Castle Combe Water

The second picture posted from Castle Combe in a few days, this one is actually very similar to a picture I posted a few years ago (here is the link). Although that picture was well received, I always felt it was a bit too  'warm' and bright, so always wanted to create another version of it.

The emphasis on this version is very much with the water, as the angle I took this one at was much closer to the stream. I have processed it in similar way, though with more clarity, less warmth, and dimmed the brightness down.

Inside Castle Combe

Perhaps the latest I have ever blogged, but not going to budge from my set blogging days of Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Today's photo is from St. Andrew's Church, in the village of Castle Combe. As a couple of my recent photographs have been, this was actually taken more than 2 years ago in July 2011. Castle Combe is a very old English village, and as such has been used for many film and TV productions, one of the most recent being Steven Spielberg's War Horse.

From a processing point of view, this is the first photo I have processed using the new version of Photomatix - Photomatix 5. I am impressed with the different processing options available, but yet to explore it fully yet. I have also used High Pass sharpening for this picture. My normal method of sharpening is to use the sharpening tool in Lightroom, with the masking slider, to make sure it only sharpens the relevant aspects. I also like the Smart-Sharpen filter in Photoshop, but I find that High Pass sharpening works really well for interior pictures like this one, where you do not have to worry about sharpening aspects (such as clouds) that do not require sharpening.

I have another picture planned from Castle Combe to display on this blog, so that should be ready on Tuesday!

Castle Combe Bridge

I was going to post another picture of my local area Newbury today, but with the last 2 pictures being of Newbury, I'm worried they will all start to look a bit deja-veux. Therefore, I've decided to post another oldie from last year.

Castle Combe is a very picturesque and historical village in the Wiltshire countryside. Having a very unique feel to it, it has often been used in television programmes and Hollywood movies, most recently War Horse by Steven Spielberg. In fact, I wanted to get this picture about a year before I actually took it, but when we arrived in Castle Combe, access to the village was closed because they were filming War Horse.

It's fantastic for photography but is also a creatively a challenge to try and find unique angles and aspects to capture. It's probably been done before but for this picture I climbed down from the main path, down to this little stony, weedy area by the river to try and capture a view that encapsulates the bridge (that is a key feature of Castle Combe) and also the medieval houses in the background.