2013 Landscape Photography Calendars are now available in out online shop, price includes postage and packaging. LIMITED NUMBERS AVAILABLE. Click on the image to go to the shop.

Stuck for a gift? Gift vouchers for our One to One and Group workshops are also available in the shop, treat that someone special in your life!

See Life Through The Lens are exhibiting in the Hayloft Gallery, 14 Wick Lane, Christchurch, Dorset for 1 week from the 30th August – 6th September 2012 showing local landscape photography prints and offering Seashore Gifts from as little as £1.00.

The whole exhibition has been put on by Helen Rushton including the hand crafted gifts and includes a selection of her favourite images of the Dorset and Hampshire Coastline and across the world. You can see a short video of the gallery and some of the prints available (remember, Helen is a Photographer NOT a videographer!!) HERE

If you can’t get down to the Hayloft Gallery, the collection can be found HERE and an idea of the gifts I am about to put in the shop can be found below. I hope you enjoy the images, please let me know what you think

See Life Through The Lens’ landscape photography workshops are all about getting your images right in camera by using filters, strong compositional ideas and a good technical understanding of what you are looking to achieve and when Steve and Brian joined me for their Landscape Photography workshop in Portland, Dorset that’s exactly what we were going to concentrate on.

Portland’s Stunning Coastline offers some fantastic locations for photography, both sunrise and sunset locations are stunning and the 2 daytime locations we use to practice composition ideas on are interesting and diverse.

Here are a couple of my favourite images from the weekend.

For more information please visit the workshop page where you can find locations and dates of the group courses I have planned. If you are looking for one to one tuition please give me a call on 07866 440740 or 01794 516821.

Having been concentrating on my Landscape Photography Workshops over the past 12 months, my underwater photography has unfortuantely had to take a back seat but it has given me an opportunity to get some much needed editing done and upload some new images to the galleries.

A quick preview of 3 of my favourite images I’ve just added:

My favourite abstract, I love the light on the surface of the water with the needle fish setting it off nicely. You can find the limited edition image in THIS gallery

My favourite fish portrait from the collection, playing around with a snoot with a difference. You can find the limited edition image in THIS gallery

And finally my favourite Undewater Wide angle shot from the collection, you can find the limited edition print in THIS gallery

For more information or to contact Helen Rushton please call 07866 440740 or 01794 516821 or email helen@seelifethroughthelens.com

On the 17th & 18th March I ran a Landscape Photography Workshop with Keith, John and Keith in and around the Christchurch, Dorset area. We had 2 fantastic days with every conceivable type of weather thrown in from pouring down rain through to not a cloud in the sky but the chaps still came away with some stunning images that I wanted to share with you.

All 3 of the chaps wanted to understand more about composition and about using filters to get more consistent exposure through their images meaning post production time is greatly reduced and that’s what we concentrated on for the 2 days.

Here is what they had to say about the weekend and a couple of their images (which can be purchased through the gallery)
 

John’s Images

John emailed me afterwards to say

“I wish I had come on a workshop years ago as I learnt so much in such a short space of time. Helen you are a brilliant trainer and it was a pleasure to meet you too.”

Keith’s Images

Keith was kind enough to send over the following comments about his time with See Life

“From the variety of landscape courses available I choose to enrol on one of Helen’s courses based on both the strength of her own work and recommendations from past clients … I was not disappointed. Helen took us to a variety of sites throughout the day allowing the group to experiment with different techniques. The course developed my photographic techniques through effective use of filters, composition considerations and in the use of additional features of my camera system. Helen provides a wholly professional service, is very knowledgeable in both the capture of images and post processing and ensures the development needs of course participants are met. Following the course I came back literally buzzing and am now taking every opportunity to put my new found knowledge into practice … I would thoroughly recommend Helen’s courses to any aspiring landscape photographer.”

I’m so pleased and very impressed everyone got such stunning images, well done Keith & John! Keith’s black and white photograph above was so impressive even in camera, once he’d showed me I had a go and alas mine is not a patch on his! Timing is everything and Keith timed his shutter release perfectly to capture this shot!

If you would like to find out more about my group workshops or the one to one days tailored to your specific needs then please call me on 01794 516821 or 07866 440740 or email helen@seelifethroughthelens.com

Never let it be said that Photography courses are full of techno geeks droning on about how much better their camera is compared to the lesser spotted Nikon from the safety of a classroom! A See Life Through The Lens Landscape Photography Course can, quite literally, make the biggest splash in your understanding of photography and how to get the best out of your camera as Penny and Vicky found out down in Portland last weekend!

I have met both Vicky and Penny before on different See Life courses and was looking forward to a weekend of great locations with these two very keen and accomplished photographers. The thing about getting amazing landscape images is you can’t do it from the safety of your armchair and if the conditions aren’t great all the more reason to get out and find a location that suits the weather and capture the drama. After photographing Portland Bill on our first dawn shoot both Vicky and Penny were keen to return the following morning to shoot more of this amazing coastline. As I try and work around the participants’ requests where ever possible, I was delighted to be going back to one of my favourite locations twice on one trip!

On our first morning at Portland we had a howling wind to contend with along with a lovely sky and although the wind had dropped on our second shoot here we were faced with immense crashing waves that had been stirred up by the previous day’s South Easterly winds. The sky was again fantastic and this time we concentrated on capturing the amazing water movement and communicating how wild the conditions were… Unfortuantely both Vicky and I found out first hand about the wild conditions, this is a shot Penny managed to capture of Vicky with one of the huge waves sneaking up on her!

Thanks for letting me share the image ladies and thank goodness no one captured the moment I got swamped whilst checking out another great composition from where we were based – all credit to Penny, despite the soaking I got she was still up for using the spot and captured a great image of Portland Bill. This is my version of the Bill bathed in golden light.

In stark contrast we had a couple of very calm dusk shoots in and around Portland where we were concentrating on black and white images and bringing out feelings of calm and peace, and during the day we not only visited zombie beach, covered in seaweed that felt like dead bodies *shudder* where we spent our time understanding and practising using 10 stop filters to make a variety of images but we also spent some time around the historic quay concentrating on composition and seeing images in the photo challenge I set them both. To see some of Penny and Vicky’s images, please visit the CLIENT GALLERY and to hear what they had to say on the weekend please visit the TESTIMONIALS page.

Two of my other favourite images from the weekend

To find out more about a See Life Through The Lens Landscape Photography Workshop please give me a call on 07866 440740 or 01794 516821… Remember to bring your waterproofs!

Last weekend keen photographers Jo-An from Halifax and Darren from Poole came down to the Isle of Purbeck for a Landscape Photography workshop. They couldn’t have chosen a better weekend for their workshop with temperatures being recorded around the area at 24 degrees – unfortunately this also brought the world and his wife down to the coast so it was important to constantly evaluate the weather and decide where the best photo opportunities were going to be.

We were rewarded with a lovely clear pink sunrise down in Swanage where Jo-An and Darren quickly got to grips with their ND filters on our first dawn shoot and were finding some fantastic compositions down on Swanage pier later in the day. Introducing them to 10 stop filters down in Kimmeridge around sunset they again were treated to some fantastic light.

Sunday morning and we beat the crowds to the best location to shoot Corfe Castle and photographed the fantastic misty morning, anyone not there 3o minutes before sunrise missed the best of the dawn! After photographing some fantastic autumn colour in Wareham we headed off to Durdle Door for our last sunset shoot managing to photograph the arch from 2 different locations according to the weather.

A great weekend with lots of laughs and returning to the computer this morning, I received an email from Darren saying “I would like to reiterate my thanks for the course as you made me feel at ease, and I learned more than I expected. I was worried that the course might be too technical for me, but you pitch your courses to suit the individuals – your website doesn’t lie!” A great ending to a great Landscape Photography Course! Thanks Jo-An and Darren, I look forward to seeing your photos.

A couple of my images from the weekend…

As a Professional Photographer who runs Landscape Photography workshops centred around the use of filters to get the image right in camera I have been getting more and more frustrated with the waiting list for Lee Filters my customers are experiencing so decided to do some digging around the internet to see what alternatives people are recommending.

It now seems common knowledge that Cokin’s “ND” filters give a strong magenta colour cast when layering up the filters, what I was surprised at was that Hitech still seem to be getting good reviews with regards to colour cast. Having moved from Hitech to Lee Filters over 3 years ago I was surprised people are still offering them as a viable alternative to Cokin filters – perhaps I just have a bad set? A series of thumbnails taken yesterday down on a South Coast beach shows immediately how bad my Hitech filters are…

There must be an alternative to Lee Filters, not just cost wise but also the problem with the 6month + waiting list we seem to be currently facing?

I recently had a customer come down to Dorset for a One to One workshop and he bought with him some filters I hadn’t yet seen, although he couldn’t remember the name of them he told me the cost and where he got them from so after seeing his results and lack of colour cast off I went to investigate exactly what and how good these filters are. I found what I think were his filters, Kood are offering packs of 2 “Grey Gradient” filters for £19.99 and 2 “Neutral Density” filters for £19.99 also, certainly you can’t argue with the price… but are they any good?

First look at the Kood filters showed that they were a little blue when compared to the Hitech and Lee filters, although it was hard to get a direct comparison due to Kood supplying their filters in x2 and x4 rather than Lee and Hitech working in 0.3, 0.6 and 0.9. This got a little confusing as the company selling the Koods that I purchased through were advertising the x2 as a one stop filter and the x4 a 2 stop whereas Lee and Hitech say their 0.3 is a One stop and their 0.6 a 2 stop which, in my experience, is very accurate– more on that later.

But photographing filters against a white background isn’t going to tell me how they perform, I needed to get out to a location where I could put them to the test so off I went down to a couple of locations in West Dorset I am using in my new 2012 West Dorset Workshop.

The first location I chose was specifically chosen for its’ simplicity to show the filters in their best light. The beach down at Seatown has beautifully golden pebbles and miles of shoreline where the waves are usually sufficient to give good fluffy water effects. I was shooting about 5pm (a couple of hours before sunset expecting no sunset colour in the sky which could skew the results) so I knew I would be able to get about 1-2 seconds shutter speed with the Lees and the Hitechs and used a 2 stop grad plus a 2 stop and 3 stop ND filter to give me the time I wanted and to show the extent of how my Hitech filters colour cast when layering up the filters… These are the results of the first shot:

Lee Filters                                                    Hitech Filters                                               Kood Filters

Wow well what a surprise! I couldn’t get the slow water I wanted with the Koods and even using the “Dark Grey Gradient GG2” filter (which should be a 2 stop) the sky wasn’t as well exposed as the Hitech and Lees (when using 0.6 grads) were showing, BUT, VERY LITTLE colour cast  from the Koods when using 3 filters (the GG2 + ND2 + ND4) and the colour cast was only very slightly blue, certainly nowhere near as offensive as the magenta Hitechs!

Onto another location to run the comparison again, this time the cloud was a little lighter but I stuck with the same combination of filters as the sky was still showing 2 stops difference from the foreground so on the Hitechs and Lee Filters I was using a 0.6 + 0.9 ND + 0.6 ND Grad and on the Koods the ND2+ND4+GG2 grad so again trying to push the colour casts you can get when layering up the filters.

Here are the results and again you can see the magenta tint of the Hitechs compared to the beautiful colour the Lee filters give you and the very slight blue tint from the Koods.

Lee Filters                                                     Hitech Filters                                             Kood Filters

About 30 minutes before sunset now and I am hoping I can really slow down the shutter however as always the clouds and sky have a different idea and the sun peeped out between some heavy cloud stopping me from slowing everything down as much as I wanted, however again you can see the difference in colour cast – I’ve added in a Lee 10stop (or Big Stopper) shot into this series, can you see my Big Stopper gives a blue colour cast? I was lucky enough to get one of the early production models and apparently this colour tint has now been corrected.

Lee Filters – Big Stopper                                                           Lee Filters

Hitech Filters                                                                             Kood Filters

And finally, the sun has set… The Lee filters are coping well, (although a little under exposed using the same set up as before which I wanted to do so the filters remained constant throughout the comparison and every time I got the sea exposed correctly the sun was too bright – needed a 3 stop but it isn’t about great images – is it?!) The Koods are still doing well although getting frustrated I get can’t more water movement with the combination I have, the Hitechs that allegedly “don’t colour cast” well…

Lee Filters

Hitech Filters                                                                             Kood Filters

So in conclusion, this hasn’t been written to sing the praises of Lee Filters, we all know how good they are but with the high cost and slow availability issue they are currently facing I wanted to see if there is a more cost effective alternative that produces similar results. The answer I think is YES – the Koods certainly gave some great results compared to the Hitechs and I am now going to find if I can get some darker Kood filters so they can produce the same results I am used to from using my Lee Filters. Well done KOOD!

 ****PLEASE NOTE – none of the images have been edited and are the RAW file re-saved as a JPG for size****

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me, Helen Rushton on helen@seelifethroughthelens.com. I run Landscape Photography Workshops in Hampshire and Dorset all based around getting the image right in camera with the use of filters. Please feel free to leave your comments

2012 Landscape Photography Workshop dates now online, please visit our workshop page and join a group where you can Master the art of making stunning landscape images in camera at great locations in Dorset and Hampshire including Portland’s stunning Coastline, the Isle of purbeck, Ancient Headlands and New forests, and NEW FOR 2012, West Dorset including the infamous the Cobb at Lyme Regis. Groups are kept small to ensure you get all the help and attention you need. To see the locations and dates, please CLICK HERE. For more information or to book your workshop please contact Helen on 07866 440740 or 01794 516821 or helen@seelifethroughthelens.com