PEOPLE 364 – GOING TO WORK 88 (MONO)

 

 

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Winter morning.  Walking to work, perhaps disconsolately, below the railway bridge.

Earlier images from this series can be found here: 1, 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  35  36 37  38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45  46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 .  Each will open in a separate window.

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

Technique: Olympus TG-5 at 40mm (equiv); 800 ISO; Lightroom, using the Camera Vivid film preset; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the Full Spectrum preset and adding a light Selenium tone; St Luke’s Road, south Bristol; 29 Jan 2019.
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OUTER SUBURBS 64 – WALKING HOME

 

 

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This picture is best viewed enlarged – get inside it!!!  To do so, click onto it to open a larger version in a separate window, and click onto that image to enlarge it further – recommended.

The walk home, below a bridge that carries the railway.  Loneliness?  Perhaps.  But safety too because, as the pavement rises up beside the road, tastefully green railings keep us all safe from the often roaring road below.

And the wonderfully unkempt, purely functional bridge standing above all, enlivened by fading colour, seeping rust and the various proofs of human presence that I see far more as street art than graffiti.  And heights in feet and inches, and metres too, which perhaps sum up this country’s relationship with the rest of Europe … a hot point just now!  But, after nearly seven decades, I’m far more at home with feet and inches – while thanking the Great Good Common Sense that our road signs still show distances in miles, rather than kilometres, and that we still use the pound sterling rather than the euro.

LOL!!! there are two words fashionable at the moment.  The T-word refers to the individual who holds the title, President of the United States.  And then the B-word refers to Brexit: Europe is a very good idea, but how dreadfully sad it is that the EU was not allowed to remain as a bloc in which the countries just had free trade and mutual defence cooperation agreements with each other.  I have spoken to so many others who share this sadness.

The first image in the Outer Suburbs series, with context, is here: 1 .  Subsequent images are here: 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 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 53a 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 .  Each will open in a separate window.

Technique: TG-5 at 25mm (equiv); 800 ISO; Lightroom, using the Camera Natural film simulation; south Bristol; 16 Jan 2019.
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ARCHIVE 396 – PEOPLE DRINKING TEA (MONO)

 

 

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A couple having a hot drink beside the beach in the harbour at St Ives, Cornwall; 10 Oct 2013.

The man is hunched over towards the right, sipping his cuppa, while the woman is inclined towards the left, intent on screwing shut her bottle of milk.  Their two shapes tend to come together somewhat, in the shape of an arch or dome, an effect heightened by her inclined hair bun.  I’ve tried to enhance this impression of togetherness by adding a slight, pale, circular vignette.

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

Technique: D800 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 300mm; 200 ISO; Silver Efex Pro 2’s Full Dynamic Smooth preset; mild copper toning.

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PEOPLE 362 – GOING TO WORK 86

 

 

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An old and very dear friend of mine is a professional psychologist and avid people-watcher.  Her insights into everyday human behaviour never cease to fascinate and amaze me.  I had the idea sometime back of giving her a photobook of the Going To Work images (produced via Blurb) for her birthday, and that project is moving ahead.  In the course of assembling these pictures for use in her book, I have found six images that have not been posted in the Going To Work series but which really belong there, and so I am incorporating them into this series here.  This is the last of the six.  You can find the other images here: 1 2 3 4 5 : each will open in a separate window.

Another early morning in the city.  I walked up Crow Lane, away from the harbour’s glistening waters, and photographed the clown poster.  Then, as I turned squinting into the bright morning light, there was a man, silhouetted, sitting in his car and totally immersed in his phone.  If I had to pick a single, important facet of this image, it would be the tiny point of light visible through his otherwise silhouetted glasses: to me, this brings him more alive, rather than being just a blank silhouette.

Earlier images from this series can be found here: 1, 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  35  36 37  38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45  46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 .  Each will open in a separate window.

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

Technique:  a telephoto zoom is ideal for this sort of quick, close in, intimate shot – the Fuji 55-200 (a 85-305 35mm equivalent) is often the only lens I carry.  And, when out photographing, I make a habit of frequently looking behind me – and especially so if the light is coming from behind me – and of doubling back on myself >>> you never quite know what might be lurking back there!   X-T2 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 305mm (equiv); 400 ISO; spotmetering for the highlights; Lightroom.
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OUTER SUBURBS 22 – TWO TREES, A FENCE AND ME, AT SUNRISE (MONO)

 

 

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South Bristol at sunrise.  Turning my back on the blinding glare, I saw my shadow and those of two trees thrown across autumn’s leaf-littered lawn.

The trees’ shadows were longer than mine and, after their stark darkness had raced away across the grass, it was deflected sharply upwards by the flat, brightly lit face of a wooden fence.

The first image in the Outer Suburbs series, with context, is here: 1 .  Subsequent images are here: 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 .  Each will open in a separate window.

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

Technique: TG-5 at 49mm (equiv); 500 ISO; Lightroom, using the Camera Vivid film simulation; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the High Contrast Harsh preset, and adding a strong Coffee tone; south Bristol; 9 Oct 2018.
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PEOPLE 359 – MAN WITH A PHONE (MONO)

 

 

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Man with a phone.

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

Technique: X-T1 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 305mm (equiv); 400 ISO; Lightroom; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the Pinhole preset; Deanery Road, central Bristol; 9 Sept 2016.
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PEOPLE 358 – TRUE STORY

 

 

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I was looking at adverts in the windows of Bristol’s Broadmead shopping centre, thinking of trying for images about capitalism, materialism, consumerism, greed and so on – getting a bit radical about it all.  There came a giggling and a jostling just behind me … well I can have that effect on people … but turning I found two young women, probably in their early 20s, clearly together, clearly amused, looking over my shoulder.

Turning back to further fathom my great anti-capitalist ideal, I heard a loud smirk, followed by “… £79 … do you think that includes his clothes? …” and then a storm of giggles.

“Ah … Bristol!” came into my mind, but maybe that should have been “Ah … Life!“.  After all, how boring Life would be if our senses were immune to things like wonder, humour and a sense of the absurd.

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

Technique: X-T1 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 202mm (equiv); 1600 ISO; Lightroom, using the Astia/Soft film simulation; Broadmead, central Bristol; 16 Aug 2016.
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PEOPLE 357 – GOING TO WORK 84 (MONO)

 

 

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An old and very dear friend of mine is a professional psychologist and avid people-watcher.  Her insights into everyday human behaviour never cease to fascinate and amaze me.  I had the idea sometime back of giving her a photobook of the Going To Work images (produced via Blurb) for her birthday, and that project is moving ahead.  In the course of assembling these pictures for use in her book, I have found six images that have not been posted in the Going To Work series but which really belong there, and so I am incorporating them into this series here.  This is the fourth of the six.  You can find the other images here: 1 2 3 .

Waiting for the morning bus.

Composition: the two men in the foreground make this image, and there are at least two ways of viewing the resulting composition.  I first thought that the man on the right, the one peering around the edge of the shelter, makes this image – probably because he’s sharp and not obscured by the sunlit grime of the shelter’s transparent side.  My eyes seemed first to go to him, and then to the fully exposed face of the older man on the left, and thence on to the other two, half-seen men further back in the shelter.  But now I wonder if the older man on the left is not the attention grabber and, if that is the case, then there is a dynamic – do I go from him to look at the man on the right (which I probably do), or go to look at the men at the back – and thence find my eyes going back and fore along this “human chain”?  What do you think?  Who do you look at first?

With superhuman patience I might have been able to further reduce the amounts of grime visible on the shelter’s side, but I don’t have that patience and, anyway, this is unprettified city life.

Earlier images from this series can be found here: 1, 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  35  36 37  38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45  46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 .  Each will open in a separate window.

Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window, and then click again on this larger version.

Technique: X-T2 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 305mm (equiv); 200 ISO; Lightroom; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the Strong Infrared High Contrast preset and adding a light coffee tone; Victoria Street, central Bristol; 24 Feb 2017.

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PEOPLE 356 – GOING TO WORK 83 (MONO)

 

 

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Walking to work, early on a summer’s morning.

A silhouette, and an image about shape, form, shadow and texture.

Earlier images from this series can be found here: 1, 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  35  36 37  38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45  46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 .  Each will open in a separate 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); 1000 ISO; Lightroom, using the Classic Chrome film simulation; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the High Contrast Harsh preset; near Bristol Bridge, Baldwin Street, central Bristol; 19 July 2016.
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PEOPLE 351 – GOING TO WORK 79

 

 

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Taking us to work.

Remorselessly.

Every 30 minutes.

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Earlier images from this series can be found here: 1, 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  35  36 37  38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45  46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 .  Each will open in a separate window.

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

Technique: X-T2 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 305mm(equiv); 6400 ISO; Lightroom, using the Velvia/Vivid film simulation; Temple Gate, Bristol; 2 Feb 2018.
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