One of my favourite animal shots, took this in East Rainton while waiting with my Canon 40D and Canon 70-300mm lens. The little Swallows had finally fledged and adults kept coming to feed them, and that was the moment I got to shoot the picture.

I upped some of the highlights on the birds and sharpened the fledgling's eye to make it appear in better focus and shiny in PS elements 6.

Ship's Escort

Probably one of few images taken of actual flying aircraft during the Sunderland Airshow 2008 (or should I say before as this was doing a trial run) I stood at the loft window of my house with my Canon 40D and 70-300mm lens when I heard the chopper. But thankfully the DFDS ferry to Amsterdam was leaving Tyneside and I managed to get the photo as the chopper flew above it.

One of my personal favourites :) used PS elements 6 to sharpen and brighten the ship a bit to make it more visible in the photo.

Nocturnal Crypt

This is my friend's website for Horror related stuff, such as movies, masks, etc. So if you liked the sort of characters like Michael Myers, Jason, Freddy, etc, please do check it out. It's a very good site and better than most fan sites out there. You can find it here: http://www.nocturnalcrypt.com/

Alternatively you can also see their blogspot page here: http://nocturnalcrypt.blogspot.com/ and if you need to find either site again you can find the links in the top right hand corner of my page :)

Sunshine Flyer

Taken in Torquay, Devon. Even though it was mid-October, the weather was 15 degrees! And the sun cam out later in the afternoon, and I took this with my 70-300mm canon lens. The shot was already fantastic, well exposed and the clouds give good background interest, while the sun light up the seagulls back body, giving a highlighted outline.

There was not much really needed to in photoshop, just turned up the backlight a bit and upped the contrast while running the dodge tool over the wingtips to bring out the highlight more. Other than that the photo you see is very little changed from the original!

Roker's Defender

Taken before the Sunderland Airshow, the Royal Marines had several pieces of Military hardware on display. I took this photo of a gun pointing out at sea with the famous local landmark, Roker Lighthouse in the background.

The picture reminded me of WWII, back in the days when the country was faced with constant attack, Sunderland and other North Eastern ports were heavily bombed because of their massive output of merchant shipping.

I uploaded the photo in photoshop and looked at examples of old sepia photos on the net, so I painted the picture over with a sepia looking colour while toning the opacity down to give the picture more of a faded look, then delibratley added noise to give a grainy look, then burned the corners to create vignetting and finally added a border provided free from a magazine.

All editing done in PS elements.

Gate to Nowhere

Another HDR image done in PS elements 6. Taken at the back of a newly rennovated farm house in East Rainton near Durham, the day was heavily overcast with very thick clouds. I composed the image to get the gate, hill in the background and the sky in the frame and I think the composition worked well. Image was shot in RAW format.

I then followed tutorials on turning the image into mono, burned the corners to give a vignetting effect while dodging the middle of the picture to hightlight the gate and area behind it.

Hidden Among the Wear

An HDR image attempt I did in PS elements 6. Taken among the river banks of Durham, the scene was pretty and tranquil, a real natural treasure in the North East.