Thursday, July 15, 2010

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.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

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.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

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..)

Thursday, July 08, 2010

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!

Saturday, July 03, 2010

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..



Friday, July 02, 2010

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..

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Summer Flowers


Summer Bugs

Hope you all had a good summer solstice.  With summer well and truely underway it tends to be macro season for me.  With so many bugs, bees and damselflies about and nice bright Sunlight to light them it all comes down to skill, patience and a steady aim..

A banded demoiselle about to land on a lily pad.  Actually taken with my 100-400mm with x1.6 teleconverter.  Another lens combination that really needs a bright subject..

Bees, always busy and always looking good in purple..

Tiny flies always make for great shots it seems, with only about 3cm of background to keep clean they tend to make nice simple compositions.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

The Elusive Princess

Another flying visit by a steam locomotive through my local area, originally supposed to be the stunning Sir Nigel Gresley, but replaced with the Princess Elizabeth in the end.  It passed through at lunchtime and then returned in the evening.  Thankfully I decided to take a quick trip out at lunch to catch it arriving, charging past within 2 minutes of me arriving at the bridge over the line.  It was running early and caught me by surprise (I didn't get a chance to get in position, the photo below was pretty much a snapshot - hence the photoshop meddling).   


After work I then travelled out to my carefully chosen location (courtesy of google streetview + Earth plugin) to catch it on its way back out.. only for it to never arrive?!   The disappearing train apparently.  I can only guess that it went back a different line than it arrived on, much to the disappointment of me and the others gathered to watch it steam through...   next time...

Friday, June 11, 2010

Another purge of the left behind..

Engineers working at the East Somerset Railway workshop.

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Baby Swans in stained glass.  Very seasonal!

The colour of Summer.

Baa.

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... and a practice shot from my car boot challenge.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Light Scuplture

2 shots today, showing off a little sunlight manipulation.  The first is the product of a car boot challenge to buy something cheap and photograph it, for which I bought an old magnifying glass.  Plenty of scope for all sorts of photos, but I chose in the end to go for the old heart-shaped-shadow-in-a-book-spine trick.  Not overly a fan of copying others ideas, but I liked the way it worked as an element of this composition of real flowers laid on a flower book. 

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This one a plant that collects rain and dew within its leaves, growing in a pot I was able to move it into some dappled light and shadow. With such extremely bright sunlight I bracketed 3 exposures (using evaluative metering) and ended up using -1 2/3 ev.
RAW processed with a sprinkling of contrast and saturation to bring the image back to life.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Wandershots

Photographs always have two sides to them, the image the photographer sees and the image the viewer sees.  Each with a completely different view from the other.  When the camera mirror flips, the shutter snaps and the photograph is captured, an instance of the photographers life is captured and their memory of the moment affects the way they see the image.

For the viewer it is always different, they are  presented with an instant scene, a window to a time and place they never were before.  Untainted by knowledge of the event, their only sensory input is visual, from which the other senses can be imagined, a balmy summer day, warm on the skin, with bird song in the air and the scent of flowers blooming.

 
The photographer has to be in the right place at the right time, the camera has to capture the scene, but it is the viewer that has to do most of the work.  Absorb the colour, form, texture, detail and atmosphere of the image and let themselves be absorbed by more than just the image before their eyes.  As the camera has taught the photographer how to see the world in different ways, it is the job of the photographer to pass this joy onto those who view their images.

.. either that or I just like taking photos of Ladybirds in the Sun.
Enjoy!

Monday, May 17, 2010

Remnants

A few of the photos left behind from the last few weeks..





.. plus two new ones from the weekend.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Wales History Tour

The Cwmystwyth Mines, where lead, zinc and silver were mined since the bronze age, through roman and medieval times and into the 20th century.  When the mines processed lead it was recorded that the average age of a miner was just 32 years old, due to acute lead poisoning.  It is also the site where archeologists found the Banc Ty'nddol Sun disc, an ornamental gold disc 4000 years old, possibly from a mesolithic burial site found at the head of the valley.

A Celtic spring site recreation at Castell Henllys Iron age village.

Strumble Head lighthouse in the Sun! (was quite a bit stormier last time I was here!).  
The coast here is the site of the last invasion of Britain, when the French attempted to invade in 1797.  The plan was to land at Bristol, but bad weather forced them around into Wales, where despite flying the union flag they were spotted by a retired sailor off the Pembrokeshire coast, who sounded the alarm.  A pre-warned Fishguard port then repelled an attempt to land there and forced the four French ships to land their troops, from Napoleons Black Legion, on the coast.  

Unfortunately for the French their troops stumbled upon large stores of wine in the surrounding farms, scavenged from a Portugese ship that had wrecked off the coastline recently before.  The troops began to loot the stores and the invasion became disorganised and rebellious (ie. drunk!).  The British raised a force of sailors and local reservists and fooled the French into thinking they had a much superior force, to which they eventually surrendered to.  One heroine of the fighting was Jemima Nicholas, who captured 12 drunk French soldiers using her pitchfork and locked them in St Marys church, where she now has a memorial.  Two ships, La Resistance and La Constance were later engaged in the Irish sea and captured by Royal Navy ships after a half hour battle that saw many French sailors die.

Unfortunately this relatively blood free event was followed by an extremely bloody invasion of Ireland the following year at Castlebar.

St Brynachs church at Nevern.  Built on the site of a 6th Century religious settlement it has many old artifacts in its grounds.  The Vitalianus Stone dates from around 500AD and has carved Latin and Ogham inscriptions.  The window ledge inside the church also has Ogham inscriptions.  Ogham is a written language from Ireland consisting of a series of lines, possibly developed to pass secret messages without the Latin speaking Romans understanding them.

Also in the yard is the Nevern Cross, which is Wales largest Celtic cross, dating from the 10th Century and rows of 700 year old English Yew trees, one of which is known as the Bleeding Yew.  The tree bleeds an un-identifiable red liquid from a wound in it's trunk that has baffled scientists for years.  Legends say it that it has bled ever since an innocent man was hung from the tree or that it will continue to bleed until a Welshman sits upon the throne in Nevern castle again.