Guest Blogger: Barry Chignell of FreePhotoResources

You guys have all heard of Barry over at FPR before, as I linked his interview with me on an earlier post. I’m pleased to introduce his guest post and some of his photography to you today – cheers!

Justin

Many thanks to Justin and thewindypixel for asking me to write a guest post and for giving me the opportunity to display some of my work.

I have been taking photos for about 4 years now and I am constantly trying new techniques, one of these is HDR. I was originally inspired to try HDR by Trey Ratcliff from Stuck In Customs and since then have found many other great HDR site and photographers (notably The Windy Pixel!).

I started life with photography with an Olympus e410 dslr and stuck with this little camera for about 2 years. I now use a Canon 50d which I love. I usually venture out on shoots on my own as I prefer the freedom of going where I want and not having to shoot to someone else’s timetable, however I do occasionally go on shoots with a friend from work.
I love landscape photography and enjoy nothing more than getting up before sunrise and heading off into the cold darkness, ready for the brief period of the day when the world takes on that ‘golden’ appearance. I started out (as I am sure many do) in thinking that the HDR effect was the main element in an HDR photo, as I have learned and developed my technique I have toned down the HDR effect so that it compliments the image as opposed to masking it in an overdone ‘Crayola’ effect.

There are more and more photographers in the world of HDR that are displaying a more controlled use of HDR which, I believe, is a good thing and hopefully reduce the whole ‘love/hate’ argument that seems to be rife on the internet at the moment.

Mixing portrait photography and HDR is my current interest and once I have the technique to my liking I will be posting some images on my website.

I also write and run my website FreePhotoResources which, as well as giving me the opportunity to learn all aspects of photography, has also afforded me the opportunity to meet many great photographers.

All images copyright Barry Chignell.