ARCHIVE: STILL LIFE 30 – LOOKING UP

 

Another early bus ride into the city, another second breakfast at first light in Hart’s Bakery  – and as I lurched out of that warm, friendly and bustling establishment, the tints of sunrise were above and, looking up, I saw this.

The bird is a gull (aka seagull), and just about to leap off into the air to scavenge the city’s no doubt enticing refuse.  I have Hart’s Bakery, (s)he has Bristol’s rubbish bins.

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

Technique: X-T1 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 300mm (equiv); 3200 ISO; beside Temple Meads railway station; 9 Dec 2016.

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: 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 73 – GOING TO WORK 29 (MONO)

 

Going to work.  The bike beats the jams but he’s jammed in – anonymous, wary, vulnerable, claustrophobically picking his way between shifting walls of gleaming metal and glass; lungs poisoned by fumes, ears blasted by engines and horns, and always the thought that he’ll fare worst in any tussle with these mechanised beings.

Oh come, you’ll say, mechanised beings? – each has a human driver!  Well, the way things are going, that will not be true for too much longer – so, thinking of the Terminator films – is this Rise Of The Machines???

Technique: this is tight crop, aimed at accentuating how the cyclist is being hemmed in, to accentuate how the “mobile metal monsters” are queuing up to squeeze closely past him.  And these feelings of claustrophobia are (hopefully!) added to by cropping The Man Himself; and especially so his eyes, which at once renders him anonymous and unknown; leaving only his mouth, which looks rather taut, stressed and ready for the worst.

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

Technique: X-T1 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 300mm (equiv); 400 ISO; Lightroom; Capture NX2; Baldwin Street, central Bristol; 19 July 2016.

ARCHIVE: STILL LIFE 18 – PUBLIC SEATING (MONO)

Public seating at the Memorial to the Merchant Navy Association, beside the Floating Harbour on Welsh Back, central Bristol;  5 Aug 2016.

This is a memorial to the Merchant Navy seamen who have sailed from Bristol.  The actual memorial is set on the quay beside the waters of Bristol’s Floating Harbour, where it is partially surrounded by curving rows of metal seating.

Here, I’m looking at this seating from the rear, looking through the vertical backrests onto the horizontal parts of the seats, which are catching the light.  One of the seats’ horizontal bars has been bent.  The unfocused backdrop, towards the top of the image, shows the light hitting the rough pavement around the seat.

The black uprights dissect the highlights into white diamonds, which occupy a band across the centre of the image, roughly from upper left to lower right.  Above this band, the uprights rise on to blend in more with the darker and more diffuse backdrop.

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

X-T1 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 300mm (equiv); 800 ISO; Silver Efex Pro 2.

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: STILL LIFE 17 – SEASCAPE

Study in blue – looking out to sea from Lizard Point, Cornwall; 19 Oct 2016.

Composition: a Minimalist image, take away the fluffy cloudlets and there’s really not much here, although it might still (just) work sans nuages.  But I like these little clouds – their shapes, fluffiness and colour – and the way they are at once separate from the dense, dark overcast – their relationship to this overcast is rather like that of little children skipping along beside their humourless, stolid, heavily pacing parents.  There is also that thin, linear break in the parental overcast just above these cloudlets – is it the trace of a smile? – perhaps their parents are not so humourless after all …

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

Technique: X-T1 with 55-200 Fujifilm lens at 305mm (equiv); 400 ISO; Lightroom.

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: STILL LIFE 15 – LOOKING INTO A BUILDING AT NIGHT

Offices with the lights on, empty in the early morning; beside Bristol Bridge, central Bristol; 16 Sept 2016.

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: X-T1 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 305mm (equiv); 3,200 ISO.

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: STILL LIFE 13 – THE UPPER DECK OF A BUS, ON A SUNNY DAY

Upstairs on an empty bus, at a stop in central Bristol.

At the top, the picture all is peace, happiness and light – the bus’s seats and windows, illuminated by a bright sunny morning.

But below is darker, and those eyes are looking – rather too intently, I do think – only at you.

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

Technique: X-T1 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 250mm (equiv); 800 ISO; 20 Jan 2017.

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: STILL LIFE 8 – LITTLE KING STREET

Tag on the wall of a bar.

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

Technique: X-T1 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 223mm (equiv); 400 ISO; Lightroom, using the Velvia/Vivid film simulation; Little King Street, central Bristol; 19 July 2016.

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: STILL LIFE 7 – LOOKING AT CHAIRS 23 – CHAIR BEHIND DIRTY WINDOW

A long while back, I decided to bring down the curtain on a series of images that I was doing called Looking At Chairs.  These were mainly more or less graphic studies – because, as with cars, chairs are often visually interesting, depending upon the directions from which they are viewed, in combination with the direction and nature of the light that is falling upon them.  Some said that they’d like to see more such images and, weak-willed p(r)awn that I am, I agreed to further posts, as and when such images surfaced.  Here is one.

Silhouette of a chair on a dirty window.

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

Technique: X-T1 with 55-200 Fujinon lens at 212mm (equiv); 800 ISO; Lightroom; Welsh Back, central Bristol; 5 Aug 2016.

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: STILL LIFE 3 – MEGALITH 1 (MONO)

 

Standing ritual stone – or megalith – erected in prehistoric times at Stanton Drew, south of Bristol.

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

Technique: X-T1 with 10-24 Fujinon lens at 15mm (equiv); 200 ISO; Lightroom; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the Fine Art Process preset, and giving the image the look of Kodak Tri-X 400 TX Pro black and white film; Stanton Drew; 6 Nov 2017.

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.