BRISTOL 140 – LOOKING DOWN STAIRS TOWARDS A CARPET

 

 

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With Paula in St Nicholas Market: a flight of battered yellow stairs lead down to a purple carpet.  Battered stairs?  Yes, well used, leading to a pub!

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Technique: Z 6 with 24-120 Nikkor lens used (by mistake!) in DX (= APS-C) format to give 63mm – going to DX format was not necessary as 63mm us within the 24-120 range of the lens ; 1600 ISO; Lightroom, using the Camera Vivid v2 picture control; rotated; beside St Nicholas Market, Bristol; 3 June 2019.
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BRISTOL 139 – VIEW THROUGH A BUILDING

 

 

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Walking up St John’s Steep with Paula, and thence off left into narrower streets and alleys.

The going became shadier and more closed in, until suddenly we were looking right through a building and out into the brightness of an adjacent street.

But although the light and colours in that street were bright and welcoming, caged and barred darkness kept them inexorably distant.

Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window, and click onto that image to further enlarge it – recommended.

Technique: Z 6 with 24-120 Nikkor lens at 24mm; 400 ISO; Lightroom, using the Camera Flat V2 picture control; off John Street, Bristol city centre; 3 June 2019.
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BRISTOL 138 – SHAFT OF SUNLIGHT, IN A GRAVEYARD (MONO)

 

 

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This picture is best viewed enlarged: click onto it to open a larger version in a separate window, and click onto that image to further enlarge it – recommended.

A day out together photographing in Bristol: Paula and I walked up the narrow St John’s Steep, heading into the Old City.  Street art and interesting facades and alleyways were all around, and on our left was a fenced and partly overgrown area with several obviously old graves – it was part of an old, disused graveyard.

A shaft of brilliant sunlight lit the scene, illuminating hosts of flowers that had run wild, and also some of the greenery around them. 

Then, a pigeon walked into the scene and was – for an instant – silhouetted against the glare.

Technique: Z 6 with 24-120 Nikkor lens used in DX (= APS-C) format to give 180mm; 800 ISO; Lightroom, using the Camera Neutral V2 picture control; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the High Contrast Yellow Filter and adding a moderate Coffee tone; St John’s Steep, in Bristol city centre; 3 June 2019.
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BRISTOL 137 – EARLY MORNING LIGHT – AND UNDER MILK WOOD

 

 

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Walking the old, narrow streets of Bristol city centre, looking at anything and everything.  And watching how the morning sunlight crept across the buildings’ facades, I was irresistibly reminded of lines written by Dylan Thomas in Under Milk Wood:

Time passes.  Listen.  Time passes. …

And the dawn inches up.

I just simply love the thought of being able to hear the passing of time; and similarly the sound and connotations of the word “inches” in this context grab me and do not let me go.

And Under Milk Wood itself?  I bought my first copy when I was a university student, and have never fallen out of love with it.  I can still remember opening the book and reading the first few words –

To begin at the beginning:

It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courters’-and-rabbits’ wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea.

>> and I was hooked, and I have been hooked – wonderfully hooked – ever since!  The words inspire me and I think, in some small measure, have affected how I look at the world, how I see it and how I photograph it.

You can find out about Under Milk Wood here .

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Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 300mm; 1600 ISO; Lightroom, using the Camera Vivid V2 picture control; Little King Street, in central Bristol; 10 May 2019.
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BRISTOL 136 – RIVER REFLECTION

 

 

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Reflections of buildings in the river at Redcliffe Bridge.

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Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 300mm; 1600 ISO; Lightroom, using the Camera Standard V2 picture control; the harbourside at Welsh Back, central Bristol; 10 May 2019.
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BRISTOL 135 – TABLE OUTSIDE A CAFE (MONO + COLOUR)

 

 

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Table and chair, the offer of fashionable alfresco dining on a city street but – at a rather cool and early hour – with no takers. 

The flowers added a wonderful splash of colour, and selective restoration of that colour in black and white immediately came to mind.

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Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 70mm; 1600 ISO; Lightroom, using the Camera Vivid V2 picture control; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the Soft Sepia preset, and then selectively restoring colour and adding a slight pale vignette; Corn Street, central Bristol; 10 May 2019.
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BRISTOL 134 – BOARDED UP PREMISES

 

 

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Early morning sunlight reaching across a boarded up building, a reflection of the currently challenging times.

And tags, part of a young people’s culture that I know I do not understand but, equally certainly, do not judge.

And mainly a picture of two colours, but also containing the pale grey of that sinuous bar on the door – the bar is partly in shadow, and rather gives the impression of coyly peeping out at us.

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Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor zoom at 70mm; 1600 ISO; Lightroom, using the Camera Vivid V2 picture control; St Nicholas Street, central Bristol; 10 May 2019.
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BRISTOL 133 – CITY LIFE 2 (MONO)

 

 

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Life in the city: artificial, unnatural but not unnecessary; noisy, closed in, crowded, claustrophobic.

There is an earlier city life post here: 1 .

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Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 125mm; 1600 ISO; Lightroom, using the Camera Vivid V2 picture control; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the High Structure Smooth preset; Baldwin Street, central Bristol; 10 May 2019.
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BRISTOL 132 – CITY LIFE (MONO)

 

 

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This image is best viewed enlarged: click onto it to open a larger version in a separate window, and click onto that image to further enlarge it – certainly recommended.

Life in the city, for four people.

At upper left, a blond woman walks beneath the trees that border the river.  At this time of the morning, perhaps going to work.

While a man – perhaps a barman – takes a break with a hot drink and a cigarette (only just visible!) outside the door of a pub.

Another man hurries into the frame from the right, engrossed, on his phone – and hence walking through a world that, for the moment at least, he is barely aware of.

And lastly, encased in his classy, mobile, metal and glass machine, another man sits in a traffic queue, waiting for the lights to change.

A moment (1/640th of a second, to be exact) in the lives of four people, a moment in the life of a city, early on a Friday morning in May.

Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 122mm; 1600 ISO; Lightroom, using the Camera Vivid V2 picture control; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the Full Contrast And Structure preset; Baldwin Street, in Bristol city centre; 10 May 2019.
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BRISTOL 131 – WALKING UP STAIRS, TOWARDS A DRAINPIPE

 

 

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Early for an appointment in the city.  Early for an appointment to road test a camera as it happens. 

And so to roaming the streets, looking at anything and everything, taking it all in.

A dark entry beckoned, sombre stairs disappearing up into loneliness, silence, gloom and shadow. 

I found myself nervously ascending between dimly seen, decorated walls, my little camera clutched close, clutched tight as a talisman.

But enlightenment, I was heading up towards light!  I was heading up – as it happened – towards a drainpipe. 

Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window, and click onto that image to enlarge it further – recommended.

Technique: TG-5 at 100mm (equiv); 1600 ISO; Lightroom, using the Camera Vivid film simulation; St Stephen’s Street, central Bristol; 12 Feb 2019.

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