Forgotten Password?
Register
Digital Photographer
Add to Favourites

Chris Robinson

Member since: 24th Jan 2010
Location: Hertfordshire
Occupation: Estimator
Website: http://www.4colourprogress.com
Bio: I'm a very harsh critic of my own shots and I only upload shots which I feel are worthy of being shown to the public! (unfortunately that means I have a rather small gallery)

feedback is welcome and thanks for looking!
Social Network:

Photo Gallery

While I'm waiting for my holiday to dorset next week (and praying for some clear nights so I can try my hand at shooting stars) I figured I would try to fill up my gallery a bit by adding a few oldies. This 3 Shot HDR was taken inside St Albans Cathedral last Jan-Feb?... I think.  One of the few shots I did with my kit lens before upgrading to a wide angle.. it's also one of my earliest HDR's when I was still finding my feet with the processing.  If you compare this shot to one of my most recent you can see how much I have dialed back the tone mapping. Just got back from our second trip to Dorset so I'm afraid that means a few more pictures of the Durdle Door from various angles lol. There were lots of people on the beach but I decided to leave this one guy in to add a sense of scale :) It's coming up to my year anniversary for photography and I realised that I haven't taken any proper sunset shots yet. So with that in mind I headed off to the Lea Valley, the place where my photography journey started to get some shots. It was raining when I arrived and it didn't look like it was going to stop anytime soon. I found a prime location for a shot and just sat there waiting patiently and about 30 minutes before the sun was due to set the sky opened and I was given a chance to test out my HDR skills on a sunset and this is the result. see more at www.4colourprogress.com   For ages now I've been meaning to get out and shoot some stars but living in Hertfordshire means I'm always surrounded by light pollution. This past week I've been in Dorset with my fiancee so I used it as a perfect excuse to try my hand at shooting stars. They were taken at around 10pm at the Durdle Door on Wednesday using various settings, I only ended up with 2 shots I was happy with as it was a pain to get the right amount of starlight without blowing the shots.  I used the rule of 600 to see how long I would be able to keep my shutter open before the stars began to track and whacked the ISO from between 2500-6400. I also went out on Friday morning at 2am but unfortunately it was cloudy. I shot this after the Twinkle Twinkle Durdle Door shot, about 20 minutes later actually. That small amount of time made a massive difference to the light as the stars showed up a lot more in this one. With the shots in the bag we stumbled back up the coastal path and back to the Caravan for a nice cup of tea!   Coming to Dorset my number 1 thing to shoot was of course the Durdle Door. I really hate getting the most cliche and most seen angles of these amazing places and this is where my stupidly wide angle lens is really my best friend. having the 14-24mm attached meant it was possible for me to get right up close and still get a massive amount in the frame. I ended up taking 13 sets of 7 exposures for this one but in the end I liked the 1st set of shots the best, It’s a 7 exposure HDR taken on my Nikon D700 with the Nikon 14-24mm lens. It was compiled using Photomatix and lightly processed in Photoshop to finish it all off. After our day trip out to Bath we headed back into Wiltshire and down to Stourhead House and gardens. I found this place by accident as my map reading skills aren't the best and ended up walking in the wrong direction. As soon as I saw that clock burried in the stone I knew I had to get a shot of it. We visited Pegsdon Hills at the weekend to go for a hike. I’ve been interested in Black & White HDR for a while now and this gave me a chance to experiment with it. I wanted to limit the amount of dynamic range in this image to keep it looking dark and dramatic so I set to shoot in RAW format and took 2 images 1 at (-2) and 1 at (0). I processed them in Photoshop 1st as 2 seperate images and then merged them afterwards instead of before like I usually do. Even though the foreground of this image is underexposed I think it adds to the drama of this shot, leading your eyes up to the lone tree silhouette at the top of hill. 5 Exposure HDR of the salisbury cathedral font Driving back from my girl friends house on sunday evening I decided to take the scenic route back. I've driven past this field a hundred times but today it had 22 horses grazing on it. I knew I had to get a picture so I raced home (doing the speed limit of course) then raced back. However when I returned they had already moved to the back of the field! It's time like this I really need to have my camera in my car at all times. see more at www.4colourprogress.com A 3 Stop HDR taken in our Ryokan style room in Kawaguchiko Japan. We set out to Cambridge for the day as I wanted to get a picture of the Chronophage clock (which will be uploaded later). As I set up to take this shot by freak chance a bunch of graduate students walked past towards their graduation ceremony. This HDR was made from a single RAW file. See more at www.4colourprogress.com Our only excursion from Center Parcs was to the city of Bath which was about 45 minutes away. We parked in a multi-story car park and walked into the town centre. We must of seen at least 6 buskers on the way to the Roman Baths and after the 1st couple I refused to pay out anymore cash lol. The Roman Baths themselves are below the modern street level. There are four main features: the Sacred Spring, the Roman Temple, the Roman Bath House and the Museum holding finds from Roman Bath. The buildings above street level date from the 19th century. The water which bubbles up from the ground at Bath fell as rain on the nearby Mendip Hills. It percolates down through limestone where geothermal energy raises the water temperature to between 64 °C (147.2 °F) and 96 °C (204.8 °F). Under pressure, the heated water rises to the surface along fissures and faults in the limestone. As it was so busy there was no way I was going to be able to get a mutiple exposure HDR so I went with a RAW shot and created the HDR from that. see more at www.4colourprogress.com The sky was looking quite interesting on my drive home from work so I decided to head over the lea valley. While the sunset wasn't as impressive as I thought I still had a good walk, even though the temperature dropped to 2 degrees which made it pretty nippy! This shot was taken on my D700 with the 14-24mm f2.8 lens, I'm still getting used to how much this beast can get into the frame lol. I also find myself spending more and more time trying to get better compositions and more arty photos. When I first started I would just take pictures of anything and everything but now I find myself planning the shots more carefully so hopefully in time they will get stronger :) Hope every one is cool! Nearly the weekend :) Chris The Stourton family, the Barons of Stourton, had lived in the Stourhead estate for 700 years when they sold it to Henry Hoare I, son of wealthy banker Sir Richard Hoare in 1717.  The original manor house was demolished and a new house, one of the first of its kind, was designed by Colen Campbell and built by Nathaniel Ireson between 1720 and 1724. Over the next 200 years the Hoare family collected many heirlooms, including a large library and art  collection. The last Hoare family member to own the property, Henry Hugh Arthur Hoare, gave the Stourhead house and gardens to the National Trust in 1946. This room had one crazy colour scheme see more at www.4colourprogress.com Another shot from our tour of the British Museum, I took this one as we were leaving. That green wall at the back just kinda grabbed me so I fired off a couple of shots. HDR from a single RAW Tokyo is one of the busiest cities in the world, I remember eating dinner on the top floor of a skyscraper and looking out to the office building opposite. It was filled with Japanese business men or Kaishain in Japanese, we started eating at 6:30 and they continued to work up until 9pm before finally heading home (or off to a Japanese bar to kick back and relax after a long day at work) This is common practice in Japan, even though their official working hours are only 9-5 most Japanese men get to work an hour early and dont leave till about 8-9pm in the evening. That’s a 12 hour working day 6 days a week! as most Japanese offices are open on Saturdays too. Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world and I can see why given how hard they all work each and every day. This shot was taken from our Hotel Room in the Park Hotel in Tokyo. It was the easiest HDR shoot I did on this holiday I just placed the camera on the benches that were under the windows and set of the shutter letting Tokyo do the rest. I was out and about just before christmas over the ever popular Lea Valley, this place is actually an orchard so I made a mental note to come back to this place in the spring! I knew before I even took the shot that I wanted it to feel like a warm image and considering it was -5 below outside I had my work cut out for me. As the temperature was so cold it gave the image a slight blue hue but using the temperature control settings in Photomatix Pro I managed to get the tone I was looking for. Then came the fun part, post processing with my new Bamboo Pen that Amy got me for Christmas. It took me a while to get used to it and the processing is very uneven in a few places but hopefully I will only get better with practice. I also took this oppertunity to mess around with some Hi-Res Textures that I found on deviantart (credit to Princess-of-Shadows for that). Oh yeah before I forget, I hope you all had a good Christmas and wish you all the best for 2011! I was lucky enough to be able to book another half day this week so I could head back into London. Last Friday I wasn’t able to get a shoot I was happy with at the British Museum this week however, I pretty much nailed it and I’m a lot happier with this shot. As I was setting up security came over and told me I wouldn’t be able to use a tripod without getting permission from the front desk, but instead of traipsing all the way back I just went commando and did it without. Of course that means that this shot is  a HDR from a single RAW file, but I’m happy with it none the less. One of the sights I made sure to see was Kinkaku-Ji the beautiful golden temple. The temple was built in 1397 to serve as a retirement home for one of the powerful shogun, it has been rebuilt twice being burned down in the Onin war. Again one of the most frustrating things about the trip was the banning of tripods which lead to me standing in a very awkward looking pose as I attempt to shock absorb the vibrations from the camera to stop the HDR from ghosting. It was about 32 degree’s on the day we decided to go visit Kinkaku and the site was swarming with school children. Our taxi driver pointed and said Kochira! or it’s over there to me and you. He opened the door for us as we slid out and began walking towards admissions, it took us a long time to get in but once we did, oh what a sight greeted us as the towering golden tower gleamed in the sun across the lake. Kinkaku was definately one of the highlights of the holiday along with the Geisha dances! If I ever go back to Japan this place will be on my list to visit once again.

Gallery Stats

Number of photos: 27 Number of likes: 184
Last update: 8 months ago Number of comments received: 305
Number of views: 7,345 Number of comments posted: 299

Most Recent Photos

Latest Camera Reviews

powered by