STILL LIFE 197 – LOOKING AT CHAIRS 13

 

 

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Upstairs in The Victoria Tea Room, Penzance, Cornwall; 25 Apr 2012.

We returned yesterday from a few days in the far southwest of Cornwall, based between Penzance and St Ives.  And in a week of awful weather all over England we were far enough southwest to miss it all – it only rained at night, and the days were dry and even sunny!

Whenever we’re in Penzance we always visit this tearoom.  Amongst many other tasty goodies it serves up 11 item English breakfasts – which I hold a profound reverence for – and we like to sit beside the windows upstairs, looking out over Penzance’s main street.

In this cafe there are many bentwood chairs in a beautiful green, and the place has an over all low key, Minimalist, green and grey decor that I like very much.  This cup and saucer provided a good foil for its low key surroundings, and the chairbacks on the right resemble the curving stems of some exotic plant.

The first post in this series on chairs, which contains context and an image, can be found here.  Subsequent posts are here: 2 3 4 5 6 7 8  9  10  11 12 .  Each will open in a new window.

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

Technique: Canon G11 PowerShot; 400 ISO.

UPDATE: this excellent eatery has closed down – a great loss.  And while I’m talking about this image – I can say that its a great favourite of mine.  I have always loved its vast simplicity.

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STILL LIFE 184 – LOOKING AT CHAIRS 9 (MONO)

 

 

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Tables and chairs outside a cafe in Penzance, Cornwall; 25 Apr 2012.

I love the abundance of shapes and textures here, and the fact that none of the objects is portrayed in its entirety.  I remember reading about some artists’ liking for truncating objects with the frame and I think this a powerful tool – for use even with portraits.

The first post in this series on chairs, which contains context and an image, can be found here.  Subsequent posts are here: 2 3 4 5 6 7 8  .  Each will open in a new window.

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

Technique: D700 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 300mm; 1600 ISO; converted to mono in Silver Efex Pro 2.

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STILL LIFE 165 – LOOKING AT CHAIRS 8

 

 

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Seaside café. Cheap, cheerful, functional – and no less enjoyable for all that.  No pretence, what you see is what you get.  Visually, a cacophony of shape and colour.

The first post in this series on chairs, which contains context and an image, can be found here.  Subsequent posts are here: 2 3 4 5 6 7  .  Each will open in a new window.

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

Technique: X-T1 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 305mm (equiv); 800 ISO; Lightroom, using the Provia/Standard film simulation; Porthleven, Cornwall; 18 Oct 2016.

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ARCHIVE 327 – THE THREE KINGS ARRIVE IN THE WRAITHS’ CITY (MONO + COLOUR)

 

 

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FANTASY: three tall kings, resplendent in richly coloured robes, enter the spectral city of the Wraiths.  I’m influenced by Tolkien’s Lord Of The Rings perhaps – not perhaps >>> most certainly!!!  These three are in Tolkien’s Minas Morgul, the city of his Ringwraiths, walking into its deathly glow.

REALITY: three furled sun umbarellas and an old streetlight outside a pub in Perranporth, Cornwall; 25 Oct 2012.  The impression of robed beings was immediate.

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

D700 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 300mm; 800 ISO; conversion to mono and re-colouring in Silver Efex Pro 2; further processing in Capture NX2.

UPDATE: the first of this blog’s Fantasy posts, from sometime back.

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STILL LIFE 158 – BEACH SCENE (MONO)

 

 

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Rocks on the beach.

Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window, and click onto that image to enlarge it yet again – recommended.

Technique: X-T1 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 186mm (equiv); 400 ISO; Lightroom, using the Velvia/Vivid film simulation; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the Full Dynamic Harsh preset; The Lizard, Cornwall; 19 Oct 2016.
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BIRDS 94 – HERRING GULL (MONO)

 

 

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Adult Herring Gull, in winter plumage, beside the harbour in St Ives, Cornwall; 20 Oct 2016.

A piercing stare – (s)he was sitting on top of a car parked on the harbourside, and I eased forwards, taking little steps, often pausing, and making a diagonal rather than head-on approach.  The D800 was set for APS-C format, and so I had 450mm – 9x magnification – to play with.  I made some very low clicking noises with my tongue, and (s)he looked at me.

How I love gulls!  They were all around during my childhood, they are all over Bristol now, and their wild calls are just that – a very welcome reminder of the wild across the city’s skyline.  They fly in to the city very early each morning, while its still dark – because its ok to get lost when the day is just starting.  But they leave before dusk, because getting lost at night is another matter entirely.

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

Technique: D800 with 70-300 Nikkor lens, used in APS-C format to give 450mm; 400 ISO; Lightroom; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the Fine Art High Key preset.
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BIRDS 93 – YOUNG GULL

 

 

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Young gull beside the harbour in St Ives, Cornwall; 20 Oct 2016.

My guess is that this is a young Herring Gull, because the breast streaking is rather diffuse, but it could be a Lesser Black-backed Gull.  Either way, it hatched from its egg in the summer, and is now well on the way towards its first taste of winter.

It is standing by the harbour, it is “loafing” as birders say – it has eaten, it is not starving but, as is often the case with gulls, it is alert to all that is going on around it, and ever ready to dive opportunistically upon anything that presents itself – like your fish and chips!

Click onto the image to open it in another winsow, and click onto that image to enlarge it.

Technique: D800 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 300mm; 400 ISO; Lightroom.
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STILL LIFE 157 – CLIFFTOP

 

 

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Colours caught by the sun on a Cornish clifftop, with grimmer, more sombre cliffs behind.

Plants are rarely my strong point, and I’ve no idea what this gloriously coloured plant is – can anyone help?  I’m guessing that it may be some kind of succulent.  It was common on the sea cliffs in the area.

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

Technique: X-T1 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 305mm (equiv); 800 ISO; Lightroom, using the Astia/Soft film simulation; The Lizard, Cornwall; 19 Oct 2016.
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ARCHIVE 324 – STRUGGLING UP TO THE LIGHT (MONO + COLOUR)

 

 

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Plant, in Boscastle, Cornwall; 10 Sept 2013.

Just as I emerged from the Witchcraft Museum, full of intrigued and surreal thoughts, this appeared at my feet.

All else is harsh black and white, manmade, angular and strong, but these few green leaves – soft and eminently vulnerable – are pushing up through it all, into the light.

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

D800 with 24-120 Nikkor lens at 40mm; 400 ISO; Silver Efex Pro’s Film Noir 1 preset.

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ARCHIVE 304 – SWAN PREENING (MONO)

 

 

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Mute Swan preening in the harbour at Mevagissey, Cornwall; 24 Oct 2012.

Two of these beautiful waterbirds appear very much at home in this harbour – no doubt vastly encouraged by the people who regularly feed them!  Having been fed, this pair hung around right below the quay, and I was able to look right down on top of them.

This is a Minimalist shot.  There are comparitavely few tones, and the shapes are dominated by the huge, oval mass of the bird’s body, with the neck writhing snake-like back over the closed wing, trying to reach somewhere awkward.  My gaze was attracted to the contrast in shape between the bird as a whole and this sinuous neck.

The bird’s face is hardly seen – just the dark skin around the eyes and the base of the bill – but this is sufficient to give some focus to the shot – and the eye following the sinuous neck back arrives at this small area of black.

I’ve cropped the shot quite closely, so that the bird appears so large that it seems to be bursting out of the frame.  But keeping the dark backdrop up against the right vertical of the frame, and so preserving that soft and beautifully curving breast, was totally mandatory!

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

Technique: D700 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 300mm; 800 ISO; converted to mono in Silver Efex Pro 2, using the Darken Contrast Vignette as a jumping off point.

UPDATE: very much a long-term favourite of mine, for the reasons given above.  The simplicity of this image is really the thing; Minimalism; less is more.  Looking at it again this morning, my eye is also drawn to those half-seen little bits of plumage detail along the bird’s flank, along the image’s bottom margin.

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