Welcome

I am Rod Wynne-Powell, and this is my way to pass on snippets either of a technical nature, or related to what I am currently doing or hope to be doing in the near future.

A third-person description follows:
Professional photographer, Lightroom and Photoshop Workflow trainer, Consultant, digital image retoucher, author, and tech-editor for Martin Evening's many 'Photoshop for Photographers' books.

For over twenty years, Rod has had a client list of large and small companies, which reads like the ‘who’s who’ of the imaging, advertising and software industries. He has a background in Commercial/Industrial Photography, was Sales Manager for a leading London-based colour laboratory and has trained many digital photographers on a one-to-one basis, in the UK and Europe.
Still a pre-release tester for Adobe in the US, for Photoshop, he is also very much involved in the taking of a wide range of photographs, as can be seen in the galleries.

See his broad range of training and creative services, available NOW. Take advantage of them and ensure an unfair advantage over your competitors…


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Wednesday 28 July 2010

Apple Cart Renovation Coming on

At Luton Hoo’s Walled Garden there was a lot of activity cutting back on those plants that had fruited, mending fences, painting of doors and windows, making a gate and renovations to the Apple Cart are coming on apace.

The pumpkins, squash and marrows are all showing healthy growth, and bees and hoverflies were in abundance, giving me a chance to practice getting ever closer to record their incredible detail, and I did manage once again to capture some in flight, which is really challenging.

The figs got a serious haircut to encourage their growth, as did the leaves that surround the office window – these are the leaves which go from green to red and then white.

Monday 26 July 2010

Catching a Tern Diving

I should preface this piece by saying it is well out of chronology, the images were captured around three weeks ago.
Startop and Marsworth reservoirs normally seem favoured by the Common Tern and they generally swoop and dive, but when John Sentinella and I were at Tringford reservoir recently we saw a single tern as opposed to several, that came and hovered reasonably close by before diving.

On the first occasion it did happen very close, but we were ill prepared and were only able to stand by and watch, but once alerted we spotted the same visitor on more than one occasion thereafter.

Here is a selection of shots from the second encounter. I did not manage to capture the moment of entry and exit from the water, but nevertheless, it is a reasonable sequence that shows this elegant bird in action. In every dive we witnessed the bird was unsuccessful, whereas the swooping technique seen on the other reservoirs seemed more successful.

Saturday 24 July 2010

A Cycle Ride through Caddington

Taking exercise on a pushbike with a camera was a way to capture some of the flowers on show. I also met up with my erstwhile Bookkeeper to see how she was faring. There were not as many flowers around as earlier or later in the year, but still enough for a gallery of thirty shots. A few passers by acknowledged my presence and one lady who had wondered what I was doing even invited me to come into her garden once she knew what I was up to.

She now has a small card of a shot I took with the words ‘Thank You’ which I hope will give her some pleasure. She had mentioned that her poppies were particularly good earlier this year and that she had taken a photo herself to remember; so the card showing one of her geranium will add to her memories.

Friday 23 July 2010

A Morning Visit to Stockwood Discovery Centre

During my last visit I met one of the gardeners, a very knowledgable and extremely helpful lady, who today I learned was called Jan, and she had pointed out the Morning Glory which that morning had been a delight, but sadly was no longer showing despite some extra watering. This morning’s visit was as much to capture that display as anything else, but I found that I was able to find locations where it was much easier to get really close to bees and hoverflies, so I was in my element – even capturing hoverflies in flight!

The various different Morning Glories were a delight, offering numerous shapes with varied lighting and colours, even the leaves alone were worth capturing. I am really pleased with what I was able to record of such fleeting moments.

Thursday 22 July 2010

High Colour in Stockwood

The Stockwood Discovery Centre was bathed in Summer sunshine for most of my recent visit, and after a short conversation one of the staff, offered to show me the Morning Glory which she said had been looking wonderful earlier, but sadly they had retired for the day, but the lady offered to water them in case they graced me with their open presence a little later. It was not to be, but I stayed awhile in that greenhouse and after waiting for the sun to come from behind clouds, I felt I could have benefitted from a watering!

I was remarkably lucky with finding bees that allowed me to get in close as well as a butterfly, and the range of flowers that were in full bloom was exquisite. There was an exhibition of sculptures on show from Robert Bryce Muir, some of which I found very interesting – his display in one of the greenhouses runs through till the end of October. What held my interest was the patina on the first figures, and the reflective panels right at the end of the greenhouse. I hope Robert feels I have done them justice. The Centre has put on some interesting exhibitions here, and these add to the variety of what can be seen in this well-run amenity of which Luton should be rightly proud.

Another Essex Consultancy Visit

My task for this visit was to format and partition a new drive to allow scheduled backups to take place every night on the newly added drive. Knowing that there would be spells of forced computer inactivity whilst this took place, I set about my other task – that of passing on as much knowledge of both Photoshop and Lightroom as I could, but inevitably there were times either when a phone call came in or there was too small a gap to meaningfully use, so I would take the opportunity to grab some photos in my client’s garden – the twelve shots in this gallery are the result.

Monday 12 July 2010

An Afternnon Visit to Windsurfers

Unfortunately, the shots of windsurfers on the Brogborough Lake are out of synch, as I was busy getting the shots of the Musical together, and also a recent trip to Tringford Reservoir with John Sentinella has yet to be processed as I also have to prepare for some training trips to Godalming and Calne and put a church image into a 360˚ panorama for Martin Evening.

The morning these images were taken was brilliant sunshine and a stiff breeze blowing, but I just could not make that, so had to make do with a far duller afternoon with occasion bright sun, but it was good practice for me. There was one jump I missed getting and one I just about caught!

Sunday 11 July 2010

Alice in Babraham Wonderland

Catherine invited me along to Babraham School to see her girl's Holly and Poppy in in their School Musical Show of Alice in Wonderland. It was well worth travelling over to watch and the weather for it was beautiful. I arrived at the school early to park up and awaited Catherine, and when she arrived we collected the girls to go for something to eat and drink in nearby Sawston.

This gave me a chance for a chat beforehand and we had fish and chips and a drink which we partly consumed in the car before returning to the school grounds where by now dozens of parents had now arrived and were milling around outside and chatting whilst inside the hall was being readied.

Once we all poured in, one parent was setting up a video camera two rows back but after checking his viewpoint realised he would be better off moving to the front, whilst I altered my position from the front to one row back, the end result was that one seat was left vacant immediately in front of me and I now had a better, uninterrupted view of the stage.

I tried to capture the expressions of the children that helped tell the story, and also spot the small amusing interactions when things went slightly wrong; I just loved one small girl's reaction to having done something wrong and she put her hands to her face to suppress a giggle.

I was extremely fortunate in the natural lighting which was provided from outside. The show was tremendous, with lively music and I thoroughly enjoyed the evening.

Wednesday 7 July 2010

Goodwood – Festival of Speed 2010

Thanks once again go to Lord March for his kind invitation to the event, and for laying on such wonderful weather!

The journey down was uneventful and although Catherine and I were arriving later than I had intended, it was the Saturday of the event this year and so was far less crowded on arrival than would be the case on Sunday.

The normally full Supercar paddock was almost bare, but offered a great opportunity to take a good look over the Pagani Zonda; one of only two cars present! The installation in front of Goodwood House was minimalist giving the impression of a bow to display two Alfa Romeos, a sleek roadster and a vintage racer. At this stage in the day, there was not a breath of wind to flutter the flags atop the roof. Later with a breeze Dougie Lampkin was to be found doing wheelies and stoppees along this very roof having presumably once again ridden his charger up the grand staircase!

The dry weather had turned the offroad section to desert and the four-by-fours were kicking up the dirt as they took to the banked bends and the leaps, coating everything nearby with fine harsh sand just not wanted by digital cameras! We listened for the mobile telephone call that would let us know that Lizzy and Tim had managed to make it to join us. This was one year when we gave the Rally circuit a miss, because of Tim's injured leg, but we did reach the set off point for the Shuttle Service and the queue stretched for at least sixty yards, so when we received the call we set off back down the hill and met up in front of the house.

I had planned to be down there for the Red Arrows, but instead watched from a lesser standpoint halfway up the hill where we multi-tasked by also watching the motorbikes doing wheelies. Part of my time was spent in the VIP enclosure where Catherine and I met up with Simon Diffey, one of the drivers racing, and Lord March who mentioned that he had actually tried to get hold of me, but had lost my contact details, so I presented him with two, so that both he and his PA had a record for the future. Hopefully this may mean another visit to help with Lightroom and Photoshop at some time. We all stayed till the very end; reluctant to leave this wonderful place, but all good things must end and eventually we left Lizzy and Tim to make their very long journey across fields to reach their car and we made our own trip back to the car and back home.