ARCHIVE: STILL LIFE PICTURE GALLERY 4 – POSTS 31 – 40

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 4th 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: Trellises beside the front door – a cottage in Peaslake, Surrey; 2012.

32: Stella – flattened beer can, road kill from a Bristol gutter; 2006.

33: Phone boxes, Penzance, Cornwall; 2012.

34: Female Mallard, motionless but alert as I edge closer; Chew Valley Lake; 2017.

35: Low angle autumn sunlight grazes the pavement on a steep hill; Bristol; 2017.

36: Fisherman in early morning mist; Chew Valley Lake, near Bristol; 2015.

37: Mute Swan, posing for me or, more probably, threatening me; Chew Valley Lake; 2017.

38: Striped shirt, one of mine, hanging up to dry; Bristol; 2013.

39: Upstairs on the early morning bus: someone with buds in and phone out – misted, silhouetted, indistinct – someone anonymous who is, essentially, entirely somewhere else; Bristol; 2017.

40: City life: the clean, soulless hospitality of a corporate foyer, with reflections of traffic lights outside and more corporate architecture across the road; Bristol; 2016.

ARCHIVE: STILL LIFE 47 – SHELTER AT A BUS STOP (MONO + COLOUR)

Early morning near Temple Meads railway station, so early in fact that Harts Bakery wasn’t yet open.  Suppressing a primal urge to leave teeth marks on their door, I wandered off along the main road, and there was a bus shelter with a screen that brightly displayed a sequence of adverts which, one after the other, defied the gloom.

One of these adverts was pure white with a tiny spot of blue and, every time it blazed out, the inside of the shelter lit up in bright and joyful sympathy – though sterile and cold as ice, this was an enticing world, a thoroughly modern world, a world trying its best to sell me something.  And entranced as I was by this flickering Aladdin’s Cave, only the sobering glimpse of the morning’s cold pavement beyond (together with the thought of Harts’ hot goodies) saved me from its soulless, electronic allure.

Technique: totally blown highlights without a shred of detail accompany intensely black, featureless shadows: the words visual taboo, and anathema too, raise their ugly heads.  I can only hope that the Photographic Correctness Police will make me attend a course that will result in The FATman becoming an even more rounded individual.

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

Technique: X-T2 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 212mm (equiv); 3200 ISO; Lightroom, using the Velvia/Vivid film preset; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the High Contrast Smooth preset and selectively restoring colour; Temple Gate, central Bristol; 20 Apr 2018.

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: PEOPLE 23 – BUS SHELTER

Looking into a bus shelter.

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

Technique: TG-5 at 80mm; 1600 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Vivid profile; south Bristol; 24 Oct 2019.

ARCHIVE: PEOPLE 21 – COMMUTER

Commuter on an early morning bus, inbound to Bristol city centre.

A roaring dual carriageway passes the approach road that leads up to Temple Meads Railway Station, and there are busy stops for the buses bringing people into the city centre from the south.  Some passengers carry on into the city, others leave the buses here to catch trains, so that the buses spend some time at the stops before moving off again.

I got onto a traffic island in the middle of the dual carriageway, which halved the range to the buses, leaned on a lamppost to help steady the camera and waited to see what would materialise.  I was looking for buses with steamy windows – some had them, some were clear, and on the towering double-deckers, it was more usually the windows on the upper deck that were misty.

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

Technique: X-T2 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 300mm (equiv); 12,800 ISO; Lightroom, using the Provia/Standard film simulation; Temple Meads railway station, central Bristol; 15 Dec 2017.

ARCHIVE: STILL LIFE 39 – ESSENTIALLY, ENTIRELY SOMEWHERE ELSE

Upstairs on the early morning bus: someone with buds in and phone out – misted, silhouetted, indistinct – someone anonymous who is, essentially, entirely somewhere else.

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

Technique: X-T2 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 300mm (equiv); 6400 ISO; Lightroom, using the Velvia/Vivid film simulation; Union Street, central Bristol; 15 Dec 2017.

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: LOOKING AT CARS 79 – WET AFTERNOON, GOING HOME

Going home from work.  Sitting glumly on a bus near Bristol’s Temple Meads railway station, while the rain streamed down and the dull winter’s afternoon grew ever duller.  It was sometime in February 2006, and the day had nothing in mind other than to expire gratefully, unremembered, into the darkness and anonymity of a wet night.

But I do remember this afternoon clearly – mainly thanks to this photo I suppose.  I was sitting in my favourite seat, right up in the front on the upper deck of the bus, but even that could not dispel the feelings of drabness and gloom brought on by the cold and damp weather – and, let’s face it, no approach to Temple Meads station passes through any of Bristol’s more attractive quarters.

The bus in front is covered is a vast green advert for Asda supermarkets, and to the right of it, alone on a traffic island, is a derelict hotel.   The red lights bring a touch of colour to the otherwise drab scene, and the rain spattered window recalls my feeling at that moment of wanting to be anywhere else in the world but stuck on this damned bus!

Click onto the image to see a larger version of all this dreadfulness in a separate window.

Technique: Olympus XA2 with Fuji Provia 400 colour slide film rated at 800 ISO – and fellow passengers all too audibly wondering what the hell this fat weirdo was doing taking pictures from a bus on a rainy day …

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 13 – THE UPPER DECK OF A BUS, ON A SUNNY DAY

Upstairs on an empty bus, at a stop in central Bristol.

At the top, the picture all is peace, happiness and light – the bus’s seats and windows, illuminated by a bright sunny morning.

But below is darker, and those eyes are looking – rather too intently, I do think – only at you.

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

Technique: X-T1 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 250mm (equiv); 800 ISO; 20 Jan 2017.

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 255 – BUS SHELTER, BACKLIT BY THE SUNRISE

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

Technique: TG-5 at 100mm (equiv); 160 ISO; spot metering; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Vivid profile; south Bristol; 9 Mar 2021.

OUTER SUBURBS 307 – LOOKING AROUND A CORNER, TOWARDS A BUS SHELTER LIT BY THE RISING SUN

 

 

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Looking around a corner and seeing a bus shelter backlit by the rising sun, and a glistering river of light flowing down towards me.

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 53mm (equiv); 800 ISO; spot metering; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Vivid profile; south Bristol; 15 Feb 2021.
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