STILL LIFE 208 – TREES BESIDE A LAKE 2

 

 

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A second look at the trees reflected in the lake in the Priddy Mineries Reserve.  Rather than viewing them at an angle along the lake’s shore as I did in the previous image (3, below), I’m using a longer telephoto here to look straight at them from the other side of the lake, and this version omits the bright blue reflection of the clear sky.

Once again, the rising sun is lighting up the rising ground behind the lake shore, and the reflection of this colouration is seen in the shot’s foreground.  Just above the centre of the shot is the lower ground along the lake’s shore, which has yet to be illuminated by the sun, and which is receiving its light from the clear blue sky.  The reflection in the lake of this band of colour is seen just below the image’s centre.

Context from this shoot is here: 3 .  Other photos are here: 1 2  .

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

Technique: X-T2 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 305mm (equiv); 1600 ISO; Lightroom, using the Provia/Standard film simulation; Priddy Mineries Reserve, on the Mendip Hills, Somerset; 16 Feb 2018.

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STILL LIFE 203 – CARRION CROW

 

 

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Carrion Crow at sunrise.

A Minimal image, mostly featureless black or gold, with just a single horizontal band of silhouetted detail.  The fence post is not vertical, the fence’s wire is barbed, and the bird’s head is seen in profile: for me, these points add something.  Do you agree?

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

Technique: X-T2 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 305mm (equiv); 3200 ISO; Lightroom, using the Provia/Standard film simulation; Stanton Drew, in the Chew Valley; 6 Nov 2017.
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CHEW LAKE 24 – JUST BEFORE SUNRISE

 

 

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A view eastwards across Chew Valley Lake, just before sunrise.

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

Technique: X-T2 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 305mm (equiv); 1600 ISO; spot metering; Lightroom, using the Velvia/Vivid film simulation; Chew Valley Lake, Somerset; 16 Feb 2018.
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PEOPLE 315 – GOING TO WORK 49

 

 

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The walk to work, in November: warm breath, cold air, the dazzling but icy gold of sunrise.

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 .  Each will open in a separate window.

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

Technique: X-T1 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 305mm (equiv); 800 ISO; Lightroom; Bristol Bridge, central Bristol; 11 Nov 2016.
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ARCHIVE 331 – CLOUD, BLASTED BY THE SUNRISE

 

 

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This is amongst my favourite pictures, and rather than writing more about it I’ll let my words from its previous outing stand:

Cloud caught in the rays of the rising sun, over our garden; 5am, 7 Jul 2005.

This picture shows a pure, powerful, raw, Minimal, natural beauty that blows me apart – if I’m looking for worthwhile things in life, here is one, one of my favourite pictures!

I like the blue and pale orange colour palette. And to increase the picture’s effect I’ve rotated it 90 degrees anticlockwise, so that the left hand edge of the strikingly linear, now vertical cloud appears blasted by the sun’s rays and, perhaps as a result of this solar barrage, to be shedding shattered cloudlets from its right hand edge.

Technique: OM-4 with 150mm Zuiko lens; Fuji Provia 400 colour slide push processed to 3200 ISO, giving wonderful grain.
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PEOPLE 304 – GOING TO WORK 38

 

 

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Sunrise glistens on the road, as fast moving rush hour traffic turns sharply into Broad Street.

My ever over-fertile imagination conjures up the thought of the slipstream of these vehicles sending The FATman pirouetting backwards into a nearby fashionable men’s barbering salon (Now then, squire, we don’t serve your type in ‘ere!), but the reach of a 305mm lens does a lot to keep me out of trouble, while my appearance in such an establishment would be more of a surreal fiction than even this blog can support.

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 .  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 yet again.

Technique: X-T2 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 305mm (equiv); 200 ISO; Lightroom, using the Astia/Soft film simulation; Broad Street, central Bristol; 15 Dec 2017.
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GARDEN 69 – ANGRY MORNING

 

 

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I was making a cup of tea in the kitchen, which faces due east, and being struck by the ferocity of the winter sunrise over to the southeast.  A wild morning, an angry morning, the sort of morning that has an undeniable wild beauty, but which takes some strength of resolve to get outdoors and get to grips with.

And in front of me an oak tree that I have watched grow up from a naturally sown acorn – perhaps buried and forgotten by a squirrel – over the past twenty or so years.  And although it does not know it yet, an unfortunate oak, a healthy and burgeoning tree that because of its close proximity to the house will have to be cut down in the near future.

But back again to that fierce, early light, which was transfixing as it radiantly backlit the few of the oak’s leaves that had managed to hang on during the recent gales.  The camera was to hand, and so to spot metering … and the wonderful luminosity of those last few leaves.

And although it is a rather underexposed caricature of the original, below is an idea, just an idea, of the angry sky that was producing this beautifully fierce, hard and cold light …
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Click onto each image to open a larger version in a separate window, and click onto that image to enlarge it further – recommended.

Technique: X-T2 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 305mm (equiv); spot metering; Lightroom; Bristol; 8 Dec 2017.
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STANTON DREW 43 – VILLAGE LIFE 10

 

 

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Looking out from the village at sunrise, on a cold and very misty day.  Using a telephoto to isolate a small part of the scene.

An introduction to this Village Life series can be found here: 1 .  Further images are here: 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 .    Each will open in a new window.

Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window, and click onto that image to enlarge it yet again – certainly recommended >>> can you see the two birds in the tall tree?  Woodpigeons, I think.

Technique: X-T2 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 305mm; 400 ISO; Lightroom, using the Velvia/Vivid film simulation; Stanton Drew; 6 Nov 2017.
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BRISTOL 127 – THE SUN BREAKING THROUGH

 

 

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A cold morning, and the rising sun starts to burn through the mists over Whitchurch village, on the southern outskirts of Bristol.

The first image in this series, along with context, can be found here.  Subsequent images are here: 2   .

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

Technique: TG-5 at 100mm (equiv); 320 ISO; Lightroom, using the Camera Vivid film simulation; Whitchurch, south Bristol; 2 Nov 2017.
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STILL LIFE 166 – THREE WORLDS

 

 

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Looking up on a frosty morning: fluffy clouds, our planet’s Moon, a jet.

The clouds are just starting to take on the first hues of the sunrise.  The Moon looks hard, pale, uncompromising.  And the aircraft arrows upwards between them, a tiny dot relentlessy pursued by a vast contrail.

Three worlds.

The Moon is another world and the clouds belong to our world, so that’s two accounted for.  But the Moon and the clouds are both Natural phenomena, produced by the same universal processes that have produced ourselves – thousands of millions of years before those processes produced ourselves, of course.  We are new kids on the block.

The Moon and the clouds are indifferent to our presence.  Were we not here, they would most certainly continue to exist.  But were they not here, our lives would be severely impacted, if not impossible.

And so to the aircraft.  This is the third world here.  It is the product of the natural resources of our world, which we have used to build a machine to take us at great speed across our world’s surface.  So far so good.  The problems come, of course, when it emerges that our world’s natural resources are not infinite, and that the lovely fluffy white contrail is not the healthiest thing around, both for ourselves and for our climate.

Technique: X-T2 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 206mm (equiv); 800 ISO; Lightroom, using the Velvia/Vivid film simulation; Stanton Drew; 6 Nov 2017.
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