I didn’t think I would be doing the 4am Project this year – frankly, I thought i’d be asleep (for once). I wasn’t, so I did it.

In case you’re wondering what it is, The 4am Project is a collaborative effort between photographers all over the world to document where they live (or where they choose) at 4am on a given day, usually in April. It’s organised by Karen Strunks, and she said: “Some of the world’s most beautiful photos are taken under the cover of night, but as we’re all tucked up in bed at that time, the moment just passes us by.”

I’ve taken part in it previously, as seen here and here. Recently, when I was at the Daily Post in North Wales, and this was featured in the paper:

This year, I’m living in Manchester, so took my camera for a walk around the area where I live, Prestwich, and the centre of Manchester (well, up and down Deansgate).

It was on Deansgate, at Spinningfields, I encountered a security guard, who told me, despite it being a publicly accessible area – i.e, it was open to the public, but is actually private land, I couldn’t take photographs. I tweeted this of the conversation:

#4amproject and security. “Can’t take photos here mate.” I step two feet to the pavement. “Ok, I’ll take them here then”

— Andrew Stuart(@AndrewStuart) April 14, 2013

But this is the photograph I took anyway, as he was was shouting ‘you can’t take photographs here’

Short and simple, but it was a case of a few steps, and I was ok to take photographs – funnily enough, of a path leading to the Manchester Magistrates’ court. I hung around taking a few more from the street, just to prove to him I could and wouldn’t be deterred by him, and he left.

Elsewhere, I also took this of The Avenue sign, before the security guard could see me. I hope he reads this and thinks to himself ‘they’re not bad.’ To be honest, I hope you think the same.

I started, however, in Prestwich, where I live. These were taken around the shopping area:

The green shoots of recovery?

And Bury New Road, quieter:

I was using my Canon 6D and new 35mm f/1.4 Sigma lens. Superb combo (I need to write about that separately for my club photography) and the high ISO/low light capabilities of the 6D continue to amaze me.

These were the rest of the photographs:

So, another successful year of the 4am Project. I do enjoy taking photographs at weird times of the morning. It’s fun to be doing something different to most people, I guess.

Until next time…

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Yesterday I blogged on the way to take a good photo at night. This is my attempt at a bit of street photography in the day. 

So, the other day, I went to Liverpool. It was no more of a different day than most. I went on the train, and I had a day to just wander around (or until I got bored and got the train home).

So, I took my camera, and thought to start with that I’ll us my Canon 24-105 lens. The first shot that I came across was this, and decided to grab it.

It’s a sight that may well be disappearing from view, in a way. A newspaper seller is selling a plain, tree, newspaper. I have no data on whether they are declining, or increasing, or staying roughly the same, but it seems like everything is going digital, so less of a call for sellers.

I took the shot at a longish zoom to get the image without interfering, and to test the water of what seemed acceptable in Liverpool. It was fine. The next shot I got a bit closer for.

The man was making a dog out of sand. I dropped some money in his hat, and took a few pictures. I always drop a few coins in a hat if it’s requested when taking photos. It’s polite, and more often than not, they’ll act up for you – that’s not what i’m after, essentially, but it means they may pause for a second to allow you to get the shot you’re after. I grabbed a few, and left, in just a few seconds.

You’ll notice that I’ve processed these to be low on contrast too. They were backlit from the sun, so to keep the detail (the 7D is fantastic for this) I decreased the highlights, brought detail from the shadows, and added a slight vignette. The 24-105 at f4 also seems to lend itself well to this kind of processing.

Now, the sun decided to come out from behind the sky, and at the same time, I decided to stick my fisheye on.

Just taking it in the middle of the street looking upwards – nothing special. I aimed to keep the exposure lower to compensate for the sun. I have lowered the contrast in it, and added a darker gradient over the sky to keep the blue of the sky. This is pretty much how I processed the next few shots as well, using the sun as a main light source in camera.

This meant I had to get fairly close and point the camera upwards, and the end result works well, I thought. The sky has a vignette around the corners, and a slight grad to keep the blues in the colour and the sky from being blown out, but it was hard to keep it all in without going overly HDR – a look I do not want. The slight flare and distorted buildings work well, in my opinion.

And, my favourite of the day, is this.

The main Liverpool One centre, with two suns (actually, I’m sure you guessed, one reflected off the metal work). I exposed to keep enough detail in the sky and the shadows – hard, but as we’ve grasped, the 7D can do that. I used a grad over the sky to darken the sky and boost the colour, and I boosted up the shadows to include more detail. The original looks bad, whereas the edited one (without much more than would have been done in the days of film) looks pretty good.

Low ISO is key if you’re manipulating shadows so much, otherwise it is noisy, grainy, and in extreme cases, banding appears. Not pleasant.

Final two for today are quite simple. One right underneath Lime Street station, with a grad, and one really close to a train.

I hoped you enjoyed these. Please share around if you did, and click through to the Flickr pages to see the shots large.

Andrew.

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Photographers the world over are always looking for the ways to take a popular photo that will make them a lot of money.

For amateurs, that would be great – turn a hobby (sometimes a fairly expensive one) into an income.

So, how did I do it? Well, let’s get one thing straight. This hasn’t made me any money. Yet. But, it has been popular on Flickr, compared to my other pictures, and got a few nice comments, which I am proud of.

It’s simple. A lot of photographers go out during the day, whereas I go out during the evening. I like to go out under the cover of darkness, whilst the streets are quiet and no light is around, to take long exposures, low depth of field shots, and star trail shots.

I did go out with intent of doing star trails, but the reasons I didn’t was that I didn’t want to go too far, and my intended location had boy racers speeding around Marine Drive in Llandudno, meaning my safety – I need to be in pitch black conditions, and it’s a narrow road – was compromised. So, I went to the gate, and looked for where the moon that night was falling.

It was perfect. The moon reflected on a calm sea over the Llandudno Pier head, and using a standard lens at 24mm (my Canon EF 24-105L f/4 IS) it was all able to be taken in.

I tried a few other types of lens as well, including my Samyang 8mm fisheye (which I love, and i’ll talk about that soon) and my Sigma 10-20mm f3.5, but they didn’t work.

A bit of careful processing, and you get the image at the top of this. I basically used the exposure tool to brighten it a bit, I used the grad tool in Lightroom 4 to alter the white balance of the sky a bit. I also altered the shadows and highlights – taking some highlight away, and adding some detail in the darker areas, and added a slight vignette.

Zoom in a bit, to 70mm, and you get this image as well.

What I learnt from this was that you just need to look around you. Well, I didn’t learn it from this, it’s just a lesson in it. If the image you want isn’t accessible, see what else is around. Even if it is, see what else is around – you may be surprised.

The other lesson i’m keen for people to learn. Get in your car. Go for a drive. Or, go for a walk, cycle, whatever, and take your camera. You never know what you’ll see, and how popular it’ll be.

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This list that follows is what I have for my radio show on Tudno FM tonight (Thursday) from 10pm.

It is by no means exhaustive, so please add to it with the form at the bottom. It’s just what I have put in my playlist to play some of the best of British music.

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The Airbus A380 started regular services at Manchester Airport in 2010.

I haven’t been to the airport to see it since it arrived. Every time i’ve been, it was too late for it. I finally managed to get up there today to see it.

It’s an absolutely huge beast, as this picture shows. The Airbus A321 is only as long as one of its wings and the fuselage.

It still draws a big crowd – the viewing park started filling up at around 1345, as its take off time approached. It’s, clearly, very popular with plane spotters, simple enthusiasts and regular people alike.

The fact it can get off the ground does defy belief. It’s so heavy and huge that the power it needs to generate the lift is astounding… but it manages it, and even though I know the physics behind it, as do most people who’ve ever studied flight in school, it’s still great to watch and be amazed as it stumbles into the sky.

Of course, I still took pictures of other aircraft too, starting with this Easyjet Airbus A320:

And this Monarch Airbus A321:

And finally, this Boeing 737-700 from KLM:

Hope you enjoyed these pictures. I enjoyed my day out!

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This just needs sharing as an example of something that just made me go wow..

It’s hundreds  (thousands) of images taken from the International Space Station of the Earth as it orbits the parts of the Earth during night time. The views it captures are outstanding, and definitely the pinnacle of time-lapse photography..

Sit back and watch it. It’s under 4 minutes and it’s definitely going to make you want to go to space!

View from the ISS at Night from Knate Myers on Vimeo.

See. Amazing.

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This Weekend, I went to the Rhyl Air Show. I thought i’d share a few of these with you.

I rented a 100-400mm lens from lensesforhire.co.uk and I think the results of it are pretty good. These are just a few of the pictures from it – there’s a lot more at my Flickr page

I went to the Saturday day only. It started with the Red Arrows:

There was a flypast from a Spitfire – this one the PR Mk XIX reconnaissance Spitfire.

Airreccee.co.uk has this info about it:

It was produced by taking the Mk XIV fuselage, adding the PR Mk XI wings and PR Mk X cabin. It could carry 254 gallons of fuel internally, using space in the wings that had originally held cameras. [...] It had a top speed of 445 mph and a service ceiling of over 42,000 feet, putting it out of the range of Luftwaffe. All but the first 22 of the 225 produced were equipped with a pressurised cockpit.

The Tornado GR4 performed a tactical display, showing the capabilities and power of the aircraft.

They were from RAF Lossiemouth, and paid tribute to their colleagues who recently lost their lives tragically whilst flying Tornados, including Flt Lt Hywel Poole.

Also flying at the Air Show on Saturday was the RV8TORS. They demonstrated just what they can get their planes to do – quite a lot it seems.

And also at the display, for the last section of photos in this, was an RAF Seaking and RNLB Lifeboats Search and Rescue demonstration. Performed by 22 Squadron ‘C’ Flight out of RAF Valley on Anglesey, it is the same squadron that has Flt Lt William Wales, AKA Prince William. I don’t, however, think he was flying the helicopters.

A fantastic day, and I even managed to get a bit sunburnt through the clouds! Well done to the RAF in Rhyl who put this on for free to the public. Great event.

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Seeing as this year is all about rain, I decided to make my show on Tudno FM all about the rain, by playing music from the wet years!

These are the top 50 years, over the past 80, ordered by the amount of summer rain at RAF Valley on Anglesey (Closest me on Tudno FM).

I would like you to look through the list, and suggest songs, using the form at the bottom of the page, for the years, and if I’ve already got one, suggest a better one if there is one!

Or tweet me @andrewstuart

And use this form to suggest music:

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