Once again Loule has excelled with as many as 25,000 people turning up for this annual event and the majority of them with the obligatory white clothing.  Street entertainers from acrobats to jugglers, stilt walkers to elaborate costumes.  The music – wow absolutely amazing.  Who could imagine hard core house with didgeridoos?  This was possibly the best set of many with the masses just gob smacked!

From a photographer’s aspect it was not an easy night.  With masses of people jostling for a view it was a lot of bumping and nudging.  In places the lighting was good but often a view was difficult to capture because of other lighting shining directly into the lens.  I set my ISO at 1600 although I could have gone much higher but I did not want to get excessive noise in my images.  I will agree not my best set of shots but, hey, I was there first to enjoy myself and these images are just a record of a wonderful night.

Thanks to everyone who made the night so very special.

Almendres Stone Circle - Evora

Evora is a beautiful city located in the Alentejo region of central Portugal.  What is not known to many is the importance of a series of magnificent stone megaliths in the surrounding countryside.  One of the most spectacular is the megalith at Almendres.  This stone circle is located about 5 km from the city of Evora and is the oldest stone circle in Europe.  Well worth a visit if you are in the area.

At this time of year it is better to try and photograph in the early hours of morning or later in the afternoon around 6 pm – the “golden hour”.  As you can see, the lighting is very harsh giving relatively high contrast images.

The last image of the “Chapel on a hot summer day” was taken at about 3 pm and just across the border and into Spain.  I saw this chapel, perched on a hill with no other sign of civilisation for miles.  It seems the chapel was built in 1995 but who uses it is a mystery.

The definition of “Fine Art” is rather contentious and many say it means nothing!  I tend to disagree.  My intention is to provide the very highest quality print possible from photographs that have been color matched throughout my processing.  In a nutshell, what you see here should be matched up to the finished print.  However, do remember that your computer image may not be color matched as accurately as mine.

I have looked at a number of “gallery” standard printing material and I have decided that Hahnemuhle Fine Art paper meets my high standards.  Coupled with Canon’s inks this will produce exhibition quality prints with a life surpassing 100 years.

It has been said, many times, that “a good photograph is a good photograph – but one mounted expertly can turn it into a work of art”.  All my prints will be supplied, mounted on the finest mounting board with beveled cut out for the image.  These are precision made, in the UK, by one of the world’s leading mount and framing companies.

All mounted prints come with a signed certificate confirming that they are part of a limited edition of ten and confirm the edition number.

Price – A3 prints mounted – €120 (plus post and packing)

Contact:- tony_woods@mac.com

Over the next few weeks I will be uploading more photographs I have taken over the last year or so.  I will also be showing photographs that have recently been exhibited at the Amigos Museum in San Bras da Alportal here in the Algarve, Portugal. All the pictures are for sale as limited editions from a maximum of ten copies of any one print. The prints will be produced, individually to order, on my Canon Pixma Pro 9500 mk2 on Hahnemuhle Fine Art material.  After this, each print will be presented on a high quality, precision cut, mount ready for framing.

If anyone wishes to purchase any of my pictures please do contact me at:-

tony_woods@mac.com   (Please note the underscore in my email address)

The printer is a ten ink, A3+, machine and has the look and feel of a serious piece of equipment.  It was relatively easy to set up and Canon have done a good job with their instruction leaflet.  The whole process took about twenty minutes before I was ready to try my first print.  I selected an image and from Photoshop CS4, I proceeded to print.  Imagine my dismay when I discovered that there were no ICC profiles for this combination of printer and paper.  I went ahead, anyway, and I have to say that I was disappointed with the result.  The picture was flat, a little on the dark side and did not seem to have that “wow” factor I look for in my prints.  The Canon website did not seem to have the profiles for downloading and neither did Hahnemuhle, the paper manufacturer.

I contacted Hahnemuhle, in the UK office, and I have to say that they have been superb in their support.  They admitted that they had not got round to profiling their papers for the 9500 mk2.  However, they offered to supply me with a total range of all their digital paper and asked if I would carry out the printing of their test chart on all the samples.  This I did and duly sent back to their offices in Germany where they were accurately ICC profiled.  These profiles are now available to download from the Hahnemuhle website.

I must say that I am very impressed with the profiles.  There is no question, they do make a difference.  Providing your computer monitor is profiled accurately then printing from Photoshop with the correct paper media and profile settings results in wonderfully rich, full tonal, and punchy prints.  My favorite paper – definitely Baryta FB. A Fine Art Glossy paper with a 350 gsm weight.

So far I am delighted with my new printer.  Ink consumption does not seem excessive although the “Light Grey” ink appears to be the one used most.  The printer is very quiet in operation and does not seem slow either, although I have only printed A4 size to date.  I can also confirm that I have not had a single paper miss-feed.