Michael Rammell 27/01/2017 Michael Rammell 27/01/2017

Making Mono Macro Tulips (Video)

This week I started working on a new video series that I will be launching later in the year. In my upcoming series, I'll be sharing my entire post-processing method, from the moment I insert the memory card and import the images, through to the settings I like to apply, the way I crop, make use of brushes and my tips for exporting images too.

It will be a massively comprehensive series of videos with hours of footage broken down into bite-size chapters. If you're new to Adobe LightRoom this will serve as your one-stop shop to learn the program! Be sure to subscribe if you haven't already and you'll be notified when that is live and available.

If truth be told, though, it's been much harder than I had thought it would be! Creating high-quality videos takes far longer than you may think!

So, today I decided to take a break from producing that series and very quickly threw together this video: totally unscripted, quick & simple and hopefully it goes to show the sort of results you're able to achieve with a very simple setup and very little effort. I filmed behind the scenes and my post processing to show you how you can go from this to this:

All I used for this shoot was my Olympus OM-D E-M1, the Olympus M.Zuiko 60mm f/2.8 Macro, a large window, a purple tulip and Adobe Lightroom. Check it out:

It is a bit of a long video, so perhaps enjoy this on your commute or during your lunch break with a cuppa! :)

Download Wallpapers

Just in case you were wandering what I did with the other images that were left un-processed in the video, they're right here for you to take a look at. You can also download them (18Mb) to use as desktop wallpapers, but, please do note that they are copyright (details at the bottom of the post):

Copyright Notice

All works are Creative Commons Licensed:

Mono Macro Tulips by Michael Rammell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at www.michaelrammell.com.

Michael Rammell 07/12/2015 Michael Rammell 07/12/2015

Postcard Photographs of London

I went out and about in London last week with my good friend Paul Griffiths, host of the Photography Live and Uncut Podcast & YouTube channel. I find it much harder to produce my best Street Photographs when I'm with someone else, mostly because I'm distracted by the chat, but on occasion it's good to get out there with someone else and discuss photography as well. On this day I captured photographs a little different to my usual street style

All of the photographs you see here in this post were made using an Olympus OM-D E-M1 Micro Four Thirds Mirrorless Camera and the Olympus M.Zuiko 17mm f/1.8

On this particular day I was quite pleased with some of the street photographs I had made, but I was more pleased with the postcard style photographs of London I had managed to capture towards the end of the walk. We were very fortunate to have a beautiful sunset combined with typically dramatic British clouds, giving for a sky that was asking to be photographed. So, whilst I've photographed Big Ben so much to the point I often don't even look at it when I'm walking by it, this day I simply had to get a shot!

The post processing here is a simple shadow lift in Lightroom and a little bit of sharpening. I used the brush and applied some added clarity to the clouds as well.

We made our photographs of Big Ben with the dramatic cloud back drops and moved on to the south side of the river. The sky was still glowing at this point and so more photographs were in order. The vibrant gold had somewhat faded by by this point, but the clouds had shifted. I opted for an in-camera HDR here because I was shooting in the direction of the sun but wanted to maintain some detail in the Jubilee Bridge. I set my Olympus OM-D E-M1 to bracket for 3 stops and exposed half a stop over, meaning I captured all the details in the shadows. I didn't have my tripod or even my Joby Gorillapod with me, so I simply rested the camera on the wall.

Post Processing here included taking the image in to SilverEfex Pro2 and applying the Full Dynamic Range Smooth filter to really enhance those clouds. Then, back in Lightroom I bought the shadows up and the highlights down.

After a few minutes we ambled towards South Bank, which from where we were walking would take us under the London Eye. Another tourist attraction that I often don't look twice at because I find it awkward to photograph. Again, having it seen it so many times now (especially as I get in to London at Waterloo Station) I tend to walk on by without shooting it. But, another positive of walking around London with someone else is that you'll often find yourself stopping to wait for them and sometimes shooting things you perhaps wouldn't usually photograph. This is an example of just that:

The next day I was back in London for work and spent the day at the office, not really getting out. In England at this time of year (December) it's dark by 3:30pm and so by the time I had left the office it was pitch black. But I like this! If you're a subscriber to my blog or read the monthly Olympus Magazine you may recall I was featured back in June - even though the work shown in the magazine was photographed during the darker winter months.

From my office in the rather palatial St James' area of London I prefer to walk the route back to London Waterloo, rather than jumping on the tube. The difference in time is negligible, but the photographic opportunities are much better. My route often takes me back through Covent Garden.

One of the great things about London though is that it's never really that dark. The quality of the light isn't fantastic, but if you look for the illuminations and sources of light you can usually get a shot worth sharing. And with the incredible dynamic range that the E-M1 offers us, we can be sure that we're going to get some details in the shadows:

I took a little detour through the market in Covent Garden, which is always illuminated, no matter the time of year, but at Christmas it's really quite special:

This last one is for the Star Wars fans among us :) Like many people out there, I'm counting down to the 17th December as much as I am Christmas. I've booked my tickets to see The Force Awakens at the London Science Museum where I'll be watching the movie in 70mm format! Exciting times!

You can download all of the Hi-Res files in a Zip file right here (13.4Mb), or you can view each photograph in full size by clicking each photograph below. (Just click the download link beneath each picture to download them individually). Alternatively, you can click to enlarge, right click on the image and then choose 'Save As' if you're using a Windows computer

All of these photographs are 2560 pixels on the longest edge (suitable for most Macs and widescreen laptops and monitors).

For more posts like this and information relating to Olympus Cameras, photographic techniques and general musings - be sure to subscribe to the blog!

Thanks for stopping by.

Michael Rammell 04/10/2015 Michael Rammell 04/10/2015

Richmond Park Free Wallpapers

Let's be honest, there is only so much you can do to be creative when shooting a subject such as a Deer. In particular, Red Stag Deer at Richmond Park.

Of course you can play with the light, hope the stags rut and do something interesting, but mostly everything you would expect to see has been photographed time and time again and is all readily available to view online with on quick Google search returning many of the same photographs.

So, how to be different?

I've been to Richmond numerous times now, mostly with Neil Graham and each time I've come away with what I would consider to be safe shots. The sort of photographs you'd see in the results of the Google search I mention above. So today I intentionally looked for different things to photograph and also had in mind other compositions. Thanks to the EVF in my beloved Olympus OM-D E-M1 I could also better judge exposures and can, as a result, more easily experiment when shooting in to the light, as you'll see below in a few shots.

Now I'm not suggesting that these photographs of mine are revolutionary and brand new or that i'm the first to produce photographs like this (of course I'm not!), but for me as a photographer they're certainly a departure from the standard type of shots I've made before on previous visits to Richmond Park and as a result, to me at least, they're something a little fresh and dare I say interesting. But that's down to you, the viewer to decide.

Whatever the case may be I've processed, cropped and exported these so that they will be ideal desktop wallpapers / backgrounds and they're all available for you to download for free

You can download all of the Hi-Res files in a Zip file right here (13.3Mb), or you can view each photograph in full size by clicking each photograph below. (Just click the download link beneath each picture to download them individually). Alternatively, you can click to enlarge, right click on the image and then choose 'Save As' if you're using a Windows computer

All of these photographs are 2560 pixels on the longest edge (suitable for most Macs and widescreen laptops and monitors).

All of these photographs were made using an Olympus OM-D E-M1 Micro Four Thirds Mirrorless Camera and the Olympus M.Zuiko 40-150mm f/2.8 PRO with the MC-1.4 1.4x Tele Converter fitted. As a result my effective focal length on the day was 112-420mm. The maximum aperture of this combination is f/4. This was constant throughout the entire zoom range.

1. Golden Mist

2.2Mb - Download Here — 2.2Mb - Download Here

2. Morning Dew Drops

2.9Mb - Download Here — 2.9Mb - Download Here

3. Stag in the Mist

2.8Mb - Download Here — 2.8Mb - Download Here

4. Basking

2.5Mb - Download Here — 2.5Mb - Download Here

5. Hot Breath

Copyright Notice

Please enjoy these photographs. But be kind: Do not edit these photographs and claim them as your own. Don't sell them without my permission. Do not use commercially without contacting me @ michael@rammellphotography.com - a license for photographs made at Richmond Park must first be obtained. Whilst I own the copyright to these images, I would need to first obtain a license to sell them.

All works are Creative Commons Licensed:

Richmond Park at Golden Hour by Michael Rammell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at www.michaelrammell.com.

Michael Rammell 23/09/2015 Michael Rammell 23/09/2015

Scottish Highland Wallpapers

On September 5th I was standing atop the peak of the highest mountain in the UK - Ben Nevis! The charity climb was in aid of Sound Sense, but it was also a personal challenge I had set myself last year.

Now, as a photographer, I obviously considered the photographic opportunities that climbing Ben Nevis would present me. However, the peak of Ben Nevis was very cloudy which somewhat ruined those photographic opportunities (how inconsiderate of the clouds to descend to 1,400 meters to block my view!)

Alas, as a result I've got a few great shots of me standing at the summit, but they weren't quite what I wanted, or imagined I'd achieve.

Having said all that though, I actually achieved more! The drive home on the Sunday morning took me through the beautiful, stunning and simply breathtaking Scottish Highlands, including the likes of Glencoe. Photographic opportunities were aplenty!

Today I want to share 5 of my Highland photographs with you, making them available completely free of charge to use as Desktop Wallpapers / Backgrounds.

You can download all of the Hi-Res files in a Zip file right here (13.6Mb), or you can view each photograph in full size by clicking each photograph below. (Just click the download link beneath each picture to download them individually). Alternatively, you can click to enlarge, right click on the image and then choose 'Save As' if you're using a Windows computer

All of these photographs are 2560 pixels on the longest edge (suitable for most Macs and widescreen laptops and monitors).

All of these photographs were made using an Olympus OM-D E-M1 Micro Four Thirds Mirrorless Camera and the Olympus M.Zuiko 12-40mm f/2.8 PRO

Ben Nevis - Half Way Up!

2.7Mb - Download Here — 2.7Mb - **Download Here**

This photograph was taken about half way up Ben Nevis, somewhere around 700 metres up! The ground was steadier here and the sun came out to really light up the scene, injecting some incredible vibrance in to the grass and rock.

Glencoe Stream

3.6Mb - Download Here — 3.6Mb - **Download Here**

On the drive home my route took me through Glencoe. Each side of the road has plenty of places to pull over and simply take in the views you can see. Fortunately for us photographers these pull over spots seem to be superbly positioned to make the most of the views that quite simply surround you! Here, I pulled over and positioned the camera on a stone wall that separates the road from the stream.

Clouds Descending

Not too much further from the photograph above featuring the stream there was another chance to pull the car over to take in this incredibly sheer mountain! I tried a few different positions when making this photograph, even standing the other side of the road and including the road itself in the frame to give a sense of scale. But this one, showing just a small amount of the fence in the foreground was my favourite.

Skyfall

2.3Mb - Download Here — 2.3Mb - **Download Here**

I'm led to understand that this part of the Highlands was used in the James Bond movie 'Skyfall'. I was reliably informed that the scene was changed for the movie to feature a road, where in fact there isn't one! Silver Efex Pro 2 was used here to pull some of the drama out of the clouds that otherwise wasn't quite clear

Shrouded Mountain Range

One of the last photographs I made before figuring out I'd never get home if I kept stopping at every opportunity was this one. I parked the car and crossed the road to climb a small bank (which was a challenge as I was aching from the climb and descent of Ben Nevis the day before!) I saw the clouds coming in low and got very wet from the rain to make this photograph. The clouds once again were dark and dense covering the tops of the mountains

Copyright Notice

All works are Creative Commons Licensed:

Scottish Highland Digital Wallpapers by Michael Rammell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at www.michaelrammell.com.