ARCHIVE STILL LIFE PICTURE GALLERY 2 : POSTS 11-20

ARCHIVE STILL LIFE PICTURE GALLERIES

I’m currently posting images from my large archive of (loosely defined!) still life photos.  These photos are being posted singly, with full text.

To make viewing of these images easier for those with little time to spare, I’m also posting groups of these images with minimal titles.  This is the second gallery – you can find the earlier galleries here: 1 .

Clicking onto each image will open a larger version in a separate window: doing this often enhances the image.

Looking down onto the shadow of a footbridge; 2014.

Dustbin and blue cord, in a churchyard; 2014.

The upper deck of a bus, on a sunny day; 2017.

My wife’s glass of wine, in a Bristol pub, on a sweaty afternoon; 2016.

Looking into a building at night; 2016.

Teasels, in the valley of the River Chew; 2013.

Seascape, Lizard Point, Cornwall; 2016.

Public seating; 2016.

Small tree, on the Mendip Hills; 2018.

Advertisement, a little the worse for wear; 2017.

ARCHIVE: STILL LIFE 27 – KING WILLIAM ALE HOUSE

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.

Technique: TG-5 at 25mm (equiv); 400 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Vivid profile; rotated anticlockwise; Capture NX2; King William Avenue, Bristol city centre; 1 Oct 2019.

ARCHIVE STILL LIFE

This is a new category on this blog – Archive Still Life studies.  The Still Life definition will certainly be followed loosely – e.g. some studies may only have been made “still” by the split second opening of the camera’s shutter – and my objective will be to use as many different types / genres of subject matter as possible.  Some images will be Minimalist and, in general, I try to make simpler images, rather than cramming them with visual content.

Some new Still Life studies will (hopefully!) continue to appear.

ARCHIVE: STILL LIFE 23 – ROOFS

Tiled roofs at Stanton Drew, Somerset; 7 May 2013.

Repeating patterns have a great appeal to the human eye.  When photographing them, its often good to have an exception – something that breaks the pattern – to act as a focal point in the picture.

Here, the change in orientation of the patterns between the patterns on the two roofs helps, as does the bluish metal along their interface.

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

Technique: D800 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 300mm; 200 ISO; rotated 90 degrees clockwise.

ARCHIVE STILL LIFE

This is a new category on this blog – Archive Still Life studies.  The Still Life definition will certainly be followed loosely – e.g. some studies may only have been made “still” by the split second opening of the camera’s shutter – and my objective will be to use as many different types / genres of subject matter as possible.  Some images will be Minimalist and, in general, I try to make simpler images, rather than cramming them with visual content.

Some new Still Life studies will (hopefully!) continue to appear.

STILL LIFE 263 – WALL OF CONCRETE BLOCKS, DEFACED BY RED LINE

 

Strolling down tatty back alleys behind a row of small shops in the blazing summer’s sun, and reveling in the burgeoning and totally uncaring unkemptness of it all.  The shops’ fronts might look alright, but back here behind the facades there is only sordid and refuse strewn reality – what you see is very much what you get, and what you get is pure, artless, drab functionality, bereft of all thoughts of beauty or attractive design.

And I found a wall of made of concrete blocks – breeze blocks as we Brits call them – on which some bright young thing had scrawled a long red line.  Up behind the wall was a fence of crudely painted and rusting metal panels.  And in the foreground, parked up close and personal against the wall, a car, patterned by the bright reflections of its stark backdrop.

And – rather an epiphany I suppose – I realised that, should I linger too long in these scruffy and unkempt surroundings, anyone passing by might think me a very real part of them.  So I hastened swiftly on, anxious to give a better – if false – impression elsewhere.

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

Technique:  TG-5 at 49mm (equiv); 200 ISO; spot metering; Lightroom, starting at the Modern 01 profile; south Bristol; 1 June 2021.

STILL LIFE 260 – RADIATOR (MONO)

 

Looking at a radiator.  Its true, I don’t get out much, but here there are repeating lines, structures and reflections; and textures too.

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

Technique: TG-5 at 74mm (equiv); 800 ISO; spot metering; Lightroom, starting at the B&W 07 profile; at home; 18 May 2021.

ARCHIVE: STILL LIFE 8 – LITTLE KING STREET

Tag on the wall of a bar.

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

Technique: X-T1 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 223mm (equiv); 400 ISO; Lightroom, using the Velvia/Vivid film simulation; Little King Street, central Bristol; 19 July 2016.

ARCHIVE STILL LIFE

This is a new category on this blog – Archive Still Life studies.  The Still Life definition will certainly be followed loosely – e.g. some studies may only have been made “still” by the split second opening of the camera’s shutter – and my objective will be to use as many different types / genres of subject matter as possible.  Some images will be Minimalist and, in general, I try to make simpler images, rather than cramming them with visual content.

Some new Still Life studies will (hopefully!) continue to appear.

ARCHIVE: LEVELS 46 – NEW FENCE, ROTATED

Fence at the former Westhay Garden Centre; 30 Mar 2005.

A newly erected fence, still with its panels clean, fresh and roughly edged.

Even when I used to project this colour transparency in slideshows (anyone remember slideshows???), it was always rotated anticlockwise as shown here.  The direction of rotation can be seen from the shadows on the panels’ right edges.

And ever since I first rotated this photo, which is (UPDATE – far more than) 10 years ago now, it has always reminded me of three people in a procession, moving towards the right.  Religious people, monks in habits perhaps, with the whitish areas either portraying their hands clasped in prayer, or their devout, uplifted faces.

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

Technique: OM-4 with 75-150 Zuiko lens at 120mm; Fuji Velvia 50 colour slide push-processed to 100 ISO; tripod; rotated 90 degrees anticlockwise.

UPDATE: well, 16 years ago, that is a long time.  But what really gets to me here is not all the years that have passed, but the technique used – push processing of colour transparency film!!!  That really takes me back.  And of course I didn’t do the push processing myself but, rather, I exposed this 50 ISO film as if it were a 100 ISO film, and then informed the (commercial) processors to develop it as such.  

And also – wow! – Fuji Velvia 50, the absolute must have emulsion for all “serious” landscape photographers.  But push processing that most sacred of films?  Most would have probably considered that photographic heresy!  Hope so, anyway …  😎 …

SOMERSET LEVELS: SOME KEYWORDS

And finally – some keywords that will often be mentioned in this archive series:

Droves:  to avoid crossing other peoples’ land when accessing their own, the farmers constructed a series of tracks, known as droves, between the fields. Some of these droves are now metalled roads and many persist as open tracks – all of which allow wonderfully open access to this countryside.

Rhynes: the fields are bounded by water-filled ditches – which both drain the ground and act as stock barriers. Hence strange landscapes – where fields appear quite unbounded, except for a gate with a short length of fencing on either side of it, where a bridge crosses the water-filled boundary ditch to provide access the field.  These small wet ditches communicate with larger rhynes (“reen” as in Doreen), which in turn flow into larger drains, e.g. the North and South Drains in the Brue Valley. All of these waterways are manmade and, by intricate series of pumping stations and flood gates, all of them have their water levels controlled by local farmers, internal drainage boards or the Environment Agency.

Pollarded Willows: the banks of the rhynes were often planted with Willow trees, both to help strengthen the banks and also to show the courses of roads and tracks during floods. These Willows are often pollarded, i.e. their upper branches are cut off, which results in distinctively broad and dense heads to the trees. Pollarding keeps trees to a required height, while ensuring a steady supply of wood – more important in the past than now – for fires, thatching spars, fencing and so on.

SOMERSET PICTURE GALLERY 4 – POSTS 31 – 40

SOMERSET LEVELS PICTURE GALLERIES

I’m currently posting images from my large archive of photos from the Somerset Levels, an area not far from where I grew up that holds particular meaning and attraction for me.  These photos are being posted singly, with full text.

To make viewing of these images easier for those with little time to spare, I’m also posting groups of these images with minimal titles.  This is the fourth gallery – you can find the earlier galleries here: 1 2 3 . 

Clicking onto each image will open a larger version in a separate window: doing this often enhances the image.

31: Arriving next to some cows and their calves, I kept very still and quiet and just looked at them.  Most were unconcerned by my presence, but this one, who had been lying down beside her calf, stood up to look at me, and advanced a few paces – and I was very glad of the water-filled ditch – the rhyne – that lay between us.  But, keeping silent and motionless paid off and, slowly raising the camera, I carefully started making images of this very placid scene; Tadham Moor; 12 July 2019.

32: Sunrise over Glastonbury Tor; 22 Nov 2013.

33: Pollarded Willow in floodwaters; Tadham Moor; 23 Nov 2012.

34: Lost in fog; dawn on Tealham Moor; Nov 2014.

35: Looking up, beside Pillmoor Drove, south of Wells; 2019.

36: The rising sun through trees, de-focused; near Godney; Oct 2014.

37: Queen’s Sedge Moor, morning light; May 2019.

38: Breakfast – “The Bellybuster” – at the Cottage Cafe, Burnham-On-Sea; Mar 2013.

39: Swans over Tealham; Feb 2014.

40: Early in the day, just before midwinter; Binham Moor; Dec 2016.

SOMERSET LEVELS: SOME KEYWORDS

And finally – some keywords that will often be mentioned in this archive series:

Droves:  to avoid crossing other peoples’ land when accessing their own, the farmers constructed a series of tracks, known as droves, between the fields. Some of these droves are now metalled roads and many persist as open tracks – all of which allow wonderfully open access to this countryside.

Rhynes: the fields are bounded by water-filled ditches – which both drain the ground and act as stock barriers. Hence strange landscapes – where fields appear quite unbounded, except for a gate with a short length of fencing on either side of it, where a bridge crosses the water-filled boundary ditch to provide access the field.  These small wet ditches communicate with larger rhynes (“reen” as in Doreen), which in turn flow into larger drains, e.g. the North and South Drains in the Brue Valley. All of these waterways are manmade and, by intricate series of pumping stations and flood gates, all of them have their water levels controlled by local farmers, internal drainage boards or the Environment Agency.

Pollarded Willows: the banks of the rhynes were often planted with Willow trees, both to help strengthen the banks and also to show the courses of roads and tracks during floods. These Willows are often pollarded, i.e. their upper branches are cut off, which results in distinctively broad and dense heads to the trees. Pollarding keeps trees to a required height, while ensuring a steady supply of wood – more important in the past than now – for fires, thatching spars, fencing and so on.

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

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

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

STILL LIFE 256 – SECURITY SHUTTER WITH SHADOWS OF STREET SIGN AND VEHICLE (MONO)

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

Technique: TG-5 at 25mm (equiv); 320 ISO; spot metering; Lightroom, starting at the B&W 04 profile; south Bristol; 6 Apr 2021.

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