PEOPLE: PICTURE GALLERY 1 – POSTS 1-10

PEOPLE PICTURE GALLERIES

I’m currently posting images from my archive of photos of people.  As always with these archives, I’m trying to use a variety of approaches and responses to the subject.  These photos are being posted singly, with full text.

To make viewing of these images easier for those with little time to spare, I’m also posting groups of these images in galleries with minimal titles.  This is the first gallery.

Clicking onto each image will open a larger version in a separate window: doing this often enhances the image.

1: Woman in a cafe; Camborne, 2013.

2: Girl in a white dress, with side lighting; Bristol, 2012.

3: Guests laughing at a wedding reception; Surrey, 2012.

4: Boat owner; Porthleven, 2016.

5: A friend, aged two; Bristol, 2011.

6: Death of a beautiful person: George Ann Weaver, 1942-2016.

7: Lovers; St Ives, 2012.

8: In the Dida Galgalla Desert, northern Kenya; 1978.

9: Man on stairs; Newquay, 2011.

10: Friends at a wedding; near Bristol, 2011.

ARCHIVE PEOPLE 9 – MAN ON STAIRS

Stairs in a pub, Newquay, Cornwall; 13 Sept 2011.

After lunch, as we left the pub, this colourful chasm opened up on our right.  Letting it go unphotographed was out of the question.  It was awash with colour and I was especially taken with the black and white edges to the steps, which are presumably there to help prevent inebriate revellers from going head over heels – or, as we earthy Brits might from time to time term it, arse over tit – down the stairs.

Two things came to mind.  First, I wanted those black and white steps to be somewhere near vertical in the finished product, to give the effect of a wonderfully coloured wall, or of a receding series of coloured columns.  Second, a problem, there was great contrast in the scene, with the sun blazing in from the left, so I used a low sensitivity – 400 ISO – to give more latitude for digital manipulation later on.

I took two frames and, as I clicked the first, this chap appeared from nowhere and provided an unwitting focal point for the converging lines!

I’ve rotated the shot, and used NX2‘s control points to lighten both the left hand wall and the man.  I’ve also slightly raised contrast in the sunlit areas, to better bring out the patterns made by the thin window frames.

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

Technique: D700 with 24-120 Nikkor lens at 24mm; 400 ISO; Capture NX2; rotated 90 degrees anti-clockwise.

ARCHIVE: STILL LIFE 29 – CHRISTMAS STEPS (MONO)

Morning sunlight blasts up Christmas Steps, an ancient thoroughfare in Bristol city centre; 16 Sept 2016.

Close-in with a wide angle lens, low angle sunlight, and textures all around.  This was never going to be a colour image but, as always, I like to capture images in colour, and then convert them to mono post-capture with Silver Efex Pro 2.  This method does, I think, provide far more options and potential for the final image(or images) than having the camera itself shoot mono images.

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

Technique: X-T1 with 10-24 Fujinon lens at 24mm (equiv); 1600 ISO; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the Film Noir 1 preset.

ARCHIVE STILL LIFE

This is a new category on this blog – Archive Still Life studies.  The Still Life definition will certainly be followed loosely – e.g. some studies may only have been made “still” by the split second opening of the camera’s shutter – and my objective will be to use as many different types / genres of subject matter as possible.  Some images will be Minimalist and, in general, I try to make simpler images, rather than cramming them with visual content.

Some new Still Life studies will (hopefully!) continue to appear.

ARCHIVE: LOOKING AT CARS 59 – CAR PARK

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Stairs in a city centre car park: stark, utilitarian, unimaginative – the triumph of functionality and “the figure at the bottom of the spreadsheet” over any nod towards elegance or visual appeal.

Click onto the images above to open a larger versions in separate windows – recommended.

Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens used in DX (= APS-C) format to give 450mm; 1600 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Vivid v2 profile; beside Redcliffe Way, in central Bristol; 10 May 2019.

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ARCHIVE 603 – THIS MAN IS PHOTOGRAPHING YOU! (MONO)

 

 

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Selfie with spiral staircase; 5 Nov 2014.  I’m photographing my reflection in the window of a shop that is empty save for a metallic spiral staircase.  The staircase is given prominence and I’m edged out to the side, such that I appear to be sneaking a shot of you around the edge of the image’s frame – sneaking a shot of you from out of the window perhaps. 

Personal ensemble?  Well a rather natty outfit, even if I do say so myself, comprising a battered old cap, which has variously been described as making me look like an engine driver or a Japanese soldier or, for all I know, a Japanese engine driver.  And then specs, a mostly untidy beard and a grubby old jacket that has definitely seen better days, much like its owner.  Oh and a penchant for trying to keep a low profile  – probably deriving from decades of birding and other wildlife observation but still useful photographically in these more modern and enlightened times.

Clicking onto the image will open a larger version in a separate window.

Technique: D700 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 70mm; 640 ISO; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the Architectural preset.

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ARCHIVE 553 – FIGURE WITH RUCKSACK, DRAINPIPE, STAIRS AND TWO SKYLIGHTS (MONO)

 

 

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Off the main street in Penzance, Cornwall; 8 Oct 2013.

This photo consists of a number of discreet segments that fit together like a rectilinear collage.  It was a case of waiting at the bottom of this intriguing corridor, somewhere I’ve photographed before, until a figure walked into that square of featureless white brightness.

The figure is anonymous.  We see quite a bit of him – he appears not too old, and used to toting his bag – and we see the illuminated, horizontal rectangle of his world – he is walking in the open air, along a side street. He may be aware of the steps on his right, but he cannot see them as we do, nor can he see the skylights, though he may be aware of the dull light they cast in the otherwise windowless corridor.

We are looking up through a tunnel into his world and can see parts of it as he does, but he cannot see our’s as we do.

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

Technique: D800 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 300mm; 1600 ISO; Silver Efex Pro 2’s Yellowed 2 preset.

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ARCHIVE 537 – CHAIR, WALL AND SIDELIGHTING

 

 

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I enjoy lounging around in holiday chalets and caravans.  Its a wonderful opportunity to sprawl back in comfort and enjoy the moment – and also a good chance to watch how the light interacts with things as the sun moves across the sky. 

Here, with lighting from the left, a chair at the bottom of the stairs throws its shadow onto a rough wall.  The woodwork at upper left is part of the banister of the narrow stairway.

This photo is something of a departure for me as its one of the few times that I’ve used my 50mm lens: most of my images use focal lengths far above or below this “standard” lens, which roughly approximates to human eyes’ field of vision.  I ought to use this lens more often.  It has a very useful maximum aperture of f1.4 and so is good in low light situations, and using the D800 in DX (= APS-C) format, when focal lengths are magnified by 1.5, I end up with a very useful – inspiring, even – 75mm f1.4 chunk of glass.

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

Technique: D800 with 50mm Nikkor lens; 3200 ISO; Color Efex Pro 4; 11 Apr 2016.

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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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OUTER SUBURBS 161 – STANDING IN THE HALL, LOOKING TOWARDS THE KITCHEN DOOR

 

 

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Visiting friends, and waiting in the dark hall of their large Victorian house.   Beautifully diffused light from their brightly lit kitchen was streaming in through the translucent panels on the door, subtly illuminating the colours of the paintwork: the scene caught my eye.  The wooden bannisters on the stairs ascend in semi-shadow on the left, catching the bright light from the door here and there.

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

Technique: TG-5 at 25mm (equiv); 3200 ISO; spot metering; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Portrait profile; south Bristol; 2 Dec 2019.

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OUTER SUBURBS 152 – FIRE ESCAPE (MONO)

 

 

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The other side of retail, away from the public eye: fire escape, refuse and flowers along the back of a row of neat local shops.

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

Technique: TG-5 at 25mm; 1000 ISO; Lightroom, starting at the B&W 06 profile; south Bristol; 5 Sept 2018.
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