Adidas Spezial Exhibition, Manchester

This is my first blog in a while. I’ve kind of put this blog on the backburner for the last few months as my wife and I readied ourselves for the arrival of our 1^st child Lucas.

On Sunday my wife and I (for a change) had no plans. My brother, sister-in-law and my niece had just left our house as they had been staying a few days. I came across the Adidas Spezial Exhibition in Manchester via a Facebook friend and realised it was the last day that it was showing. 

The exhibition was based on Dale Street in Manchester’s trendy Northern Quarter, a part of the city which I have visited a few times of late. It offers some lovely cafes/restaurants. I can highly recommend that you check out Home Sweet Home. The burgers there are amazing and the cakes are ridiculous!

We set out with our near 7 week old boy Lucas to take in the historic and iconic sneakers that Adidas has produced over the years. Armed with just my Sony A77 and 24-70mm f2.8 Zeiss lens I marched my wife and child around the exhibit snapping away and even used the pram handle to steady the camera for a few relatively slow shutter shots to show motion of some of the other Adidas fans attending the show.

Check out my snaps from the exhibition and leave a comment.

Swedish Graduation Ceremony

Nic Taylor June 15th 2014

While visiting my wife’s family in a small town called Nödinge near Göteborg (Gothenburg), Sweden I was lucky enough to attend her cousin’s high school graduation ceremony at the opera house.

Graduating from high school is a huge thing in Sweden. For each student the day starts with a champagne breakfast at 6.30am followed by a meet up with the teachers and all the other classes at school. From here they have food with the teachers, give speeches and sing songs. After, they make their way to the boats which tour Göteborg’s river ending up at the opera house in front of thousands of family members and friends. While here they dance in front of the opera house and then board floats (trucks) which also then tour the main streets of Göteborg playing music and spraying champagne. After all of this, it’s traditional for each student to have a party with family members.

For a bystander taking photos it was an amazing event with electric atmosphere at the opera house. I can only imagine what it must be like to be a student graduating with such fantastic traditions.

Check out some of my photos from that day and leave a comment below :)

Head Shot

Nic Taylor May 7th 2014

I had some free time today so decided to experiment with a shot...

I took this selfie with my Sony A77, Carl Zeiss 24-70mm lens mounted on a tripod and triggered with my remote while I stood in the bath (so I had a tiled background).

Next came the editing. I always shoot RAW so that it gives me more control when it comes to editing. For this I mainly use Lightroom and for a few tweaks (in this case a lot) I use Photoshop. First off I adjusted the contrast, exposure, clarity and tones of the image in Lightroom then exported to Photoshop where I added a layer to make the tiles seem grubby, a layer for the blood that appears splashed along the tiles and finally a layer of out of focus blood to make it seem as though it had splattered on the camera lens.

I’m happy with the finished image. What do you think? Comment below...

Shots at Sunset
Nic Taylor April 10th 2014

For a while I've been meaning to get some decent shots of the sun setting after a beautiful

sunny day with some interesting subjects in the foreground. Earlier this week my wife and I

took a trip to Crosby beach to see Antony Gormley's Another Place art installation during a

colourful dusk. 

Check out some of my shots. 

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