Author: Steve Peacock

Although I have not added anything to this blog for some time, I have been busy working away at home, especially now during lockdown.

I have been tidying up my work area, getting rid of lots of “well it may come in useful later” items. Funnily I found loads of stuff I had forgotten I had got so it would never have come in useful later. Although I thought I had a system for storing and backing up files it had got a little messy. So, getting that back in order also took time. Especially when it came to adding keywords to my images and removing incorrect ones like a mouse as a keyword for a Robin.

As a break between these tasks I have spent a lot of time on tutorials covering a range of topics, programming with Python, Photography, Photoshop (technical and creative), Video editing with Final Cut Pro, Video Recording and creating titles etc. using Apple Motion.

There have also been some updates to software I needed to get my head around for example TTG’s Backlight 3 came out that I use on my website to show albums of my images.

As a result of this, I have re-jigged my website, the main page is now my personal images. wildlife etc. I also noted as I created some new videos that my YouTube channel had over 20 videos but I had done nothing to customize the channel so it could stand on its own, this is now also in progress.

So now all that is awaiting is content. Old images I can work on but new content will have to wait till we are further out of lockdown.

Please checkout my website and youtube channel.There are links there to my flickr and facebook social media.

My second attempt at building a cat free Hedgehog feeding station. The first had a 13cm x 13cm entrance on both sides and failed. So I added and arch and this is the result.

This Mouse was brought in by Maisie, then left to roam around downstairs, probably overnight. I noticed it in the morning when it came out to rummage around the carpet for food. It was not bothered about me, if I moved it ran under the settee then was out again within a minute or two. Finally after ignoring the traps and wandering around the carpet for 20 minutes or so it finally got caught. But when taken outside it proceeded to run around with the ground birds gathering food. It did this on and off for the next couple of hours.

Videos edited using Luma Fusion on the iPad

I have started adding the few videos I make to a YouTube Channel.

These can be seen here

Mostly they will be of wildlife captured and edited using different hardware and software. Not sure yet which software i will finally settle on but its looking like Lightworks for the ease of trimming.

The hardware – Canon 5D Camera Mk II or Mk IV, Go-Pro Hero 4, iPhone 8 with DJI Mobile Stabilizer and a HD Camera Trap.

The Software – Lightworks 14.5, Premier Pro CS6, Photoshop CC 2018 and Premiere Elements 2018.

Male Kestrel feeds his mate then gets his reward.

More use of luminosity masks to add tonal focused contrast. Plus addition of slight Blue tint to lighter tones only. Future experiments can be found in my Black and White Gallery

I have been playing with converting to Black and White and using luminosity masking to enhance the images. I have been using Gradients map adjustment layers with additional stops and masks to enhance the conversions. Then luminosity masks created using the ADP Pro V3 panel to enhance different tonal areas.

I was asked by a friend to take  photographs as part of his promotion of his upcoming charity Cycle of 500 miles over 5 days From Mon 18th to Fri 22nd June 2018

To see his story and to donate please visit www.justgiving.com and search for ‘Five Hundred over Five’