So how do I make my images?

Simple really. Go somewhere pretty, take a camera and take pictures. Or is it really that simple?

You already know, if you’ve been reading my other articles, that I favour early starts and late afternoons. Better light at the ‘Golden Hours’, or so they say. True, the light is more usable and less harsh at either end of the day but it doesn’t stop me taking my gear with me wherever I go.

The pretty place or nice view is usually somewhere I’ve been before or scouted out from other images. No point running around aimlessly trying to find somewhere that may make a worthwhile image. I have done just that in the past, but thankfully I think I’ve learnt from past fruitless searches.

Top notch kit is a must, surely? Well, not exactly. I use a mid level camera body (Nikon D7000) with half decent lenses. I favour my Tokina 11-16mm, purely because it produces fantastically sharp images… as long as I focus properly. I’ve also got a Nikkor 18-105 kit lens, a Nikkor 50mm 1.8 and a Nikkor 80-200 f2.8 for longer focal length shots.

Filters to add colour? Nope. The only filters in my bag are 3 ND grads (3 stop soft, 3 stop hard and 2 stop hard) 3 stop ND and everyone’s favourite, B+W 10 stop ND. All colours are as the camera captures. I leave the WB on daylight.

Photoshop? Yes. Only because it’s what I’ve got. Open the RAW file in RAW editor, bring out the detail in the highlights and shadows and open. Most of the time I just clean dust spots and fine tune levels and then save.

Simple, as those annoying meerkats say.