Looking at – and seeing – the world
December 29, 2020 12 Comments
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Contemplating clothes in need of ironing, clothes being washed over by window light, and somehow feeling that there must be more to Life …
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Technique: X-T1 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 300mm (equiv); 200 ISO; spot metering; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Astia/Soft profile; at home, on the ironing pile; 9 Sept 2020.
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December 24, 2020 4 Comments
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The Looking at Cars series: looking back through the nine years of the FATman Photos archives (and some new images too), I’m posting pictures of cars in various contexts and styles. These Looking at Cars posts are here: 1 (with context); 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 . Each post will open in a separate window.
Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window.
Technique: X-T1 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 300mm (equiv); 400 ISO; Lightroom; Bristol harbourside; 14 July 2016.
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December 9, 2020 8 Comments
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Looking up at Trenchard Street Car Park in central Bristol; 16 Sept 2016.
Tilted (at capture) to produce a strong diagonal, a dynamic that I prefer to leaving things staidly horizontal. Then processed to give an almost pure black and white look – black and white, two blank tones that reveal no detail. While keeping in mind that, viewed against the pure white background of my blog, the white areas would show no border to the image, so that the image can be viewed as four separate images, juxtaposed. Restoration of the rear lights’ colour provides two small focal points.
I suppose that what I’m aiming at, what I like to think, is that such an image becomes less a representation of reality, and more a piece of design. Such an attitude may seem pretentious, but it does represent to some extent “where I am” with regard to images.
The Looking at Cars series: looking back through the nine years of the FATman Photos archives (and some new images too), I’m posting pictures of cars in various contexts and styles. Earlier Looking at Cars posts are here: 1 (with context); 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 . Each post will open in a separate window.
Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window – recommended.
Technique: X-T1 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 300mm (equiv); 400 ISO; Silver Efex Pro 2, including selective restoration of colour.
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November 29, 2020 14 Comments
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Looking at the inside of the bathroom window. The handle of the window’s latch is in shadow, and is seen only as a thin pale line. To either side, the warm light of the rising sun reflects from the wall of the house next door and lights up the bathroom window’s frosted glass.
The window frame and handle are white, but the early light has given them a blue tinge, which I’ve left uncorrected: I like this addition to the picture’s colours.
And, in these pandemic days, this is the first X-T2 image for many months, which has to be a step forward.
Click onto the “early morning” tag (below) to see more images from the early hours of the day.
Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window.
Technique: X-T2 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 223mm (equiv); 800 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Velvia/Vivid profile; Bristol; 26 Nov 2020.
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November 27, 2020 12 Comments
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Something convoluted, something for modern times perhaps.
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Technique: TG-5 at 25mm (equiv); 800 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Modern 10 profile; south Bristol; 22 Nov 2020.
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November 24, 2020 6 Comments
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Leaning over the wet bonnet of a car I’ll never be able to afford – and, increasingly eschewing materialism as I am – which I’m totally happy not to own. I’m on the left, glorying as I often do in the TG-5’s f2 wide angle lens, the equivalent of 25mm in full-frame format. I’m holding my glasses as well as the camera because I can’t see well through the camera’s screen with them on >>> LOL! getting old! And I’m looking along the slightly curving streaks of water towards the car’s windscreen wipers at far right.
The picture is rotated 90 degrees clockwise. Occidental eyes enter images on the left and move towards the right, so that my eyes move along the water streaks towards to the darker wipers and (hopefully!) stay on them, rather than exiting the image.
Click onto the “early morning” tag (below) to see more images from the early hours of the day.
Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separated window – certainly recommended.
Technique: TG-5 at 25mm (equiv); 1600 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Modern 01 profile; rotated; south Bristol; 19 July 2020.
The Looking at Cars series: looking back through the nine years of the FATman Photos archives (and some new images too), I’m posting pictures of cars in various contexts and styles. Earlier Looking at Cars posts are here: 1 (with context); 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 . Each post will open in a separate window.
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November 21, 2020 4 Comments
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There are other images from this early morning here and here . Each will open in a separate window.
Click onto the “early morning” tag (below) to see more images from the early hours of the day.
Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window – this image has a lot of fine detail, so certainly recommended.
Technique: TG-5 at 100mm (equiv); 1600 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Modern 04 profile; south Bristol; 6 Nov 2020.
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October 19, 2020 8 Comments
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The walls of the Landmark Theatre in Ilfracombe, Devon; 2 Oct 2007.
This theatre in Ilfracombe is highly controversial architecturally. Its Victorian predecessor caught fire and was demolished – only to be replaced by something bearing a strong resemblance to nothing other than power station cooling towers! However, if you’re into modern design, photography, etc this is a real stunner. As a photographer, I enjoy Ilfracombe’s cramped tattiness – so many interesting things to photograph, so wonderful for textural and abstract studies! – but even amidst all of these photo opportunities, this theatre stands quite apart, absolutely unique.
The backdrop here are the walls of the “cooling towers”, and in SEP2 I’ve piled on the contrast and structure, and left them as monochrome. But I’ve re-introduced some of the green of the palm’s leaves, and vamped that up quite a bit too, so that the greens look sci-fi or artificial. And then some dark vignetting and edge burning in SEP, to concentrate the viewer on the photo’s interior with its massive walls and patch of living greenery.
And that leaves the whole thing looking – artificial, alien, sci-fi, unworldly, other worldly, you name it!
May 2013: I’ve made a lot of use of SEP2‘s ability to selectively restore colour in black and white images – I think this was the first posted image that I tried this on. The title means two things of course >>> this is a photo of a theatre, but the photo itself is also theatre.
Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window – recommended.
Technique: F6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens; Fuji Provia 400X colour slide film, rated at 1600 ISO; converted to mono, and re-coloured, in Silver Efex Pro 2.
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October 18, 2020 10 Comments
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Walking into the sunrise, walking towards a van, walking home. At first the glare from the sun was totally dazzling, I was in a world of blinding highlights and impenetrable silhouettes. But as I moved into the van’s shadow, there appeared this view in through its dew-soaked windscreen.
The steering wheel is at lower left, and one of the black wiper blades at lower right. The circular black spot attaches the faintly seen rear view mirror to the inside of the windscreen, and there are also the vague outlines of seats with headrests and the illuminated panes of its rear windows – through which the sun is shining onto the inside of the windscreen.
The Looking at Cars series: looking back through the nine years of the FATman Photos archives (and some new images too), I’m posting pictures of cars in various contexts and styles. Earlier Looking at Cars posts are here: 1 (with context); 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 .
Click onto the “early morning” tag (below) to see more images from the early hours of the day.
Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window – recommended.
Technique: TG-5 at 61mm (equiv); 800 ISO; spot metering; Lightroom, starting at the Modern 01 profile; south Bristol; 9 Oct 2020.
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October 16, 2020 5 Comments
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Sitting in my car, in a supermarket car park on a wet morning >>> FATman Photos takes you to some exotic places, there’s no denying that … Anyway, here’s the view through my car’s wet window.
There are the supermarket’s white emergency exit doors, and a bollard to prevent the over-enthusiastic driving straight in through those doors; then there’s a yellow container full of salted grit in case of ice; and, on the right, one of the columns – looking somewhat the worse for wear, it has to be said – that supports the structure of the building.
Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window.
Technique: TG-5 at 100mm (equiv); 1600 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Modern 01 profile; south Bristol; 2 Oct 2020.
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