OUTER SUBURBS 149 – SUNRISE, WITH WOODEN FENCE AND THE SHADOWS OF BRAMBLES

 

 

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Walking down a narrow lane in a housing estate, the newly risen sun blazing behind me, and on my right a new wooden fence, caught in the fierce glare and dappled with the shadows of brambles.

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

Technique: TG-5 at 53mm (equiv); 800 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Natural profile; south Bristol; 2 Oct 2019.

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BRISTOL 154 – KING WILLIAM AVENUE

 

 

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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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OUTER SUBURBS 135 – WALKING DOWN TO THE CITY

 

 

1: loved the plants!  What do they add – patina / character / a touch of Life???

Walking down to the city centre on a sunny morning.  Walking northwards, and so keeping to the right hand side of the roaring main road to watch the glare of the low angle sunlight striking the buildings opposite and also, where the view to the east is uninterrupted, to watch the glare interacting with the ground around my feet.

And so to a series of random photos: little scenes seen during a walk down to the city … to buy a loaf of (very special and simple) bread as it happens …

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

Technique: TG-5; Lightroom; south Bristol; 14 Sept 2019.
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2: part-shaded by buildings and trees on the opposite side of the road

3: the roof of a sports pavilion, with floodlights and a street light

4: loved the gulls!

5: bridge with red railings, and a white line to keep walkers safe from cyclists …

6: roadside shadows
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BRISTOL 153 – LITTLE KING STREET 2

 

 

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Morning sunlight casting shadows across a façade.

There is an earlier abstract image from Little King Street here: 1 .

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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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BRISTOL 152 – MASONRY

 

 

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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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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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