Looking at – and seeing – the world
January 17, 2020 4 Comments
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Out on Bristol’s streets: restaurant frontage decorated for Christmas; early morning.
Click onto the image twice to open an enlarged version in a separate window – recommended.
Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 300mm; 6400 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Pop profile; central Bristol; 29 Nov 2019.
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December 25, 2019 32 Comments
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Christmas lights over central Bristol – click onto the image twice to view an enlarged version in a separate window.
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December 20, 2019 8 Comments
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The built environment – rigid, cold, blank, straight-sided – and the barely seen, soft and natural roundnesses of a small, warm, living thing.
Click onto the image twice to open a larger version in a separate window – recommended.
Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 105mm; 6400 ISO; in-camera processing of the raw file, using the Graphite profile; Marsh Street, central Bristol; 29 Nov 2019.
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December 10, 2019 10 Comments
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I joined the morning rush hour, on streets teeming and blaring. And was approaching Bristol Bridge, just about to cross the river and enter the city’s heart, when to my left appeared these offices – deserted at this early hour, but illuminated both inside and out, regardless.
Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window, and click onto that image to enlarge it further.
Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 145mm; 12,800 ISO; spot metering; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Portrait v2 profile; Victoria Street, central Bristol; 29 Nov 2019.
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December 8, 2019 10 Comments
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Sitting in Browns restaurant, waiting for a breakfast – a second breakfast as it happens – to arrive. I’ve often visited this rather up market venue after hours of early morning photography on Bristol’s streets; its a wonderfully quiet place to relax – and the almost ritualistic presentation of the Full English Breakfast is a minor delight – you can see what I mean here.
But whereas Browns used to have beautiful yellow chairs that caught the sidelight pouring in through the large windows, these are now gone and – in the interval between ordering the meal and receiving it – the place is not so photographically rewarding as it once was – for example here .
But, still, there was a dull red bottle top sitting on the window sill across from my table, and the perforated top of a radiator below it, all with shadows and backlighting courtesy of the light from the large windows.
Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window, and click onto that image to enlarge it further.
Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 200mm; 3200 ISO; spot metering; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Pop profile; Browns Restaurant, central Bristol; 29 Nov 2019.
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October 6, 2019 9 Comments
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The wonderful exterior colour of the King William Ale House, a favourite watering hole of mine in Bristol city centre. An old pub, with good beer and comfortable seating – just the place for quiet afternoons of decadent imbibing and good conversation by those of us in the retired classes.
Click onto the image to open another version in a separate window, and click onto that image to further enlarge it.
Technique: TG-5 at 25mm (equiv); 400 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Vivid profile; rotation; Capture NX2; King William Avenue, Bristol city centre; 1 Oct 2019.
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September 11, 2019 5 Comments
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Morning sunlight casting shadows across a façade.
There is an earlier abstract image from Little King Street here: 1 .
Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window, and click onto that image to enlarge it further.
Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 300mm; 1600 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Vivid v2 profile; Little King Street, central Bristol; 10 May 2019.
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September 10, 2019 9 Comments
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Rough stone in a wall >>> twisted and turned a little!
Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window, and click onto that image to further enlarge it – which is useful I think to better see the textures.
Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 300mm; 1600 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Standard v2 profile; flipped; rotated; beside Temple Meads railway station, in central Bristol; 10 May 2019.
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August 20, 2019 10 Comments
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A couple of years back, I was doing a lot of early morning visits to Bristol city centre, and glorying in the abilities, light weight and compactness of my second mirrorless camera, the Fujifilm X-T2 (my first being the X-T1). Having tramped the early streets for several hours, I would at last fetch at some or other eatery, and flop down to a second breakfast – which was usually a Full English.
One of the eateries I frequented was Browns: the food is excellent and, while not inexpensive, the Full English with a pot of tea (together with a tea strainer!) has a definite sense of occasion and ceremony about it – which I’ve tried to convey in A Distinctly Civilised Full English, here . Even though I say so myself, if you’re anything like interested in food, this post might be worth a look.
And while waiting for the food to arrive, I took many pictures of the restaurant’s tables and beautiful yellow chairs, which were side lit by large windows looking out onto the street. Some of these images have already been posted – search for Browns in the tags shown along the bottom of this post – but here is another that I came across recently. Mostly low key, its about the way the light coming in from the street illuminates the various objects in the frame, notably the yellow chair. I hope you like it.
Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window, and click onto that image to enlarge it further – recommended.
Technique: X-T2 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 212mm (equiv); 1600 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Provia/Standard profile; Browns restaurant, Bristol; 24 Feb 2017.
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August 17, 2019 12 Comments
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Early morning, low angle sunshine beside the railway station, and the door of a parked car is hit by a stray beam of bright reflected light.
A Minimalist image, presented in black and white to make it more so. There’s really very little to see here – just the door handle and the narrow gap between the door and the rest of the car’s bodywork, both rendered in sharp focus; and, at bottom left, the lower edge of the door and the shadowed road below it. And, finally, the bright band of reflected light, presumably coming from a nearby sunlit window pane.
This is the camera catching and preserving a tiny part of a much larger scene during a brief moment in time. In itself, the scene is insignificant but, as always, it is good to see it, it is good to look at our surroundings, rather than just casually glancing over them while thinking of other – possibly equally trivial – things. It is always good to engage with Reality, even mundane Reality, in this way >>> and the more so if you have an interest in the visual world.
There are earlier images in this Parked Car series here: 1 2 3 .
Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window, and click onto that image to enlarge it further.
Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 300mm; 1600 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Graphite profile; flipped; beside Temple Meads railway station, in central Bristol; 10 May 2019.
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