New work: “The Hogsmill River”

October 5, 2017 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in art, digital art, Fine Art, Travel | 2 Comments

Hi everyone,

Another work from my trip today to the Hogsmill River. I’m in full “painterly” flow today. 🙂

Best wishes to all,

leigh sig 2

New work: In search of Ophelia

October 5, 2017 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in art, digital art, Fine Art, Photography, Travel | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

Taken at the very spot on the Hogsmill River in Ewell where John Everett Millais painted his famous work “Ophelia” .

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Everett_Millais#/media/File:Jo…

I couldn’t find anyone to lay down in the river but then again neither could he as apparently he painted his model in the bath. Personally I don’t blame her as I wouldn’t want to go in it either 🙂

Best wishes

leigh sig 2

My website now has SSL encryption

October 1, 2017 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in art, digital art, Fine Art, Photography, Travel | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

I’ve had a fun day changing my website over to SSL to facilitate secure onsite shopping. Fortunately I didn’t have to make too many changes but these things do take quite a bit of time. New url is https://www.leighkemp.co.uk I’ve been meaning to do this for some while and glad it’s now done. My website host has only fairly recently introduced this option. I took the opportunity to tweak a few things design-wise while I was at it 🙂

Best wishes

leigh sig 2

Website guestbook

September 30, 2017 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in art, digital art, Fine Art, Photography, Travel | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

I finally added a guestbook to my website so why not stop by and leave me a comment when you have a sec..

http://www.leighkempphotoart.co.uk/guestbook

Best wishes

leigh sig 2

Two nights in Brussels #18 and #19

September 30, 2017 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in art, digital art, Fine Art, Photography, Travel | Leave a comment

Hi folks,

Two more of my Brussels works in very different styles 🙂

Two nights in Brussels #18 Fountain on the Place Rouppe

Two nights in Brussels #19 “Up Close” (at the Atomium)

Best wishes

leigh sig 2

Yet another river work :)

September 29, 2017 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in art, digital art, Photography, Travel | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

Regulars to my blog will know how much I love the River Thames as I grew up very near by to it so it’ll come as absolutely no surprise that here’s yet another river work of the River at Richmond upon Thames 🙂

As always, best wishes

leigh sig 2

My processing non-workflow : )

September 28, 2017 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Photography | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

I thought I’d do a list of my favourite and most used photo software in no particular order.

DXO Optics Pro 11 Elite
DXO Viewpoint 3
Corel Paintshop Pro 2018.
Various NIK Collection plugins like Viveza, Colour FX, Analogue FX etc. (FREE)
Various Topaz plugins eg. Detail, Adjust, Restyle and Clarity etc.
Topaz Studio (FREE)
Dynamic Auto Painter
Adobe Lightroom
Landscape Pro Studio
ON1 Effects 10 (FREE)
Photomatrix Pro

I always work on my RAW files using DXO Optics Pro as my RAW importer of choice as it has great lens correction profiles as well as a host of good features such as Clearview, Prime noise reduction and great auto and manual perspective correction and more. For more intensive control over perspective correction I like DXO Viewport.

I tend to use Lightroom primarily as a host for exporting and importing between software programs and applying plugins such as Topaz and NIK etc. and I keep the image as a 16 Bit TIF file throughout.

DAP is a really nice program for painting and textures. Landscape Pro is really very useful for working with landscape works and very intelligent in what it sets out to do. I like ON1 as it’s free 🙂 and has a large number of extra presets and filters including some nice film and movie type effects.

Lastly I use Photomatrix for most of my HDR processing and Paintshop Pro, which I know like the back of my hand, as I’ve been using it in all its forms for so many years as an all-round image editor.

So when I’m asked about my workflow it’s pretty impossible to answer as, with the exception of starting with DXO Optics pro and ending up with a final image, I can use any or maybe even all of these programs along the way. 🙂

I was asked exactly this question a while back as if one could dial it in using one piece of software and the answer is that every work is different in one way or another and thus there is no set path from RAW image to end result. If there was I’d be very bored very quickly and every work would come out looking pretty much the same, no fun or challenge in that! :).

Best wishes

leigh sig 2

Feel the drama! :)

September 28, 2017 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in art, digital art, Fine Art, Photography, Travel | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

Another of my works of Rome, When in Rome #59 “Dramatic statues”, feel the drama! 🙂

Best wishes,

leigh sig 2

Two nights in Brussels #17 “La Grande Place”

September 27, 2017 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in art, digital art, Fine Art, Photography, Travel | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

Last work of the day, the magnificent Grande Place, Brussels,

Best wishes

leigh sig 2

Straight down the pier

September 27, 2017 by Leigh Kemp - UK-based "Paintographer" in Photography, Travel | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

A moody work of Eastbourne Pier sadly before the fire.

Kind regards

leigh sig 2

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.