ARCHIVE: LOOKING AT CARS 74 – FROSTY MORNING, MELTING

After a cold night, still icy in the shadows.

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Technique: TG-5 at 70mm (equiv); 160 ISO; Lightroom, using the Camera Vivid film simulation; Hart’s Bakery, Temple Meads, Bristol; 8 Nov 2017.

ARCHIVE: LOOKING AT CARS 73 – GOING TO WORK 29 (MONO)

 

Going to work.  The bike beats the jams but he’s jammed in – anonymous, wary, vulnerable, claustrophobically picking his way between shifting walls of gleaming metal and glass; lungs poisoned by fumes, ears blasted by engines and horns, and always the thought that he’ll fare worst in any tussle with these mechanised beings.

Oh come, you’ll say, mechanised beings? – each has a human driver!  Well, the way things are going, that will not be true for too much longer – so, thinking of the Terminator films – is this Rise Of The Machines???

Technique: this is tight crop, aimed at accentuating how the cyclist is being hemmed in, to accentuate how the “mobile metal monsters” are queuing up to squeeze closely past him.  And these feelings of claustrophobia are (hopefully!) added to by cropping The Man Himself; and especially so his eyes, which at once renders him anonymous and unknown; leaving only his mouth, which looks rather taut, stressed and ready for the worst.

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Technique: X-T1 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 300mm (equiv); 400 ISO; Lightroom; Capture NX2; Baldwin Street, central Bristol; 19 July 2016.

ARCHIVE: LOOKING AT CARS 72 – DRIVER IN THE MODERN WORLD

She is at the wheel – and on wheels too – comfortably cocooned in metal, plastics and glass, all powered up and ready to go. 

But glancing around, perhaps for some human contact, for some respite from this purely blank, mechanically mobile world, the view outside – as inside – is only of endless artificiality, only of yet more, transient cocoons, passing on anonymously by.

Click onto the image twice to enlarge it – recommended.

Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens used in APS-C format to give 450mm; 6400 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Dramatic profile; Bristol city centre; 29 Nov 2019.

ARCHIVE: LOOKING AT CARS 71 – PARKED CAR 3

Using a long telephoto close in to pick out details, to look at just parts of the cars; and then reducing both Texture and Clarity in Lightroom to unnaturally smooth the metallic surfaces.  Using long telephotos at close range can have creative potential over a wide range of subjects/genres.

Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window – recommended.

Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 300mm; 1600 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Vivid v2 profile; beside Temple Meads railway station, in central Bristol; 10 May 2019.

ARCHIVE: LOOKING AT CARS 70 – GOING TO WORK 10

Something from the Going to Work series, which seems a long time ago now:

He’s giving me a rather fixed stare.  I’m glad we weren’t sharing the back seat ……..

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Technique: X-T1 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 305mm (equiv); 800 ISO; morning rush hour, Baldwin Street, central Bristol; 5 Aug 2016.

ARCHIVE: LOOKING AT CARS 69 – PARKED CARS

Looking along a line of parked cars, Lower Maudlin St, central Bristol; 24 Feb 2017.

Composition: I have a visual fetish for looking along lines of objects – vehicles, buildings’ windows and facades, trees and so on – that recede into the distance.  I suppose this is something to do with the convergence of such views, and the apparently diminishing scale of the objects.  In this case there was a building site on the right, with a big, pale, solid wooden fence between it and the pavement.  In the bright sunlight, this stockade was reflecting a lot of light onto the line of closely parked cars – and so to focusing on the mirror of the nearest car to establish a prominent, solid object to tie the rest of the composition to, and then letting the camera look on down the jumbled line of metallic shapes, with empty, sunlit pavement relatively featureless on the right.  The X-T2’s APS-C sensor gives greater depths of focus than full frame sensors, but even on f8 the close-in use of a long telephoto narrows the zone of sharp focus considerably, rendering the more distant cars as increasingly vague shapes and impressions.  A couple more car mirrors add some structure to that receding line of metallic chaos, and two red brake lights add welcome hot colour.

Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window – recommended.

Technique: X-T2 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 305mm (equiv); 800 ISO; Lightroom.

ARCHIVE: LOOKING AT CARS 68

 

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Technique: TG-5 at 85mm (equiv); 3200 ISO; spot metering; Lightroom, starting at the Modern 01 profile; south Bristol; 6 Feb 2021.

ARCHIVE: LOOKING AT CARS 67 – CAUGHT IN TRAFFIC (MONO)

Taking her chance amongst the traffic surging along Queens Road, on the edge of Bristol’s up market Clifton suburb.

The converging cars remind me of a wolf or shark pack closing in upon her – especially the sharp and down-curved “snout” of the car at upper right. 

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Technique: D700 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 300mm; 6400 ISO; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the Full Dynamic Smooth preset; 2 Dec 2016.

ARCHIVE: LOOKING AT CARS 66 – PHOTOS FROM A DRENCHED CAR 2

Photo taken through the streaming windows of my car during a torrential rainstorm.

The image is easy to decipher – assuming that you feel the need when faced with anything at all abstract, to know what you’re looking at – which most people do.  The car is parked on the other side of the road with its headlights reflecting off the wet tarmac.

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Technique: TG-5 at 100mm (equiv); 3200 ISO; Lightroom, using the Camera Vivid profile; south Bristol; 15 Jan 2018.

ARCHIVE: LOOKING AT CARS 65 – WHITE CAR (MONO)

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Technique: TG-5 at 25mm (equiv); 800 ISO; spot metering; Lightroom, starting at the B&W 04 profile; south Bristol; 6 Feb 2021.