Peter Stephens Photography Blog

Stunning property overlooking Teignmouth (16:41 Wednesday 25th January 2012)

Here are a collection of photographs of a stunning property I photographed last year. It is a modern property with stunning views looking over Teignmouth and the sea. The view looks amazing at night with all the lights of Teignmouth twinkling down below. My favorite part of the property is the hall, love that staircase !! Hope you enjoy viewing the images, please follow the link here to view the images.

The property is currently for sale with Wilkinson Grant & Co

Official cheque presentation from the BBC Radio Devon Air Ambulance Appeal (01:34 Monday 23rd January 2012)

Last friday I was fortunate to be invited to photograph the official cheque presentation from the BBC Radio Devon Air Ambulance appeal which took place at the Steve Ford airbase, Eaglescott in North Devon. Listeners over the last two years have raised over £725,000 which exceeded the appeal target of £600,000. The surplus money over the will go towards maintaining the new helicopter, plus some specialist equipment needed. It was an emotional day for the Devon Air Ambulance Trust and BBC Radio Devon who where joined by many patients and fundraiser's throughout the day. We were also treated to 3 acoustic tracks from band The South who you might know better as the Beautiful South which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Click here to view the images

Dunelm Mill Exeter (23:40 Thursday 19th January 2012)

On Thursday the 12th of January 2012 the new Dunelm Mill store was opened and I was there to photograph it. I produced a number of still photographs of the store inside and out, including the cutting of the ribbon and also a 360vr. Before this occasion I had never been in a Dunelm Mill store, I was quite impressed with the size of it and the huge range that they stock. As I was processing the images my wife was looking over my shoulder making notes of what to get when she gets me to take her up there.... I can see this adding up a little.

Click here to view the 360vr and photographs.

Photography of a property in Cornwall (18:50 Friday 13th January 2012)

Here are some recent images of a lovely holiday property in Cornwall photographed last year for Helpful Holidays. Click here to view a slideshow of the images.

My Durdle Door 360vr image published by Smithsonian (22:13 Tuesday 10th January 2012)

My 360vr image of Durdle Door has recently been published on the Smithsonian website and iPad app in an article about the Jurassic Coast.  It’s great to see Smithsonian use one of my images, especially one of my favorite images like this one.

To view the image on the Smithsonian website <click here> Scroll down half way down the article for the link to the 360vr image.

Durdle Door 360vr image on the Smithsonian website

The Loose Cannons Band (23:43 Tuesday 20th December 2011)

Another 360vr photograph of the awesome band The Loose Cannons, shot at the Univercity of Exeter's Great Hall.

Click here to interact with the image

Clapper Bridge at Postbridge - Dartmoor (12:54 Tuesday 22nd November 2011)

This image of the old clapper bridge at Postbridge is one of the images that I was commissioned to take for the Virtually Dartmoor project in 2006 during my time with my previous business Sphereworks. It is one of my favorite photographs of the project, I really enjoy interacting with this image - also it makes a stunning equirectangular projection (360x180 panorama) as you can see below.

Virtually Dartmoor is a series of interactive visits to Dartmoor National Park providing the opportunity to explore aspects of Dartmoor's heritage through multi-media virtual tours, combining 360° panoramic photographs, the spoken word and archive photographs. It is a superb collection of media and although we where limited on the type of media we could use online at that time I still believe this virtual tour website to be one of the best online to date.

Please click here to interact with the image and for a link to the Virtually Dartmoor website

Exeter Cathedral North Tower (12:44 Tuesday 22nd November 2011)

This image from the top of the North Tower of Exeter Cathedral was taken in 2008 on a lovely Autumn day. I can remember being very lucky with the weather as most of the week was cloudy. It was fun climbing the twisty spiral staircase with my camera bag, didn't think to take a smaller bag with me. I'll know for next time :-)

Click here to interact with the image

Andrei Burton performing at the University of Exeter (12:04 Thursday 10th November 2011)

Last week I was commisioned to photograph Andrei Burton performing at the University of Exeter Bike Fair..... and here's the shots.....

It was a rainy start to the event, but thankfully the rain passed a Andrei was able to perform alowing me to get some nice shots. I really enjoy shooting these action shots of Andrei, I can fit a lot into the images which make quite dramatic panoramas. Click here to view the 360vr image.

Visit www.ex.ac.uk/unicycle for more information. Also you can become a fan of 'University of Exeter Cyclists (Unicycle)' on Facebook and follow them on Twitter (@UniofExCyclists).

Jewellery Photography (12:33 Wednesday 9th November 2011)

Recently I have been photographing jewellery, thought I would share a small selection of the images with you. Click here to view a slideshow of the photographs.

Scary Halloween Pumpkin (22:24 Wednesday 2nd November 2011)

Click here to interact with it

Motorground at Silverstone (20:59 Friday 23rd September 2011)

Here are a number of images I shotfor Motorground at Silverstone last monday. I took a number of still photos and a few 360vr interactive ones, including one inside their Ginetta G50 GTR racing car.

The image inside the Ginetta was a bit frustrating to shoot as I had a couple problems while doing it. It takes long enough to set the camera up being a small space to photograph. Chose my spot, set it all up and started shooting. I bracketed the image as I usually do inside cars, 9 images to cover a high dynamic range of light plus x3 of each of these for focus stacking. Started shooting, got nearly all the way around and it suddenly dawned on me that I was shooting at 400iso.... I could have probably got away with this, but decided to start over. Back at 100iso the longest exposure was 30sec so the process of shooting took even longer than before. Got to the 4th or 5th click on the rotator and some kind person opened up the garage door flooding the car with light. This messed everything up so had to start yet again. At this point the mechanics started working on the car, putting fuel in and wheels on etc... So I was a little under pressure to get it finished, fortunately the mechanics where nice about it and gave me the time required to finish shooting it. After a good hour photographing it I'd finished, but without a good idea if the image would come out ok or not. Lucky for me it was fine, none of the rushing around or movement of the car effected the image.

Click here to view the still photo albums on my facebook page - <Motorground Photos> <other photos from the day>

Below are the 360vr images photographed that day.....

Click to view 360vr image
Click to view 360vr image
Click to view 360vr image	Click to view 360vr image

Tour of Britain 360vr's (01:14 Sunday 18th September 2011)

Here are a few new interactive 360vr photographs of the Tour of Britain stage 5 start in Exeter last Thursday (15th September 2011). I was hoping to get some nice still photographs also, but there where so many people squeezed in that I could only do one or the other really.... so went with the 360vr's, so many other people where taking photo's that I always think it's best to try something different. I have two 360vr images at the Cathedral Yard for the start of the 5th stage, the first one near Molls in the corner of the green and the other one a little further along.

Click to view the image in full

Click to view the image in full

The plan next was to go take some photo's of Andrei Burton, a trials bike rider who was performing in Princesshay around the corner. As I arrived he was packing up to head off to Exmouth for the finish. He kindly gave me a lift over to Exmouth with him where I shot a 360vr of him performing plus a number of still photographs too. The crowds where to big to attempt to wander over to the finish line, and unlike the Tour Series here in Exeter a couple years ago I didn't arrange for a pass to get in front of the podium - so didn't bother with any of that and focused on photographing Andrei. Here is the panorama of Andrei's performance.

Click to view the image in full

Galloper Horseboxes (12:58 Wednesday 14th September 2011)

Recently commisioned where a couple 360 object vr's around the outside of two horse boxes for use on the new Galloper Horseboxes website. The red horsebox includes the side door opening and closing within the animation, the gray horsebox is slightly larger. Click the image to the right to view each van.

Click here to view the images

The Loose Cannons at Dartmouth Regatta (11:32 Thursday 1st September 2011)

Click here to view some of my photographs from the Loose Cannons gig last week at the Dartmouth Regatta.

Google Earth 3D Models (15:37 Wednesday 24th August 2011)

3D models on Google Earth are becoming very popular for many areas of business, public areas and education. America has been busily producing many 3D models of buildings in it's city's, if you have a spare moment have a look - it's very impressive.

Google earth is used by the majority of people who use personal computers or mobile devices. These 3D models on Google earth can work well for you in many ways. As a business people will be more likely to visit your website via Google Earth if you have a 3D building on it, the buildings are clickable and can show a web link to your business website. Universities, schools, local authorities may want to show buildings or public spaces to help create interest, drive traffic to website's, help tourism, or give a public service by providing 3D maps of a particular area of interest - town centre, public buildings etc...

Please contact me if you would like to discuss 3D Google Earth models with me.

Please view my models on the Google 3D warehouse by clicking here

Millers Crossing 3D Model

University of Exeter Business School 3D Model

Dawlish Air Show 18th August 2011 (21:38 Friday 19th August 2011)

Here are some photographs from yesterdays air show at Dawlish <click here to view> I have been before but not taken my camera due to small children in tow, this time I had other family with me to help so took it with me. We got off the train at Dawlish Warren so that my girls could have a look at the static helicopter, they liked that as they could jump inside and look around it. We then walked along the sea front towards Dawlish where I had planed to climb the hill at the other end to shoot back towards the warren. Unfortunately the tide was right in and quite rough so we couldn't walk all the way along and had to stop halfway there. This meant that I could only take photographs looking up into the sky, shame as I wanted a nice background for the shots. Photographed a few aircraft then I managed to walk along as far as the station. At this point I found out that the rest of the air show had been canceled due to bad weather elsewhere. Such a shame as I didn't get to see the Landcaster bomber and the Red Arrows. Oh well... looking forward to next year.

The Fashion Retail Academy Virtual Tour (14:14 Wednesday 17th August 2011)

Here is one of my laterst virtual tours of the Fashion Retail Academy in London. It is currently made up of three 360vr images, the Main Reception, the Common Room and the Cafe. The FRA wanted to show some of the facilities to potential students viewing the academy website.

Each of the three 360vr images have been produced into two different resolution images. One smaller and wider image for embedding into the page and another higher resolution full screen version. Each one links together via a popup menu at the bottom right of the images. The images also include infomation hotspots.

Click here to view the virtaul tour

Socal Media (13:22 Friday 12th August 2011)

You can now reach me on Google+
http://www.google.com/profiles/PeterStephensPhotography

..... and while you're at it drop by my other social media profiles and say hello, click on the links below:

Interior Photography of Underbecks Holiday Home in Salcombe, Devon. (15:18 Thursday 11th August 2011)

Here are some of the photographs taken at a shoot last month of the holiday property Underbecks at Salcombe, Devon. It's a lovely property with stunning views. Click here to vew a slide show of the images.

These images can also be viewed on Flickr and Facebook (click to open)

Dulverton All Saints Church (10:46 Friday 8th July 2011)

Tone Mapped photograph of Dulverton All Saints Church

View the image on Flickr and leave comments here

Dulverton Church Tone Mapped Photo

Starleaf Interactive Product Photography (18:24 Friday 24th June 2011)

Trail Running magazine shoot (13:35 Wednesday 4th May 2011)

Here's a photo from a recent 3am shoot with Iain Hindes from the North Devon Tri club for an article in the Trail Running magazine. Was a little early, but I was pleased with the results. One of the photographs is below, to view some of the others please visit my Facebook or Flickr pages.

I photographed Iain last year on his bike, you can see the images here.

Iain Hindes Trail Running Magazine photoshoot

Interior Design Photoshoot (13:03 Thursday 21st April 2011)

Here are a few photographs from a recent interior design photo shoot for a local business Custom House Design. I really enjoy these shoots, this property has some lovely fabrics - great work by Custom House Design.

“The photos look stunning! Thank you very much. You’ve done a brilliant job.” (Dawn & Teresa – Custom House Design)

Click here to view more photographs from the shoot

Cinema Projector Room 360vr

Film v Digital

Earlier this year I was invited to have a tour behind the scenes of a cinema, which I jumped at the opportunity. During the tour I was shown the various projection rooms which was of great interest to me. Standing in the room above watching the film go around the various projector equipment I could really feel the magic of cinema. As the projectionist was explaining how the films wound around the equipment and the process of running the films I could quickly see that it was a highly skilled job. A lot more work goes into playing back films in the cinema that you might think. The movie you can see playing in this scene was on seven different real's of film. You would never think that while watching the film playing seamlessly in front of you.

One of the rooms that I visited had a digital projection system in it. This has many obvious benefits, but all that magic and skilled work had gone from this room. Rather than running the complex tape based system all that is required is a simple computer hard drive. It wont be long before all the films are replaced by hard drives... and no doubt they will be replaced by streaming the movies from head office at some point.

What will happen to the projectionist? There is not skill involved in putting a hard drive in a computer and pressing go is there.

A blog article has been written about this by Paul Moxham @PaulMoxmovies which you can read by clicking here.

Click here to interact with the 360°vr image

Restoration of a 1937 school panoramic photograph (10:30 Tuesday 5th April 2011)

Many hours has been spent restoring this school photograph. The photograph had lots of cracks where the image has been creased over time, some where quite big. Also there where lots of small imperfections and areas where the image was taped together. After all the cracks had been filled and the image cleaned up I corrected the levels and sharpened the image a little.

Click here for more info a few close up before and after images.

Before....

After....

New Mailing List (19:15 Thursday 17th March 2011)

Just added a mailing list to my website, please subscribe here

www.peterstephens.co.uk/mailing_list.php

Neat thing to try with Photomatix Pro (20:50 Wednesday 16th March 2011)

Have a look how I produced this arty HDR image of The House That Moved - click here to find out more

Marquee 360vr Virtual Tour (11:50 Tuesday 15th March 2011)

A new 360vr virtual tour of one of Peninsula Marquees large marquees has just gone live on their new website. This marquee was setup for a wedding reception and has various rooms within it, is very impressive. When you click on the link to view the image, it will recognize if you are viewing it on an iPhone/iPad/iTouch and display the correct image.

Click here to interact with the image

View from inside a washing machine (14:42 Friday 4th March 2011)

Have you ever wondered what the view is like from the inside of your washing machine drum? (properly not) This is something I have been meaning to do for some time now, it took a few attempts to get it to look right and much time putting it together.... but got it to work, and here it is....

Click here to view inside a washing machine