Looking at – and seeing – the world
October 23, 2019 2 Comments
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After an early shower, the sun rises above a children’s playground and autumn is just around the corner.
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Technique: TG-5 at 80mm (equiv); 100 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Portrait profile; south Bristol; 29 Aug 2019.
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September 8, 2019 10 Comments
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Another early morning down on the Somerset Levels: I stopped the car along Hurn Drove and got out beside a little footbridge over the River Sheppey. Fine tall trees on the river’s bank were reflected in its still waters, cows (as inquisitive as ever) came over to see what I was about, and beyond them the flatness of Ash Moor receded off onto the distance.
There are earlier pictures of the River Sheppey here: 1 2 .
Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window, and click onto that image to further enlarge it – recommended.
Technique: X-T2 with 10-24 Fujinon lens at 15mm (equiv); 1600 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Velvia/Vivid profile; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the Sepia Landscape preset and adding a light Coffee tone; beside Ash Moor, on the Somerset Levels southwest of Wells; 30 Aug 2019.
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August 24, 2019 11 Comments
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Just getting back from one of my marathon walks around Bristol’s outer suburbs and, seeing my neighbour sitting in his car, leaned on the ledge of the open passenger door window to pass the time of day with him. Looking down, I could see the stripes of my old shirt reflected in the car’s bodywork and door handle and, well, the TG-5 was as always in my pocket … My neighbour considered me mad of course, but then that’s just one, evidently minority, opinion.
So, taking the image from the top, what’s here? At the top, the fully wound down window of the car between its black rubber seals – not sure if that’s the right word, but you know what I mean.
Below which is a curved surface, reflected in which can be seen the blue Bristol sky, together with my two rather scrawny hands, between which is a dark area that is the camera, the TG-5.
Below again is this huge, rounded and striped affair which is my paunch (well I am The FATman …) – but nothing like as big as it used to be, despite having been nourished by many thousands of Belgian golden ales, and in any case thankfully covered up by an old striped shirt. To either side of me are the reflected reds and greens of a garden.
Below that again, the car’s door handle, reflecting clouds in Bristol’s blue sky, along with more of my shirt’s stripes.
And, finally, far below, my neighbour’s driveway and the toes of my trainers.
A souvenir – perhaps eccentric, perhaps not – of passing the time of day for a few minutes with my neighbour, on a sunny Bristol afternoon.
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Technique: TG-5 at 25mm (equiv); 800 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Vivid profile; south Bristol; 19 Aug 2019.
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August 17, 2019 12 Comments
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Early morning, low angle sunshine beside the railway station, and the door of a parked car is hit by a stray beam of bright reflected light.
A Minimalist image, presented in black and white to make it more so. There’s really very little to see here – just the door handle and the narrow gap between the door and the rest of the car’s bodywork, both rendered in sharp focus; and, at bottom left, the lower edge of the door and the shadowed road below it. And, finally, the bright band of reflected light, presumably coming from a nearby sunlit window pane.
This is the camera catching and preserving a tiny part of a much larger scene during a brief moment in time. In itself, the scene is insignificant but, as always, it is good to see it, it is good to look at our surroundings, rather than just casually glancing over them while thinking of other – possibly equally trivial – things. It is always good to engage with Reality, even mundane Reality, in this way >>> and the more so if you have an interest in the visual world.
There are earlier images in this Parked Car series here: 1 2 3 .
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Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 300mm; 1600 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Graphite profile; flipped; beside Temple Meads railway station, in central Bristol; 10 May 2019.
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July 27, 2019 12 Comments
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Driving eastwards on Hearty Moor, driving towards the rising sun. A farmer in a huge 4×4 stopped, looked down at my little car and me, and announced that his cows were on their way down the road towards me, but “just pull over to the side and you’ll be fine!”.
Well, a narrow – in fact single track – road, there was nowhere else to go. And so to really large, living things moving slowly down the road past me, to huge faces brushing up against the car windows and, catching sight of me within, shying away in panic; and in one unnerving instance, one of their significant bulks trying to squeeze through the little gap between the car and the hedge …
Well, you say, they were only cows, but I have two takes on this.
First, and on the positive side, I used to take paying guests on safari in Kenya, and often used to stop my vehicle in front of an advancing column of elephants, telling everyone to be very quiet and to keep still, and to let the elephants bear down upon us and flow around the vehicle like water around an island in a stream – once, one took even some greenery that had become entangled in our front bumper and ate it. These were truly wonderful experiences, the great beasts moving slowly past us, the noises, the smells – it was said that an elephant can smell each individual occupant of a vehicle and remember the smell too! BUT I was younger and less sensible then >>> although my hand was always on the vehicle’s ignition key, and I was in a larger, safari vehicle rather than my little car! And having been studied for many years, the elephants of Amboseli Game Reserve were very used to people. Although, even then, getting too near a big bull was really not a good idea.
But second, on the negative side – and much nearer home too – a cow broke out of its field near Bristol a few years back, panicked and ran off down the road. And when confronted by a small car like mine, it ran up over the bonnet and roof in its panic, killing the driver. And so to moments of unease on Hearty Moor, though still managing to fire off a few frames.
Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window, and click onto that image to further enlarge it – recommended.
Technique: X-T2 with 10-25 Fujinon lens at 36mm (equiv); 800 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Provia/Standard profile; Hearty Moor, east of Glastonbury on the Somerset Levels; 24 May 2019.
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July 21, 2019 4 Comments
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Lush summer growth, beside water, on Tealham Moor.
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Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 135mm; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Standard v2 profile; rotated; rhyne beside Jack’s Drove on Tealham Moor, on the Somerset Levels; 5 July 2019.
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July 17, 2019 14 Comments
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Looking in through a restaurant window, Bristol Harbourside; 14 July 2016.
Looking in through this window, I was at once taken with the single, beautiful flower, caught by the light. But, there being all sorts of visual rubbish off to the left, I could not make the flower anywhere near central in the composition, nor get it near to any of the compositional thirds. I could of course have tried portrait (ie vertical) format, but this seemed a waste of all that diffuse, half-seen, “restauranty” detail off to the right – table cloths, more glasses, cutlery, upholstery.
And so to this. Westerners’ eyes often enter images from the left, perhaps because we write from left to right – I’ve often talked about this on this blog in the past. So, in this case, my eyes enter this image from the left and run visually slap bang into the flower and its attendant glassware, sharp and well lit in the summer sunlight – and are for a moment held there.
But as I look at the bloom and its reflective attendants, my eyes keep wandering off to the right, wondering what’s there – only to be dragged back to the flower again.
Do your eyes do the same, or do you see this differently? Is the flower really too far left? What do you think?
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Technique: X-T1 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 305mm (equiv); 3200 ISO.
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July 5, 2019 12 Comments
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Passing time in central Bristol – early for a very pleasant lunch, Korean food, as it happens – and looking at anything and everything.
And so to looking down in Baldwin Street – roadside puddle with reflections, pavement and wooden plank.
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Technique: TG-5 at 35mm (equiv); 1000 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Vivid profile; Baldwin Street, Bristol city centre; 25 June 2019.
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June 6, 2019 8 Comments
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Grey, damp morning, with empty bus, wet road, wet pavement and puddle.
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 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 . Each will open in a separate window.
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Technique: TG-5 at 100mm (equiv); 800 ISO; Lightroom, using the Camera Vivid film simulation; south Bristol; 8 May 2019.
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May 28, 2019 17 Comments
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Reflections of buildings in the river at Redcliffe Bridge.
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Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 300mm; 1600 ISO; Lightroom, using the Camera Standard V2 picture control; the harbourside at Welsh Back, central Bristol; 10 May 2019.
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