Uninspired

 

Well, turns out the events I visited over the weekend, although enjoyable were not particularly inspiring to my shutter finger unfortunately.  I think it was a mixture of things not being as photogenic and having photographed them many times before.  The local festival has lost its main sponsor since they were bought out by a foreign company and it all seemed worryingly lacking.

 

As it turns out, I ended up doing a familiar style shot of Gloucester Cloisters - there are many like it, but this one is mine .. I did at least try and add a kind of mirror image effect between the window and aisle.  Even the 16-35mm wasn't wide enough to grab this in one shot on my APSC sensor, so this is a composite of 5 portrait shots with a bit of straightening, noise reduction and cropping.

 

 

ISO1600, 16mm, f/9, 1/13mm, -1.6ev, composite, noise reduction, cropped

Bovine Sunset



 

Have been running lately, despite my lack of natural running ability, managed to run a charity 5k race last weekend.  It has however, been many kinds of torture!  Not just the physical and mental challenge, but my training path takes me through countryside, often at Sunset, surrounding me with photogenic views without my camera (a photographers curse).  I have to confess that,

as if running out of choice isn't crazy enough, I have actually considered options to allow me to run carrying my camera, but until my fitness greatly improves I am just channelling it into motivation to get out with my camera on my rest days.

 

Hazy dandelions, distant church spires and silhouetted Swallows, but this was my favourite.  A rim lit happy dairy cow, grazing on the farm I used to work on was I was young.

 

Off to Gloucester Tall Ships festival tomorrow, then local Folk festival for the rest of the weekend.. weather looks handy.. full moon too .. see what I can snap along the way..

 

Have a great bank holiday weekend!



 





ISO640, 275mm, f/5.6, 1/400s, -1ev, noise reduction

Black and white weather

 

It's rainy and dark outside as I post this, definitely black and white weather!

A bit of a filler post today to tide things over a little ..  the first is a macro shot of a coin I picked up at a car boot sale purely because of the rather cool St George on the reverse.  As it turns out, it was minted to celebrate the Festival of Britain, the celebration of the end of austerity after World War 2.  I wonder if they'll mint a coin sometime soon to mark the end of this era of triple recession and price amplification!

 

The second is from the weekend, a gloomy, windy beach shot of a stormy sea and valiant kite surfer battling it.  I took quite a few of them floating several meters into the air, but liked this one most for it's gloomy mist and clean composition, with the rain and mist giving it that ethereal feel.

 

Might be back soon with some mini project shots, codename .. RAIN!

 

 

Little Brown Jobs

 

Two photos of similar subjects and taken with similar camera settings, but with different merits.

 

The top sparrow is nice and sharp, with diffuse light and good depth of field, however the branch is fairly ugly and lets face it, even though it is striking a catalogue pose, is a little boring. 

 

The second Wren photo is a lot more dynamic and interesting, both in the pose, background, reflection and activity - with a fresh water shrimp in its beak.  However, sharpness is lacking and the lack of separation between the main subject and the busy background makes it a bit confusing to look at.

 

Did you know...  even Wrens haven't avoided religious persecution!  The Wren was sacred to the druids and their god of thunder, Taranis.  Having a Wrens nest in your house provided protection from lightning and killing one or steal an egg made you more prone to being struck!

As is often the case Christianity, wanting to stamp out the old Celtic traditions, branded the bird treacherous, saying it betrayed St Stephens location when he was trying to hide from persuers, who crucified and stoned him.  They created a festival for people to go out and hunt Wrens and stone them in revenge.  Not much forgive and forget going on then!

 



ISO100, 390mm, f/5.6, 1/500s, -1ev

ISO125, 400mm, f/5.6, 1/640s, -1ev, cropped



Mono-France

 

Two more black and white converted photos from France.  The top one is Bayeux cathedral and the lower is shot at sunset on Gold beach near Arromaches, turned into black and white as the colours were so surreal they look fake! 

 

Have a great bank holiday .. see you on the other side ..

 

ISO100, 16mm, f/8, 1/100s, -1ev, circular polariser, desaturated

ISO100, 16mm, f/16, 1/4s, -2/3ev, circ polariser, tripod, mirror lockup, cable release, curves, desaturated