ARCHIVE 420 – PARKED CAR 5

 

 

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Sports car, Wells, Somerset; 1 May 2005.

Ninety degree anticlockwise rotation moves the wheel to the bottom right of the shot, with the door handle, bodywork and shadow now forming strong features dipping steeply left.

The wonderful yellow of the car’s body produces strong contrast between the silver and black wheel and the other picture elements.

There are earlier images in this Parked Car series here: 1 2 3 4 .

Technique: F6 with 80-200 Nikkor lens.  Fuji Provia 400 colour slide film push processed to 800 ISO.

UPDATE 2015: there was a time when I photographed quite a few of these automotive abstracts – this one was done 10 years ago –  but they’ve gone somewhat off my radar these days.  But I still like this image, I still see it as I did then, as an artificial object with deep inherent beauty – and I wonder if, were I to be processing this shot now, whether I’d be tempted to try and “clean” the small amounts of dirt off the bodywork at upper right.

UPDATE 2019: one from an arty(!) period way back: push processed colour slide film – Fuji Provia 400, my go-to film, a really good all rounder, wonderful quality at 400 ISO, but pushable to 3200 and even 6400 ISO  –  and paired with the last of Nikon’s professional film SLRs, the F6.

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BRISTOL 150 – PARKED CAR 4: STRIP OF REFLECTED LIGHT ON A CAR DOOR (MONO)

 

 

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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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BRISTOL 149 – PARKED CAR 3

 

 

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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.

There are earlier images in this Parked Car series here: 1 2 .

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; beside Temple Meads railway station, in central Bristol; 10 May 2019.
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BRISTOL 148 – LITTLE KING STREET

 

 

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Morning sunlight casting shadows across a façade.

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 70-300 Nikkor lens at 300mm; 1600 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Vivid v2 profile; Little King Street, in Bristol city centre; 10 May 2019.
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ARCHIVE 412 – RAINY DAY, MOTORWAY SERVICES

 

 

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View through our windscreen on a rainy day; Membury Services, on the M4 in Berkshire; 1 June 2016.

Off eastwards to Berkshire to see a friend, with a (now habitual) stop in a motorway services for sustenance en route.  It was a wet morning and, quite by chance, we parked opposite a red car.  I blinked my way out of “driving mode”, looked around and this filled the view out in front of us.

This is very far from the first picture I’ve ever taken through a wet window, and I’m sure very far from the last too.  For me, blur and softness have their place in images, wall to wall sharpness is not the be all and end all of things.  Interestingly, this week’s edition of Amateur Photographer magazine (23 July 2016) is devoted to Sharpness, the Editor kicking things off with “Today’s photographers are obsessed with sharpness in a way that we never used to be.”.  And he’s right.  But, for me, its always the content of an image that comes first, and the technicalities second.  However next week’s AP issue is all about blur – so that’s alright then!

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

Technique: D700 with 24-120 Nikkor lens at 95mm; 800 ISO; Color Efex Pro 4.

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BRISTOL 142 – THE WAY I SEE THINGS

 

 

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Passing time in central Bristol – early for a very pleasant lunch, Korean food, as it happens – and looking at anything and everything. 

And so to looking down in Baldwin Street – roadside puddle with reflections, pavement and wooden plank.

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

Technique: TG-5 at 35mm (equiv); 1000 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Vivid profile; Baldwin Street, Bristol city centre; 25 June 2019.
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SOMERSET LEVELS 360 – OLD BUILDING 2

 

 

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Awhile back I posted a picture of this old, tumbledown, corrugated iron shack – that post is here .  I like to have some variety in my pictures from the Levels so, rather than endless landscapes, here are some close ups of that shack and its surroundings.
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Click onto each image to open a larger version in a separate window, and click onto that image to further enlarge it – recommended, there’s a lot of detail to see here.

Technique: X-T2 with 10-24 Fujinon lens; Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens; Lightroom; Huntspill Moor, just east of East Huntspill, on the Somerset Levels; 3 May 2019.

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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!

Click onto the image to open another version in a separate window, and click onto that image to enlarge it.

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 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 .

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

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.

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, using the Camera Standard V2 picture control; the harbourside at Welsh Back, central Bristol; 10 May 2019.
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