portrait Pro.

EyeQ: Perfectly Clear

Topaz Labs: Studio 2, Sharpen AI, A.I Gigapixel, AI Clear, AI Adjust, DeNoise AI and Various legacy plugins.

Adobe: Lightroom.

GreenScreenWizard Studio Pro.

Serif: Affinity Photo

Microsoft: Image Composite Editor (Free).

Darktable (Free).

Olympus: Olympus Capture, Olympus Workspace and Olympus Webcam (Free to Olympus owners).

Sony: Movie Studio Platinum.

Lighting Gear:

Godox TT350o flash, Godox X1T radio flash trigger, Godox Lux Junior flash, LED ring flash, GVM RGB LED light, Olympus MAL-1 Macro Arm Light. Two Godox LED36 lights, Godox Litemons LED6R light. Three Bowen studio flash heads, barndoors, honeycombes, umbrellas and flash meter.