Hi all,
Firstly I will apologise for the lack of posts over the last few weeks, the main reason for this is that I am currently setting up my photoblog site on a self hosted wordpress site.
I am at the moment importing the majority of my older photos onto it, which shouldn’t take too much longer (I hope)
The url will be the same ie www.ellispictures.com and I would appreciate you take a look and still follow me.
Today during work I had to travel to South East London, I arrived a little earlier than expected, luckily I had my camera equipment with me in the vehicle, as you never know when a photo opportunity arises!
This is 9 shot panoramic view of the park that was just across from where I was working, it is stitched together inside of photoshop and with a few minor adjustments I created this panoramic view.
Thanks for viewing.
Follow @ellis_pictures
This is a shot taken beneath the pier in a place called Deal In Kent, I was lucky at the time of my visit that the tide was high and I could get a nice high shot from the stony beach front looking down through the pier supports.
I have used Silver Efex by Niksoft to process this image to add some extra contrast to show some added details with the waves of the sea.
I would like to return to the same location and this time do a long exposure and use some high key processing to give a really simplified image
Thanks for viewing.
Follow @ellis_pictures
Another selective colour shot here of the Porcupine Pub in the Leicester Square area of Central London, instead of the entire building bought into colour like I did with The Angel & Crown shot, I decided just to extract just the gold areas of the photograph as this was the predominant colour and I liked how this reacted with the remainder of the shot in monotone.
I don’t know if there is a shortcut to doing this but it did take me quite a long time to etch through the layer mask especially the golden writing on the pubs windows and the writing on the menu boards, if anyone knows a different way I would love to hear back.
Thanks for viewing.
Follow @ellis_pictures
This shot was taken looking south down St Martins Lane in the Covent Garden area of Central London, the tall building you can see in the distance is the London Coliseum and the building on the right is the Duke of Yorks theatre and also Starbucks coffee shop.
I have again chosen to process the in a mono format with a very slight tint of blue and brushing through the layer mask to reveal the brighter colours of the street ie the theatre signs, telephone boxes and the street lamps.
Still going through my archive old London street shots at the moment and I wanted to do something with this one. As you can see I have set up it as a mono and then with the main focal area being the Angel & Crown Pub on the corner I have selectively brushed back the colour to give it a slight glow from the rest of the shot.
Follow @ellis_pictures
As the title states this shot is from the inside of St Peter on the Wall Church, I really like how this one turned out as I wanted a shot from this position keeping things symmetrical with the two main focus points being the Altar and the holy cross above.
Follow @ellis_pictures
As promised in the write up of the short time lapse video I posted over the weekend I have now processed the HDR version of the Church in Bradwell on Sea. What I wanted to achieve with this shot is to really enhance the dark clouds that were fast crossing overhead, as you may of seen in the video there was a lot of good cloud cover for me to bring this out.
Here is some information on the Church if you have a few spare minutes by clicking here.
Follow @ellis_pictures
Not the usual post here of a photograph, but a series of shots I took yesterday when I popped up to a place on the East Coast of Essex called Bradwell on Sea, right on the edge of the grassland there stands a building which is called “St Peter on the Wall” Church.
So after I took some brackets for HDR (which I will post later on in the week)I set up the camera for a time lapse session as there were some good cloud cover and they were moving nice and quickly which were a good combination for the series of shots. Anyway I hope you enjoy my first official time lapse video on my blog (apologies for being so short!). Hopefully ill get to do some more in the not to distant future.
I have been going through some of my older photos recently and looking for any unused shots that I haven’t posted before that didn’t quite jump out at me to post be it for one reason or another. I don’t get a lot of free time unfortunately to visit that many places one of which is central London so when I did go there way back in December I took a few street shots throughout the day.
This shot was taken from around the Chinatown area of London and I have played around with it with photoshop and Silver Efex creating a dark contrasted picture with some selective colour pulled through the black & white layer revealing some of the original colour from the street.
This photograph was taken from the American Muscle Car garage I visited last month and if you have been following my blog you may of seen the rear of the same VW camper van in this shot.
This is a HDR shot with the background blurred away, with a cool-warm filter applied to give a deep blue colour to the otherwise dull grey sky that it was on the day.
Follow @ellis_pictures
This shot was taken a while back while I was in London last December, as you might spot from the red sign on the left the location is Tottenham Court Road underground station. It was taken late afternoon and lucky for me it was very quiet so I could get the photo ‘people free’.
I have posted the before and after shot so you can kind of see the differences between the original shot and final result.
This shot you might recognise as similar to a previous shot (The Haven) and you would be correct, it was taken from a slightly different position just further to the right of the first picture I posted. Unfortunately there isn’t much to say on this one as it is very similar to the other one except I hope you enjoy the shot 
This shot was taken on the North Woolwich road early one Sunday morning and I have aptly named this shot Street Noise due to the fact that I wanted to process it with a dark heavy contrast and a touch of noise. Also I have added some saturation to the red bringing out the street signs, the unit door on the right and the bus in the distance.
You will recognise the tall buildings in the background as Canary Wharf.
While I was at Buttsbury Church the other day, I had a little explore around the graveyard of the Church and took a few shots with the IR camera of the trees and gravestones, this is one that I have picked out to post as I like how the leaves of the trees have come out in a ‘candy floss’ appearance.
Follow @ellis_pictures
During yesterdays lunch break I decided to pop up again to the local Church in a place called Buttsbury in Essex as again it was a nice sunny day and a good excuse to get out the infrared camera.
I took a few shots while I was up there but this one came out better during the post processing with the channel swapping in photoshop.
I took a trip over to Canvey Island the other evening which is only a 10 minute or so drive up the A13 for me to have a look around and pick out any future photographing locations.
I ended up at the most south westerly point on the island called Hole Haven which is right by the Thames Estuary, so I grabbed a few shots there and then.
I will be returning in the near future to explore further along the sea wall and the old pier so I am looking forward to going back and getting some more shots from this location.
Follow @ellis_pictures
I recently returned to the high ground in Pitsea, Basildon to the same spot I took the Tower on the Hill shot a while back but this time going equipped with the ND filters.
The shot itself is a 180 second exposure giving some motion in the sky with the clouds, what I wanted to achieve was a silhouette of both the tower and the foreground and the brighter sky lighting up the background.
There was no post processing done with this shot.
I hope everyone had a good weekend
As the weather over the weekend here in UK was fairly decent and at the very least dry, I decided to visit a place in Essex called Coryton. There is not much down here apart from a big oil refinery which is due to close very soon as the administrators have failed to find a buyer for the site, which is unfortunately the loss of 850 jobs.
I have just recently bought a 0.9 ND filter from Lee Filters, which I used together with the 10 stop filter to extend the exposure time during the day.
This shot was a 240 second exposure so I was really able to capture some good cloud drag.
Follow @ellis_pictures
With yesterdays post of the long exposure of the O2 Arena in London this shot was taken from just across the road facing the opposite direction looking into Canary Wharf. The shot itself is a 3 bracket HDR and using SilverEfex I produced a blue monotone layer and reduced the opacity slightly to bring out some of the original colour from underneath.
Follow @ellis_pictures
Your virtual guide in and around Montreal
Professional Photographer
Travel photography for the uninitiated....
A collection of photographs taken around & about.
