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Pylon the pressure
On a walk with a friend on a lovely sunny day we came across a large electricity pylon. The appearance of pylons divides people, but whether you like them or not it’s worth looking up and seeing if there are any images to be found. The sun was shining through the glass insulators on the pylon. I used a couple of stops of negative Exposure Compensation to try and keep the highlight detail in the insulators, and this had the bonus effect of darkening the very blue sky. It was worth waiting till a small cloud had moved away so it was a plain blue background. Sidebar: there is a…
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Same subject, different views.
On a trip to Pembrokeshire one landscape feature really stood out. It was the Valero oil refinery at Pembroke. It was tempting, in a landscape that has fabulous coastal scenery, to ignore it as a photographic subject, but it’s such a prominent feature it’s worth a closer look. Looking at it from the Angle peninsular the refinery stood out against a cloudy sky. It had nice directional lighting from the right hand top side. I isolated it using a 150mm telephoto lens, which has added some perpective compression. A bit of HDR treatment and a B&W conversion gave a moody look. From the summit of the highest point in the…
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There’s a storm a brewin’…
We recently had a one week holiday down in lovely Cornwall. As our plan was to do as much coastal walking as possible, it was somewhat weather dependent. Luckily, all except one day was pretty good, and a few days were marvellous. The bad day was the day of Storm Agnes. For a few hours in the afternoon all manner of wild wind and rain happened. Going across the River Fal on the King Harry ferry was entertaining. While the storm was developing the sky began to look very ominous. It was clear that there was a lot of air movement. It was fascinating to watch. I took a shot…
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Sharpness is overrated
Now that Autumn is very much here we are getting dewy mornings and low-angle sunlight. Photographically that combination is too good to miss, so today I popped out into the garden with an unusual lens combination on my Olympus E-M5 Mk3; a Sigma 30mm f1.4 and a 10mm extension tube. My idea was to set the lens on f1.4, completely defocus and see what happened. My first subject was a lovely red maple tree. The sun was shining on the water droplets on the leaves, and the defocusing gave fabulous complexity to the highlights, especially in the lower half of the frame. I’ve bumped up the saturation as bit to…
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Curses, foiled again!
Yesterday I fitted some foil insulation to the ceiling of our cellar. It’s a 200 year old house so yes, we have a cellar. The foil is to help stop the room above it being so cold. I popped the roll of foil down on the kitchen floor and it caught a ray of morning sunlight. I loved what the sunlight reflections from the foil did to the kitchen floor, so it was out with my phone to capture it. The rays look a bit like the rising sun. A touch of editing to taste in Snapseed and it was done. Whilst I had the phone out I tried a…
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Just hanging – or waiting – around
In my Close-up and Macro Photography talk I have a few images of spiders. They are fascinating creatures, and contrary to popular belief, most don’t actually hang around in orb webs. Most spiders hunt for their prey using their excellent vision and very fast jumping or running ability. Having said that, the stereotypical spider in the UK must be the Garden Spider. They make lovely webs that are very effective at catching insects. Here’s the biggest Garden Spider I’ve ever seen. She’s a female, and is probably what’s called “gravid” – or full of eggs. She’s caught a common wasp in her web and is finishing off what’s left. I…
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A 21st century icon
At a recent trip to Shelsley Walsh for a motorsport hill climb event, I was struck by this marshall’s face against the red circle. The marshalls, all volunteers, do fantastic work making sure the event is safe for all the competitors and for the spectators. He was relaxing for a moment while the hill was cleared to remove a car that had broken down. With his head against that red circle I thought he looked like one of those icons from medieval or Orthodox Christian art. I just loved his contemplative expression, so I used my telephoto lens to isolate him. This was what I thought he looked like; uncanny…
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It’s a sign of the times.
One of the visitors at my Worcestershire Open Studios exhibition last weekend asked how long a walk took me. They asked because they reckoned I was always looking for things, and looking AT things in an unusual way, and that this must slow me down when I am walking. They were right of course, my walks do tend to take longer than most people. One thing I look for is signs. They are supposed to be put into the world to offer passing people information that is helpful, or to commemorate other people. Take this sign is a local churchyard. I could say that Charles is only half the man…
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Bob Harris’s Shutter
I recently gave my “Movement in Photography” talk to the Facebook Camversation group. It was great to talk to about 100 photographers from around the world. One subject of my talk was the “Harris shutter”. It’s a technique developed by Bob Harris, a Kodak engineer, and involves taking a three exposures on one film frame using three coloured filters; red, green and blue, and with one exposure per filter. The idea is that where no movement has happened the colours come out normal, and where movement has happened you get red, green or blue colours appearing. You also get the additive colours where these primary colours overlap. It’s a fun…
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It’s show and tell time soon.
In August I am taking part in Worcestershire Open Studios (WoS) for the first time. In WoS artists of many types open their studios for everyone to come and look at and to talk about their work. I’ll be open from 11 am to 5.30pm on the 19th/20th and the 26th-28th. It would be great to see you there! Take a look at the WoS website here. I’ll have examples of my Intentional Camera Movement (ICM) work, (like the image above), my Bokeh work (like the image below), and many more. ICM is a method of producing images that are abstract and impressionistic. I’ll be more than happy to talk…