I have just purchased an iMac 24 after much thought. With being a Windows XP fan for many years I have stuck with XP even with the new releases of Windows operating systems such as Vista and 7 but neither of them appealed to me once played around with.

XP seemed to be getting old now, and with being a photographer and web designer I thought its about time I took the leap into the MAC world.

Well so far I am glad I have, the monitor is like nothing you can imagine. Sleek, sexy and bright. The OS it self is so much more efficient than Windows, in the manner that files are controlled and applications are installed. Multi-tasking with applications is made quick and simple.

I am yet to set up the time machine as I have not added my external HD but I am excited about this feature also.

To anyone thinking of making the change from Windows to Mac I would certainly recommend it if you use your PC for powerful applications.

Aside from my freelancing I have now got a job at a local photography studio in Chester named Digital Exposure. At the studio it is all mainly product photography but things get get mixed up from time to time! They produce excellent work and are based an industrial estate in Saltney, Chester.

So if you have a few minutes go check them out here www.digitalexposure.co.uk

Its that time of year again, yet its no longer fun as you get older and older!

How old? I will let you guess that!

Hopefully going for a shoot up a rather tall mountain over the next few days, lets pray for nice weather over the Cheshire sky line!

Hello! Things are busy at the moment with many projects taking place. With the sun shining the light in and around Chester is great.

The gallery will be updated shortly I hope as I am having some difficulty making the gallery W3C compliant (third party code).

Enjoy the sun while it lasts people!

Some changes have been made to the website to make it clearer and easy to modify. I felt the latter was not so consistent in where information was being given. Blog has also been integrated.

New services page mentioning information about architectural photography, product photography, event photography and portrait photography and promoting Chester photography.

Hopefully everything is in good order but if you do manage to spot anything out of place please inform myself, thank you!

Just posting a quick update, some of my work will be in an Exhibition at Kingsway Campus in June, date to be confirmed which I will update in due course.

I will have 3 architectural pieces on display, showing the modern city scape of our society.

To show a comparison in digital vs large format photography I have conducted a basic review of each.

The digital image was captured with a Canon 40D camera and the large format image was taken with 4×5 transparency film on a ShenHao camera. The film was scanned at 2400 dpi on an Epson 4990 flatbed scanner.

Adjustments were made to the perspective of the digital image to match the correct perspective. Why? As this is how the image would be used for its proper architectural purposes.

Below are the two full images, the first being the digital image and the second the large format. The image is not of much importance just a church in the city of Chester.

Digital image file

Large Format image file

Colour difference is unimportant for this test as we are looking at the quality of each of the respective images.

Below are two crops of the images at 100% with the digital image being scaled to the same width as the large format image using the Photoshop image size > Bicubic Smoother tool.

Digital 100%

Large Format 100%

From these two crops you can see a clear difference in the amount of detail and sharpness. At 100% the digital image is clearly unusable whereas the large format file is perfect to printing at sizes of up to 50″ x 40″.

So which format you use will depend on a number of factors, for what is the use and what is the subject. If the image is for web purposes for printing at not bigger than 10″ x 8″ then digital is perfectly fine, but for bigger print sizes the use of a large format camera is required to obtain detail and sharpness. Also as the subject here is architecture the use of a large format camera is desirable for the camera movements but more about this in a later post.

At a later date another basic review shall be conducted comparing the image of a full sensor Canon 5D mark II to a 4×5 large format image.

Everything went smoothly with the exhibition. Not only was there fine art but also fine food!

Thank you everyone that payed a visit.

Three pieces of my work are currently in an exhibition collaborated with three other artists.

The work has a link between form and structure.

Where -    Kings Way Foyer, Chester, CH2 2LB
When -    25/02/2010 – 04/03/2010
Times -    09:00am  -17:30pm

Statement:

“Architecture

Everywhere you go in life you are surrounded by architecture, whether it is in a major city or in the middle of no man’s land. Most of us take it for granted. There are eye sores and there are fine-looking looking structures in our life’s.

What it is I aim to capture in my work is the diversity of buildings of yesterday, today and tomorrow. Looking at the shape and structure of how different buildings are formed yet not necessarily correlated to their purpose. Materials used to create architecture have a huge effect on its ability to mold into society.

I seek to discover why architecture is created in such ways as it is.

For purpose?
For aesthetic reasons?
For art?

Jamie Knop
contact@JamieKnop.com
www.JamieKnop.com
07841592842″

All welcome

An update to my work section with some unrelated subject matter (yes other than architecture). They were shot with 4×5 negatives in the outback near Chester on a cold misty winters morning.  Its nice to photograph other subjects sometimes so don’t get to restricted like I have been of late. Have a look http://jamieknop.com/workother.html