Fallen

Another quick post, of a rose and its petals that I took the other day. A little hypocritical really after my lecture about photoshop use, but this is two images overlayed, one focusing on the flowerhead and the other on the petals. They were even taken from different angles, while I was looking for the best composition.

I couldn't decide which I liked best, thought each had something lacking that the other had, so decided I might make it into a photoshop heavy piece of art instead... However all I did was paste one over the other, set the top image opacity to 50% and I think it looks great! It's kept the details and texture, the tone and lighting, but added an etherealness to the scene.

Rather than feeling like cheating, it actually reminds me of a phase I went through with my old film camera, doing double exposures on a single frame to get portraits with textures. An old favourite being my old cat Tom looking up, with a 2nd exposure of clouds, worked really well.

Dragons and Damsels..

Three more fly shots, one dragonfly and two damselfly, with some nice tones and bokeh backgrounds.

The blue background in this shot, from the sky reflecting off the river surface, was soo strong that I've toned it down to look "more natural" or maybe, more pleasing to the human mind at least.

It always intrigues me when something looks more normal if it's un-naturally altered. I think the first time I realised this was for my art GCSE exam, I wanted to do an airbrush painting of a unicorn, so I traced and upscaled a photo of a real horse in the pose I wanted, then painted it. Despite me being pleased with how it turned out, all I got for comments was that I'd sketched the pose all wrong, that the legs looked too short and out of proportion. Important lesson learned. It's more important to deliver what the viewer thinks the subject should look like, rather than blindly recreating something that is real, but just looks wrong (naturally un-natural).

How does this effect my photography? I shoot all my daytime photos in Sunlight white balance and neutral colour profile, so I at least start off from an image as close to the real scene as possible. However, if something doesn't look right, I'm not adverse to some tweaking in the name of some good image karma. On my previous Kingfisher photo I tweaked the colour balance slightly, the ambient light was very green, reflected off the river surface, reeds and trees I guess, but it just looked (quite a lot) more natural when the green tint was removed.

A slightly touchy subject these days with photoshop manipulation frowned upon by so many people, but I do believe it's all about delivering the experience of being there and seeing it to the viewer.

Kes

A snap of one of the previously mentioned Kestrels. Poor lighting and another hand held, long zoom shot, but bloggable thanks to the 50D resolution and Image Stabilisation in my lens.

Pain and Suffering

I hurt a muscle under my rib cage Thursday (an intercostal strain no less), so what better place to relax and recover than the river bank on a sunny day! With no small amount of effort to get there carrying my camera, tripod and some supplies I set up a secluded surveillance spot for project KFC. I've not been down the river for a while, so was more for research than setting up for a staged shot. Turned out pretty good, spotted lots of movement and one potential hotspot that I will return to when I get time and the rain subsides. This was my best shot of the day, slightly plagued by high ISO (ISO 1600 /w noise reduced using Neat Image Pro), long zoom (400mm + 1.6 tele-converter) and hurting ribs (this was off to one side, shot hand held) ..



Was nice to see lots of wildlife over the weekend too. Happy days for aerial predators it appears..
I saw a dragonfly catch a butterfly in mid-air, carry it around its territory then land and eat it.
Watched a pair of Kestrels dog-fighting with a Buzzard, the swooping falcon against the soaring Buzzard, performing flips to reveal its talons with each approach.
Lastly, wandering through the riverside woods I watched a small bird fly up in front of me, then a soaring, sparrowhawk swoop down and grab it straight out of the sky and carry it off between the trees. Just feet away from me it was a spine tingling moment. (I snapped some pics of the sparrowhawk a couple of weeks ago, can't remember if I blogged it though..)

Sunny Cherhill

A colourful summers day at Cherhill White Horse, skies of blue, hills of green and fields of yellow. Glorious.

Just down the road from Avebury stone circle this area has more than its fair share of history, from neolithic onwards. The hill is topped by Oldbury Hill Fort, an Iron age fort updated from a previous bronze age settlement. The white horse was first carved into the chalk hillside 230 years ago and the Lansdowne monument erected 65 later, but my favourite nugget of history has to be The Cherhill Gang...

A notorious gang of highwaymen from the 18th century that robbed rich Londoners travelling the Great Western Road from Bath to London. One of their techniques was to hold up the carriages completely naked, with the effect of instilling fear and shocking the passengers into not being able to recognise their faces!

In 1811 they robbed the Royal Mail wagon, killing the driver and made off with their loot towards Beckhampton. They came across a man called Walter Leader who'd had a flaggon of ale or two too many. Stunning him the highwaymen carried him back to the scene of the crime and staged him as the perpetrator, a spent pistol in his hand. He was later discovered by the law who judged there to be conclusive evidence of murder, he was found guilty and duly sentenced to death in London. However, the gang of highwaymen had quarrelled and one of the members decided to confess to the authorities in Bath, turning "King's Evidence". A despatch rider was sent for London with an urgent pardon for Walter Leader, but despite pleas for a delay, he was hung on a misty morning in London just half an hour before the rider arrived. He was buried at the side of the road, near Beckhampton and his ghost is reportedly seen by the locals, walking the nearby streets in a black cloak and tricor hat.

Oyay - Oyay - Oyay

Melksham held a town crier competition and a milk churn race  sunday, as part of the finale to their food and drink festival.  Was good fun and nice to buy some quality produce from the local suppliers.

 


Someone still has their St George cross out!

Old Skool dayz.

Visited George Ward school yesterday, a school I used to play rugby and basketball against as a kid. It had a final open day, before it closes for demolition. Amazing how similar it felt to my secondary school and was a trip back in time to days of gas taps, windows you open with a hook, scrolling blackboards, stone tile floors, wooden stools and overhead projectors. Not much of which had changed since the 50's..

Red, Green, Blue and a bit of grey..

Grey Heron on a grey day.

The macro lens getting yet another workout, snapping Damsels at dusk..

Crimson roses and Georgian ballistrades, always a class combination. Quite nice texture and light considering it was blazing Sun too..