Fotoviva Art Prints

Uk born photographer Michael Veerasingham is the latest to join the Fotoviva Team and we really like his work! Inspired by nature and open spaces, photography has followed Michael closely throughout his life and his travels. Starting out as a child with a ‘hand me down’ box camera and black and white film, he was introduced to the basic skills of capturing images and their subsequent development by his father. With the advent of the digital age, Michael now uses digital equipment to both take and process his images.

His landscape photography work is subtle yet stunning with a fine collection of additions to our Black and White section. His composition skills and fine exposure help create atmospheric images that will bring a serene feeling to any room.

He is currently based in the rolling foothills of the Basque Pyreneean mountains. British born and of Basque descent he has been familiar with the Basque Country, ‘Euskual Herria’ since early childhood. To this day he remains in awe of this outstandingly beautiful area, which covers parts of both North Eastern Spain and South Western France. He tries to capture the essence of its hills, forests, mountains, lakes, beaches, and rugged coastline. Spoilt for choice in terms of the photographic opportunities the Basque Country provides, he also ventures further afield to maximise the variety of locations and material he is able to shoot. Generally working in low light conditions, he endeavours to bring out the best in his images through the use of both monochrome and colour mediums.

Michael has a selection of his prints available to purchase on Fotoviva and also has his own website at www.koko-images.com

We have just opened a new section devoted to panoramic art prints on the main Fotoviva store. The collection of images will expand over the coming weeks and feature wide-angle landscape and fine-art views from around the world which can be purchased in a range of sizes as either poster or canvas art for your wall space.

Tim Wallace has been busy adding new Automotive Art Prints to the Fotoviva Collection with some stunning Aston Martin and Mini Cooper S photographs. These are not just car pictures but works of automotive art that bring out the passion and beauty of these cars. Check out the new prints and see Tim’s own video from YouTube.

At the Fotoviva online store we now have a special page which shows all the latest uploaded photographic prints which are available to buy as poster art or canvas prints. This is a flash-based gallery which we think is rather funky with its animated resizing and ease of use. If you want to keep up to date with all the latest images to our art store this is the page to visit if you’re in a hurry!

And if you are thinking about buying a picture for Christmas we will need your order by the 14th December to ensure it reaches you in time. Gift Vouchers are also now available if you are looking for gift ideas.

Pedro Bento is the latest recruit we would like to welcome to the Fotoviva photography team. Pedro is from Portugal and we are happy to have some of his great work available which includes some truly stunning landscape and seascape photography. He loves to take photographs in the extremes of the day, at dawn and dusk, when the ‘golden light’ appears for brief moments and shows the true beauty of a place. Pedro uses professional equipment by the likes of Canon and Manfrotto but always has in mind that cameras and lenses are simple tools and it isn’t the top gear equipment that captures the spirit of a place, but your knowledge and dedication.

Pedro says “I have been in love with nature since I was a kid, and I started taking photographs simply as records of my outdoor adventures. However, when a friend introduced me to some books of American Landscape Photographers I felt awed by the way they played with light in their images. After that day I decided, my images would never be just registers of places rather than registers of those places souls.”

We have a nice selection of Pedro’s work available on the Fotoviva store and all are available in a range of sizes as either canvas art pictures or poster prints. You can also visit his own website at www.pedrobento.com for more information.

We would like to welcome our new photographic contributor Andrew Gibson to the Fotoviva team. Andrew has a passion for travelling and seeking out the most beautiful corners of our world with his gritty black and white style of photography.

Andrew says “I’m fortunate enough to have travelled a lot in my life, and I’ve seen a lot of beautiful places which most people don’t have the time or opportunity to see. My mission is to bring the sights of the world’s most magical places, and to make these images available to all in the form of Fine Art Photography Prints. I work in both monochrome and colour, but I especially like to use sepia toned black & white photography to create a lasting visual impression as it’s more difficult and challenging than colour but ultimately much more rewarding. For me, the best, most evocative and timeless photos that I have seen are monochrome.”

Andrew recently made the switch from film to digital. Some of the photos you see here were originally taken on film, then scanned using a negative scanner and worked on in Adobe Photoshop to achieve the final result. Andrew has his own website at Magicalplacesfineart where he showcases his brilliant work. We will be adding more of Andrew’s photography to the Fotoviva catalogue in the coming weeks, especially in the Black and White Art section.

We are happy to announce a new category to the Fotoviva store which is called Automotive Art. If you haven’t guessed it yet here we will be showcasing some exceptional car photography for you budding automotive enthusiasts out there!

Tim Wallace has produced some stunning images of both classic and cutting edge modern cars that really catch the eye. Tim’s own unique style brings the best out of the cars whether it’s a contemporary angle or a classic car pose. We have more breathtaking car photography coming so keep looking in on a regular basis.

You may have heard of HDR images before but what exactly are they and what purpose do they serve? Well let’s start with what it stands for – High Dynamic Range. Basically this is a technique that allows for a far greater dynamic range of exposures (i.e. a large range of values between light and dark areas) than normal digital imaging techniques. The intention of HDR is to accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to the deepest shadows.

This effect is made by blending a minimum of 3 differently exposed images together to create the ideal exposure, which is more like the human eye would see it. There are various programs such as Adobe Photoshop and Photomatix which will help you automate the process as it can be quite difficult and time consuming doing it by hand using blending layers. There is still a lot of tweaking required as every picture requires different settings to achieve the desired result, so practice makes perfect.

With the rising popularity of digital cameras and easy to use desktop software, the term ‘HDR’ is now popularly used to refer to the process of tone mapping together with bracketed exposures of normal digital images, giving the end result a high, often exaggerated dynamic range. It is necessary to use a tripod for your bracketed exposures to ensure alignment and sharpness.

Searching through the net you will find wildly differing styles of HDR use with some images looking totally unrealistic with crazy colours and toning. On the other hand there are the serious photographers who use HDR to subtley enhance their pictures to create an image more akin to how the human eye would see the scene, rather than have to rely on filters to help improve the limitations of digital cameras’ sensors.

This HDR image of a sunset over a field of haybales was generated from 3 exposures using Photomatix Pro. It was then enhanced further with various Photoshop techniques. I have kept the HDR changes to a minimum to preserve the authentic appearance. Sunset images are a great topic for HDR as they have such a wide tonal range. Try attempting to create a similar result with one exposure and you will no doubt either end up with a washed out sky with a good exposed foreground or a nice sunset but no detail in the shadow areas such as the haybales. This hdr picture can be bought as a poster or canvas print from the Fotoviva Art Store.

We are pleased to announce the upload of our 100th photographic image to Fotoviva! Don Tiffney’s Band of Gold picture became the photograph to help us hit the milestone, which is a beautiful sunset view over a classic English landscape. As with all our prints, it is available to purchase in a range of sizes to suit your walls, as either giclee canvas art or poster print.

Our collection of inspiring prints has grown so much over the last few months thanks to our dedicated team of photographers who’s work is making Fotoviva become one of the best art prints sites on the web. Our brand name is becoming well known and we shall continue to bring you many more unique shots that you won’t find in high street shops. So if you want to have some individual art for your home or office walls check back on a regular basis, or sign up for our newsletter to see what is happening at the Fotoviva store.

Yesterday we had a useful update to the Fotoviva store which will make browsing the site a lot more user friendly whilst making the site look nicer too! We have removed the popup windows that opened when you wanted to view a larger image – it now opens in the main page itself. Have a closer look at Don Tiffney’s ‘At Anchor’ picture to see how it works.

There is also a new 3 column structure to the category pages which had to be implemented due to the increased number of images we now have. I have a backlog of pictures to upload and some new contributors coming onboard soon so this made sense. We have done away with the description and now just have a thumbnail and a title. The description and price now appears when you click into the image for more info. This allows more images on each category page so users will not have to go through several pages before finding the photo they want to purchase. See an example on the landscape art page. The only downside is that the portrait pictures throw the balance of the page off, but there isn’t a lot we can do about this. A small trade-off methinks.

I hope you like the site changes. If you have any comments or suggestions let me know.