Quite often people ask how I have put together a particular shot, what lighting I used, what processing I applied, the location, gear etc, and whilst I do provide some behind the scenes details for shoots, I thought I'd post more of the story behind some of my favorite shots. I'll talk more to camera settings, the environment I shot in and why, any challenges I faced, mistakes I made, and then post processing applied.

To start things rolling, I wanted to use one of my popular shots from 2012, DIESEL.

I shot DIESEL in a City called Lappeenranta, in Finland. I was there attending my brothers wedding and hadn't left any real time in the weekend for photography. After a day of traveling I arrived at the hotel, had a quick bite to eat and then flew out to try and cram in the only bit of photography I would have the chance to get.

Most of my work is portrait based, however you'll know if you follow the blog and visit my website, I also enjoy shooting Landscape and Travel for fun, and I had this in mind for the trip. I'd been told about the Harbour and could see some nice light coming down from the hotel so headed in that direction trying to find a subject that would inspire me.

Obviously boats were all around, the harbour itself was lit up nice, but as I walked away from the action, I stumbled across 2 DIESEL pumps and thought they might make a pretty cool picture. I did get some pretty strange looks from passers by as I began taking shots of a petrol pump.

What made me shoot DIESEL pumps? First off I had good evening light, also some dramatic clouds in the background, however it was the texture in the wooden and metal flooring around the pump, and the details that made me want to shoot this. I like shooting HDR (High Dynamic Range) and this was shot with that in mind. 3 exposures, 1 normal exposure, one 2 stops under and one 2 stops over.

Camera Settings: I shot this in Aperture Priority Mode at F22 so I could get sharpness throughout the picture, and also leave the shutter open longer to get a smoothness in the water. Camera was on the tripod for sharpness and I used the self timer rather than me touching the shutter button to remove any chance of movement in camera, again to achieve good sharpness.

Here are the images straight out of the camera prior to the HDR treatment:

Processing:

Processing was pretty simple. I adjusted white balance and exposure. It was then a case of adjusting the whites, blacks and reducing some noise picked up in the HDR process. I applied some vignetting so that your eyes get drawn to the tank in the picture first as it's the brightest part of the image and then finally, a good bit of sharpening given it's a landscape.

Final Image:

Here is a b&w version:

 I also had a play with a slightly different version. Same settings etc, and tried for a completely different look. I prefer the shot above, but do love the heavy grey cloud hanging over this and the fact it gives the same subject shot differently, a completely different feel. 

Thanks for reading.

Stu