ARCHIVE 502 – SWAN, PREENING (MONO)

 

 

.

Mute Swan at Herons Green, Chew Valley Lake, not far south of Bristol; 6 Apr 2015.

The bird is preening, busily rearranging its feathers in a flurry of activity that is sending concentric ripples out across the surrounding water.

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

Technique: D700 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 300mm; 200 ISO; -0.3EV; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the Low Key 2 preset.

.
.
.

ARCHIVE 499 – SHADOW OF A FOOTBRIDGE

 

 

.

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.

.
.
.

OUTER SUBURBS 232 – A WEATHER FRONT MOVES THROUGH

 

 

.
Out early, walking in the lockdown.  I’ve taken fewer photos during these walks recently, for three reasons I think.  First the sun is higher in the sky now, even during the very early hours I keep – I’ll have to wait until the very earliest stirrings of autumn before the light gets lower and more golden again.  Second, I’ve worked out a “safe” walking route where the all important social distancing can easily be achieved, but as this is mainly through suburban housing estates, I’m rather reticent about pointing a camera towards anyone’s front windows!  But thirdly, and inevitably I suppose, all of this virus turmoil is getting to me such that, as I walk, my mind is often preoccupied with things other than photography.  It can take quite an effort to re-focus the mind into real “looking and seeing” mode; having Roe Deer and Foxes around does me good!

But last Thursday the skies became a little more dramatic as a small weather front passed eastwards over Bristol.  It brought a couple of light and in fact quite refreshing showers, and as I looked at the clouds moving over from the west, this scene unfolded.

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 70mm (equiv); 200 ISO; spot metering; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Portrait profile; south Bristol; 21 May 2020.

.

.

.

ARCHIVE 489 – ROWING BOAT

 

 

.
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.
.
.
.

PEOPLE 398 – GOING TO WORK 105

 

 

.
The morning rush hour, people coming in to work from the south and passing beneath one of the Bristol’s main railway lines.

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

Technique: TG-5 at 40mm (equiv); 800 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Portrait profile; Bedminster, south Bristol; 29 Jan 2019.

Recent Going to Work posts are here: 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 . Each will open in a separate window. (Post 100 contains selected images from the first 99 posts.)

GOING TO WORK: THE EARLIER POSTS: 1-92.

You can see a summary of the Going to Work series here .

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 88 89 90 91 92 . Each will open in a separate window.

.
.
.

OUTER SUBURBS 226 – PATH THROUGH MODERN HOUSING 7

 

 

.
Walking in the lockdown, and looking at a path through modern housing.  Whenever I walk through this housing estate I glance down this little path and it never fails to visually attract me.  For sure, there are many other such paths in this area, but the others all have extraneous visual clutter, notably other objects eg houses visible in the background.  LOL! in the Lord of the Rings there is The One Ring, and here there is The One Path!

I’ve photographed this path before, and that picture is below – and they are different pictures!  First, the framing is slightly different.  The shot below has a lower aspect, and shows almost none of the sky, which was grey and featureless, whereas cotton wool clouds and blue sky are quite a feature of the upper shot.  Second – and most importantly for photographers – the lighting is different.  The picture below was shot on a grey, overcast day, so there are almost no shadows and the picture is full of clear detail – for example, the colour of the path is better seen, as are the two, closely juxtaposed inspection covers on the path.  On a grey day like this, the only real shadows are beneath vehicles.  But the upper shot has quite strong directional lighting, the sun is not far above the horizon, and there is a lot of form and shadow in the white fence and the pruned hedge – and also the curving shadow of the street light on the hedge.

And I may have processed these two images slightly differently, though I do see that they both use the Camera Vivid profile in Lightroom.

Anyway, in summary, I suppose, the lower shot is perhaps expressionless or even deadpan – this is what the place looks like, in some detail, with no visual frills.  Whereas the upper shot does have frills: its more colourful, with the strong directional lighting producing some modeling – chiaroscuro, the interplay of light and shadow – and a greater range of tones too, from the white clouds to black shadows.

So >>> do you have a preference here?  Which one – if any – do you prefer???  And why?

.

.

Earlier pictures of a paths through modern housing are here: 1 2 3 4 5 6 .  Each will open in a separate window.

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

Technique for the upper image: TG-5 at 25mm (equiv); 800 ISO; spot metering; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Vivid profile; south Bristol; 31 Mar 2020.
.
.
.

ARCHIVE KENYA 2 – RIFT VALLEY LANDSCAPE, KENYA (MONO)

 

 

.

View eastwards across the rift valley in Kenya, showing Lake Elmenteita, a soda lake in the rift floor, with the eastern escarpment of the rift dimly seen in the far distance; probably late 1970s.

Each of the small cones on the far side of the lake, and the slightly higher ground immediately left of the lake, is a separate volcano.  The whole of the rift floor is volcanic, with liquid rock (magma) pushing up from deep inside the Earth through the fracture in the Earth’s crust that is the rift valley.  Magma erupting onto the Earth’s surface is known as lava.

I’m re-posting pictures that I took in Kenya over 30 years ago.  You can find more context here .  Click onto the “Archive Kenya” tag (below) to see more of these film images from Kenya.

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

Technique: OM-1 with 28mm Zuiko lens; Agfa CT18 colour slide film rated at 64 ISO; converted to mono in Alien Skin’s Exposure 2.

.
.
.

OUTER SUBURBS 224 – WALL BESIDE PARKED CAR, EARLY LIGHT

 

 

.
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.
.
.
.

OUTER SUBURBS 222 – THE SHADOWS OF AN ESTATE AGENT’S UMBRELLAS, EARLY MORNING LIGHT

 

 

.
Estate agents must ply their trade in all weathers (ah, there is some natural justice … after all …) and so to large, golfing-style umbrellas kept ready in their office for rainy days, to better beguile hapless home hunters in the dry.

Walking in the lockdown.

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.

Technique: TG-5 at 100mm (equiv); 320 ISO; spot metering; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Portrait profile; south Bristol, 20 Apr 2020.
.
.
.

ARCHIVE 476 – EARLY IN THE DAY, JUST BEFORE MIDWINTER

 

 

.

The first flushes of sunrise on 16th Dec 2016 –  just before the shortest day of the year.  I was heading towards the village of Mark, and looking eastwards across Binham Moor, on the Somerset Levels.

Composition: a noisy, grainy, blurry image – no more than an impression of what it was like being there.  And what was it like being there?  Well, it was ******* cold and, despite 1/250th and image stabilisation, I was lying across the outside of the car, hoping to high heaven that, shivering as I was, I could still hold the camera steady.  Did I have a tripod with me?  Yes.  Could I be bothered to use it?  Nope – but then that’s always the case!  This image is very much a series of horizontal layers, one on top of the other, the darkness of the ground moving up, in a series of discreet steps, into the first welcome tints of the day.

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: D800 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 300mm; 25,600 ISO; 1/250th, wide open at f5.6; Lightroom, starting at the Adobe Standard profile; Binham Moor, on the Somerset Levels; 16 Dec 2016.

.
.
.