Neil Alexander | Photographer » Links http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com Manchester based landscape and travel photographer Wed, 01 Feb 2012 08:31:22 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 My favourites from 2011 http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/2011/12/30/my-favourites-from-2011/ http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/2011/12/30/my-favourites-from-2011/#comments Fri, 30 Dec 2011 11:30:38 +0000 Neil http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/?p=17731 It’s that time again…. In keeping with the last couple of year’s reflections on the year that was (2010 here, and 2009 here) below are my 12 14 favourite images from 2011. Slightly different from these previous entries though, I haven’t picked one image from each month, I’ve simply tried to pick my 12 (which ended up being14) personal favourite images from this year. It’s always an interesting exercise and I find it really quite rewarding to see how my skills have developed from the year before.

So here they are, although not in any order in particular, other than chronological.

First up is an image I made in Spinningfields, Manchester that I submitted in the Urban View category of the Landscape Photographer of the Year 2011 competition, which was subsequently shortlisted.

wpid17703 The Avenue Manchester Neil Alexander 01 My favourites from 2011

The Avenue, Manchester - Shortlisted for Landscape Photographer of the Year 2011

Also in January I made the image below with Charlie in Castlefield with one of my favourite modifiers, the Lastolite Ezybox. Details here

wpid17705 Charlie Castlefield Neil Alexander 02 My favourites from 2011

Charlie, Castlefield

Patrick with his guitar on the roof of the Arndale car park before the security guards came along. Blog post here

wpid17707 Neil Alexander 03 My favourites from 2011

Patrick with his guitar on the roof of the Arndale Car Park, Manchester

Maltese street scene – First trip to Malta this year. Blog post here.

wpid17709 Typical street scene in Victoria on the Island of Gozo Malta Neil Alexander 04 My favourites from 2011

Typical street scene in Victoria on the Island of Gozo, Malta

Kayleigh, Trafford Park with the moon. Blog post  here

wpid17711 Kayleigh Neil Alexander 05 My favourites from 2011

Kayleigh

 

wpid17713 Neil Alexander 06 My favourites from 2011

Second trip to Malta this year. Blog posts here and here

wpid17715 Doorway Zejtun Malta Neil Alexander 07 My favourites from 2011

Doorway, Zejtun, Malta

Anna – “Waiting for a bus?” with some very carefully placed SB900s – blog post here

wpid17717 Waiting for a bus Neil Alexander 08 My favourites from 2011

Waiting for a bus?

Lighthouse, Vilamoura, Portgual. Blog post here and on variable neutral density filters here

wpid17719 View of the breakwater at Vilamoura Portugal with a lighthouse at the end Neil Alexander 09 My favourites from 2011

View of the breakwater at Vilamoura, Portugal with a lighthouse at the end

Manchester Central Library – post here

wpid17721 Manchester Central Library at sunset Neil Alexander 10 My favourites from 2011

Manchester Central Library at sunset

Jenson Button in his McLaren Mercedes tears up Deansgate, Manchester. Post here

wpid17723 Jenson Buttons Vodafone McLaren in Manchester Neil Alexander 11 My favourites from 2011

Jenson Button

The Lake District. Post here

wpid17725 View up The Struggle in the Lake District on an Autumn morning Neil Alexander 12 My favourites from 2011

View up The Struggle in the Lake District on an Autumn morning

Derwent Valley. Post here

wpid17727 Tree in the Derwent Valley High Peaks Neil Alexander 13 My favourites from 2011

Tree in the Derwent Valley, High Peaks

And finally a shoot I did with Sophie and Pat in mid December that I haven’t yet blogged about. Post to follow in the New Year.

wpid17729 Pat Sophie Neil Alexander 14 My favourites from 2011

Pat & Sophie

So in retrospect I’m more than happy with the quality of what I’ve produced this year, though I do feel that I need to up the quantity next year. And in upping the quantity I’m pretty certain that this will also see an improvement in the quality too. I ought to write a post on my plans for 2012 too. For one, it’ll give me something to be held to, and it’ll also help me to thrash out my thoughts and plans for the next year of my business and where I want to take it. So you can look forward to this in the coming weeks.

Finally, for 2012 I’ll be releasing desktop wallpapers for your personal use. You can download January’s here in 3 separate sizes. There’s 2560 x 1440, 1920 x 1200 & 1440 x 900. Simply click the appropriate link and right click to save to your desktop.

NeilAlexander JanuaryDesktop 1440x900 590x368 My favourites from 2011

NeilAlexander_JanuaryDesktop - 1440x900

 

As this’ll be my final post for 2011, I’ll sign off by saying that it’s been a fantastic year for me photographically speaking and I hope that 2012 is even better.
Enjoy the celebrations, and I’ll see you on the other side.

Wishing you a prosperous 2012.
Neil

]]> http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/2011/12/30/my-favourites-from-2011/feed/ 0 Model shoot with Anna and June’s selected links http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/2011/07/01/model-shoot-with-anna-and-junes-selected-links/ http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/2011/07/01/model-shoot-with-anna-and-junes-selected-links/#comments Fri, 01 Jul 2011 11:17:13 +0000 Neil http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/?p=15785 The other week I was lucky enough to have the pleasure of working with the lovely Anna again. We did 3 separate location shoots, though the last one was a complete disaster for one reason and another, but the less said about that the better….. Instead I’m going to give you a quick insight into how I made the photograph below.

wpid15653 Neil Alexander Lge 1 590x887 Model shoot with Anna and Junes selected links

Anna by Neil Alexander (Click for larger)

We met up around 11am and headed down to a spot on the edge of Ashley in Cheshire by the banks of the River Bollin. It’s an area that I’m quite familiar with having shot many landscape images there before – this one being my favourite. Knowing the area helps hugely when I’m trying to pre-visualise the final image, and this in turn aids me with composition and lighting at the time of making the image as I already have quite a clear vision in my mind’s eye of how I want the finished product to appear.

I had Anna turn sideways on to me with her back to the tree and then lay her arms along the branch behind her to provide a leading line into the frame. I then lit her with a Nikon SB900 flash inside a 76cm Lastolite Ezybox HotShoe softbox camera left and a grided SB900 camera right. It was one of those days when the sun was constantly in and out of the clouds, so the purpose of the softbox was to provide a soft controllable light on Anna, but it meant that I only shot when the sun was behind the clouds. It gave me more control over the amount and direction of light that fell on Anna, though to be honest most of the time the sun was behind the clouds it diffused the light so much and so smoothly that this light didn’t really effect the final image very much. It was only when the sun went behind really thick cloud that I noticed the light visibly decrease and then the Lastolite came into play. The other light behind Anna did generally make much more of an appearance. To this light I applied a small home-made grid which focused the beam coming from the unit and allowed me to direct it squarely at the back of Anna’s head. This gave me sufficient light to bring out her hair and to separate her head from the tree more. All shot TTL and the above was made using the 70-200 at 1/250 sec, F2.8 ISO 400. The final images was then imported into Lightroom and processed in Nik’s SilverEfex Pro2.

Here’s the set up shot:

wpid15607 Neil Alexander Lge 1 590x392 Model shoot with Anna and Junes selected links

Model shoot set up (Click for larger)

Finally as a little Brucey Bonus as it’s the end of the month, here’s a few links that have caught my eye over the last month. Worth a few mins if you’ve got the time……:

And FINALLY…….
If you’ve visited the site lately, you’ll undoubtedly have noticed a wee change…… I’ve moved over from my previous theme to a Graph Paper Press theme and will shortly be incorporating this into a new PhotoShelter site (It’s all part of my grand plan…). However in the meantime, things are liable to change, shuffle about, fall off, go back on and generally get tweaked here, there any everywhere, so apologies in advance. Obviously as many of the changes as possible will be done offline, but sometimes the only way to change bits and pieces is whilst stuff is running live.

TTFN

]]> http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/2011/07/01/model-shoot-with-anna-and-junes-selected-links/feed/ 0 Selected from the web for May http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/2011/06/03/selected-from-the-web-for-may/ http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/2011/06/03/selected-from-the-web-for-may/#comments Fri, 03 Jun 2011 09:00:08 +0000 Neil http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/?p=15620 I’m currently over in Malta working on some fresh travel imagery, and without anything significant prepared for the blog this is the best I could rustle up for today’s post I’m afraid…
A few interesting photography related items for May:

Back in Blighty early next week at which point normal service will be resumed….

]]> http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/2011/06/03/selected-from-the-web-for-may/feed/ 0 More from Malta and Selected from the web for April http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/2011/04/29/more-from-malta-and-selected-from-the-web-for-april/ http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/2011/04/29/more-from-malta-and-selected-from-the-web-for-april/#comments Fri, 29 Apr 2011 09:22:10 +0000 Neil http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/?p=14629
neil alexander 1 XL 950x646 More from Malta and Selected from the web for April

Maltese window (click for larger)

Click here to buy a print or license a digital copy of this image.

 

Happy Friday y’all. I had penned an extended blog post on the subject of cable releases and tripods in advance yesterday only for BlogPress to eat it, and I’m afraid that I just couldn’t face trying to extract it from my verbally limited brain again. So today I’ve furnished you with a couple more images from my most recent trip to Malta, and as it’s the end of the month I’ve provided you with a double whammy and included April’s “selected from the web”…

neil alexander 2 XL 950x600 More from Malta and Selected from the web for April

Maltese doors (click for larger)

Click here to buy a print or license a digital copy of this image.

 

Here’s a few interesting photography related items for April:

Photographers and some photographs worth taking a look at:

Tips and techniques that I’d recommend you take a butchers at:

]]> http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/2011/04/29/more-from-malta-and-selected-from-the-web-for-april/feed/ 2 Selected from the web – March http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/2011/04/08/selected-from-the-web-march/ http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/2011/04/08/selected-from-the-web-march/#comments Fri, 08 Apr 2011 06:00:08 +0000 Neil http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/?p=14257 As I’m away (without a laptop for the first time in years), and no scheduled post prepared, here’s a few interesting photography related items for March for this week’s post:

]]> http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/2011/04/08/selected-from-the-web-march/feed/ 0 Selected from the web for February http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/2011/03/07/selected-from-the-web-for-february/ http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/2011/03/07/selected-from-the-web-for-february/#comments Mon, 07 Mar 2011 21:38:55 +0000 Neil http://manctog.com/?p=13065 Here’s a few interesting photography related items posted around the web in February (better late than never eh??): Read on:

]]> http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/2011/03/07/selected-from-the-web-for-february/feed/ 0 Selected from the web – December 21st http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/2010/12/21/selected-from-the-web-december-21st/ http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/2010/12/21/selected-from-the-web-december-21st/#comments Tue, 21 Dec 2010 12:53:21 +0000 Neil http://manctog.com/?p=9113 Here’s a few interesting photography related items for December 21st:

]]> http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/2010/12/21/selected-from-the-web-december-21st/feed/ 0 Selected from the web – November 19th http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/2010/11/19/selected-from-the-web-november-19th/ http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/2010/11/19/selected-from-the-web-november-19th/#comments Fri, 19 Nov 2010 14:09:27 +0000 Neil http://manctog.com/?p=7471 It’s a while since I’ve done one of these, so I’ve a few worth sharing and as it’s Friday…..

]]> http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/2010/11/19/selected-from-the-web-november-19th/feed/ 0 Selected from the web – August 16th http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/2010/08/16/selected-from-the-web-august-16th/ http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/2010/08/16/selected-from-the-web-august-16th/#comments Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:08:04 +0000 Neil http://manctog.com/?p=1089 It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, but there’s some interesting stuff in here I thought I’d share.

]]> http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/2010/08/16/selected-from-the-web-august-16th/feed/ 0 Selected from the web – May 19th http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/2010/05/13/selected-from-the-web-may-11th/ http://blog.neilalexanderphotography.com/2010/05/13/selected-from-the-web-may-11th/#comments Thu, 13 May 2010 08:20:54 +0000 Neil http://manctog.com/?p=1039 Here’s a few interesting photography related items for May 19th:

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