ARCHIVE 500 – FISHERMEN (MONO)

 

 

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Fishermen far off across a lake on a misty morning; 17 Oct 2013.

The local water company stocks Chew Valley Lake, near Bristol, with trout, and makes good profits from anglers.  There is also a sailing club, and some barely adequate birdwatching hides – returning from Kenya’s wide open spaces, I was astonished to be restricted to these little huts with their narrow viewing slits – something of a culture change!  I retain the feeling that birding ought to be out in the fresh and open air.

If you love grain >>> click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window.

Technique: D800 with 80-400 Nikkor lens at 400mm; 800 ISO; Silver Efex Pro 2’s High Contrast Smooth preset.

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ARCHIVE 499 – SHADOW OF A FOOTBRIDGE

 

 

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Shadow of a footbridge in Bristol’s Castle Park; 7 Oct 2014.

The ground here is a dark tarmac path that runs below the bridge.  I find my eyes being attracted up to the bright leaf, but then being drawn back down along the various lines towards lower right – only to be attracted back up to the leaf once more.

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

Technique: Canon G11 PowerShot at 28mm (equiv); 200 ISO; Color Efex Pro 4.

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ARCHIVE 497 – MALLARD

 

 

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Mallard in Herons Green Bay, Chew Valley Lake, Somerset; 6 Apr 2015.

A Minimalist image – just some ripples and a silhouetted duck.

The up-curled tail feathers show this to be a male (drake) Mallard, a very common and often tame waterbird here in the UK.

This is a colour image, albeit one with little colour in it.  And I’ve used CEP4‘s Cross Balance filter to give the effect of Tungsten (i.e. artificial light) film that has been used in daylight, which has resulted in the image’s cool, faintly bluish tints.

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

Technique: D700 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 300mm; 200 ISO; Color Efex Pro 4, using the Cross Balance filter.

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ARCHIVE 496 – MAGPIE, BARBED WIRE FENCE AND TREE (MONO)

 

 

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Magpie flying over farmland beside East Water Lane, on the Mendip Hills, Somerset; 7 Aug 2014.

I had in mind a Minimalist composition consisting only of the tree and the barbed wire and its fence posts, when a noisy group of Magpies appeared and by luck I caught this one.  The pale areas of its plumage merge with the backdrop, eating into its outline.  But it is flying towards the left, with the black cone of its head, neck and breast on the left, and its long, thin, black tail stretching out behind.  Its wings are frozen by the high shutter speed, held up above its body.

One way of looking at this: of the three elements in the composition, the tree and the fence are static, with the third element flying into their space / surroundings.  Then again, the fence may be marching out towards the right, with its posts roped together for safety, and gradually disappearing down into a dip in the ground, or vice versa.  Everything is what it seems, until we start thinking about it.

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, starting at the Antique Portrait preset.

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ARCHIVE 491 – RISING SUN WITH FOG, TEALHAM MOOR (MONO + COLOUR)

 

 

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Rising sun behind fog, Tealham Moor, on the Somerset Levels; 8 Apr 2015.

The view eastwards from the top of the low bridge over the North Drain (the waterway on the right), on a cool and still, April morning.

What better place to be in this world at this moment?  The occasional vehicle on the narrow tarmac of Jack’s Drove, the little road that passes over this little bridge, but, other than that, just water bubbling, the songs of swans’ wings and larks, swallows that have flown in from Africa, and the distant lowing of cows.

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: D700 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 70mm; 400 ISO with 1 stop underexposure; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the ND Grad EV-1 preset and selectively restoring colour.

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ARCHIVE 489 – ROWING BOAT

 

 

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Rowing boat on The Cobb, at Lyme Regis, Dorset; 3 Nov 2004.

The sunlit seat of the boat makes a powerfully gleaming, rectilinear shape on the left, which contrasts with its curved shadow further right.  The boat’s scratched and battered floor provides an abstract background – with a small but darkly gleaming sprig of wet seaweed adding the sole touch of recognisable reality.

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

Technique: OM-4 with 21mm Zuiko lens; Fuji Provia 400 colour slide film rated at 1600 ISO; rotated 90 degrees anticlockwise.
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ARCHIVE 485 – ALTERNATIVE LANDSCAPE

 

 

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Near the Landmark Theatre, Ilfracombe, Devon; 2 Oct 2007.

An alternative landscape, a scene a million miles away from the “golden hours” of sunrise and sunset – and from the graduated neutral density filters too – that are so beloved by ardent landscape photographers!  OK, it has some foreground interest and it may also have front to back sharpness for all I know – I mean, I haven’t looked so I’m not sure – but even if it has, well I must make some concessions to the genre after all …

It is a view that conveys the very minimum of information and pictorial delight.  A completely blank, blue sky above a kinked horizon, short grass with a few daisies and some yellowish patches – and The Pipe!  Enjoy!!!

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

Technique: F6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens; Fuji Provia 400X colour slide film rated at 1600 ISO.

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OUTER SUBURBS 224 – WALL BESIDE PARKED CAR, EARLY LIGHT

 

 

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Walking in the lockdown, beside a brick wall beside a car.  And although built quite recently – probably with an eye more to economy rather than to quality, it seems – the wall is already stained by the weather and starting to disintegrate, shedding fragments onto the dark pavement below.  The sleek, clean lines of the car’s shadow serve only to highlight the down at heel Modernity languishing mutely beside it.

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 25mm (equiv); 400 ISO; spot metering; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Vivid profile; south Bristol; 5 Apr 2020.
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ARCHIVE 478 – STAIRS AT TATE MODERN

 

 

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In 2005 I went ape over Modern Art  – in no small measure due to attending day schools on such luminaries as Degas, Manet, Monet, Picasso, Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec, which were put on by Bristol University.  It really was something of a revelation, it was as though my eyes had suddenly been opened.  Such was my enthusiasm that I made two trips to Tate Modern, in London, to see some of these masters’ work at first hand. Its said that the UK consists of two parts, London and the rest, and that’s true – in any event London is not for me, its always far too big, far too busy, and it tires me out.

Tate Modern was crowded, but that was only to be expected, and it was really quite something to be seeing so much artwork in the raw.  While there though, I also became visually intrigued by the vast emptiness of the Turbine Hall, and especially by the metal stairs that led up from it to other levels in the building – and here is a picture.

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

Technique: OM-4 with 50mm Zuiko lens; Fuji Provia 400 colour slide film rated at 1600 ISO; Tate Modern, London; 22 Mar 2005.

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ARCHIVE 464 – MOORING LINES ON A BEACH

 

 

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Mooring lines on the beach in St Ives harbour, Cornwall;  27 Apr 2006.

This picture was  taken looking down onto the beach from West Pier.  It might look good in mono, but I think that the subtle colours of the sand and the seawater add something to this Minimalist shot.

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

Technique: Leica Minilux; Fuji Provia 400 colour slide; rotated 90 degrees clockwise.

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