Graham Leggate

Over the weekend I was playing with the little ones in the new mostly built alfereso area and shot off a few frames. I think a few of them are keepers, if not for any other reason than I’m their dad

All shot using a Nikon D90 and 50mm f/1.8. Still surprised at how sharp these little lenses are for the money.

Hard to believe our youngest is going to be 1 on Sunday! It feels like he has been around forever, but it doesn’t feel like he has been with us for as long as 1 year either! All I know is they grow up really fast. We headed down to a little park on the coast near the Wild Fig cafe on the weekend to get some fresh air, and here’s a couple of snaps of our little boy, who seems to weigh a ton, a week before he turns 1.

It has been a rather wet day, and it is pretty hard to enjoy our place in the wet at the moment. Both areas in our backyard are building sites! I thought I would do some portraits of the kids whilst they were playing. A quick edit in Aperture, and I’m happy All these images are taken using the Nikon D90 and Nikon 50mm f/1.8D lens.

I haven’t posted anything for a while. So I thought I would post a behind the scenes photo from a family portrait session on Sunday.

First one was taken by Matt, a behind the scene shot of Kheng working hard

The second is a quick snap of Matt and Kheng.

I haven’t posted anything new for a couple of weeks. Life has been rather busy lately, especially since I had a little health issue which needed a small operation to fix. So I have been off my feet for the last 4 days, which has given me some time to post-process some pictures and have a good look at Aperture 3. My first impressions of Aperture 3 is, I’m really impressed. The control you now have with editing files in a non-destructive way is so much better and more advanced. I really like the Quick Brushes, they give you great control to wield magical digital editing in places that need it. Library management and labelling is heaps better and gives you greater flexibility to categorise images. I think that most edits can now safely be done in A3 without needing to flick over to PS. Now we just need the guys from Nik Software and Imagenomic to update their plugins to be 64-bit and I will be one happy camper.

Anyway, there’s plenty of Aperture 3 reviews around, best way is to download it and give it a whirl. Below are some pictures I have done recently. Most of them are some kiddies portraits and one is from a wedding we shot recently. All of these images have been processed the Aperture 3. I am Really loving this app.

No new landscapes… just a quick portrait of James, who turn 6 months old on Saturday.

For those who might be interested. The setup to do this type of shot is pretty straight forward. This was shot using the D90 with an 18-105, at around 48mm, f/5.0, 1/800 at ISO 1000, I was also shooting using spot metering. The photo was taken on the dining room floor, which has a pair of glass doors facing north west, so shooting in the afternoon is preferable. I use a black sheet as the back drop, which is draped and clamped to the back of the dining room chairs. I have a trusty reflector on hand to help get rid of any hard shadows, fire off a few shots… and hey presto you have some portraits… well nearly. Work a little digital dark room magic, get the blacks black, increase the colour saturation a little, get the skin softer and sharpen a few features, then you are ready to print.

With so much going on; the arrival of James 6 weeks ago, Amelie being unwell, the in-laws over from London, renovations on the house (hooray! All the rendering is complete, well nearly, except for 1 pillar, new gutters fitted, new fascia covers, new wardrobes, most of the bits which bolt to the outside of the house are on, new gates are on order, cedar ceiling installed in the portico and the plans for the new balcony and patio are in progress); there hasn’t been any time to get out and do any landscape photography. However I have still had the D90 out, but mainly focussing the kids. I have to give my wife a pat on her back… she has had to put up with the renovations and other stresses whilst also giving birth!

Anyway, here’s a couple of pictures, the first is of Amelie taken in the garden today… yes she is rugged up as if it is snowing… it was bloody cold out side today. The second picture is of James, taken a couple of weekends ago, when he was 4 weeks old.

I didn’t get as much time as I hoped to try my hand at some arty-farty pictures of James. I got a short time on Sunday afternoon to give something a go. I spent a little bit of time making a small backdrop which I can hopefully re-use again. This was quite a difficult shot to take, as he is a real wigglier! Also my remote is infrared and I had it in my mouth whilst holding my hands in front of me and pointing my mouth back to the camera… now I’m writing this, I am thinking “Why didn’t I just use the self timer and set up a 10 shot batch?” Oh well… live and learn. Hopefully I will get some time to try some more over the next few weeks, if not, expect to see pictures of fruit and other junk around the house