For the Last Time...Downton Abbey

Saturday evening has been a vacant slot for me over the last few weeks, but here I am back blogging at this time. I am currently building an interior design photography website, and as part of that website, I want to show my exterior work as well. I could not think of a better example to display my exterior work than of Downton Abbey.

Please understand it pains me a little to call it Downton Abbey. This place is very local to me, as I grew up in this part of North Hampshire. It has and always will be Highclere Castle. However, for the rest of the world, this is now recognised as Downton Abbey from the hit TV series.

I say 'For the last time' because I have posted quite a few pictures of this place in the past, and until I come out with some original interior shots (I'm always trying to get permission to photograph inside...it will happen), I won't be posting further pictures from here.

This was taken during my D90 days, and is a single RAW image. I processed it in Lightroom, Photoshop, Nik Color Efex and Topaz Adjust. It feels a great time to post this as well, as it is starting to become warm(ish) and bright outside. It could be a false dawn of course, but with glass half full, here's hoping a wonderful summer is on it's way.

Highclere Castle

One from the archives today. I'm a little concerned that one day I'm going to post one of these 'classic' shots that has already been posted but hopefully that won't happen. I did just have to check I hadn't posted this one before as I have posted pictures of Highclere Castle already (from my Downton Abbey weekend) but this was my first and most successful picture of the building. I think it is still my second most popular picture on Flickr and this is perhaps a lot to do with Downton Abbey. I think it is a good picture in it's own right though, without all the attention from the Downton Abbey bloggers and I remember being pleased with this as a landscape shot at the time.

I have spoken before about re-processing a picture many months after originally processing it and though I think it can be beneficial, it's not something I will be doing any more of. Unless there are serious flaws with the original or there are techniques you really did not know of at the time, it is unlikely you will improve a picture. I say this because I recently decided I was going to reprocess one of my civil war battle pictures but after spending quite a while on it, realised that it is far away from my original picture and not nearly as good. I trust my original intentions of a picture when I first process it and intend to stick with that original vision now. Today's picture for instance, if I was to change anything, it would be the rather unsubtle vignetting but I accept that for whatever reason, that was how I intended the picture to look at time and what I thought was best then and therefore I'm happy to stick with how I saw it.

It looks like the weather might be turning for the better in England (just in time for the Olympics!) and so I will probably be out and about with my camera more. All that's left to say is I have a major announcement coming soon as well!

Downton Abbey Part 2

The concluding part to my Downton Abbey weekend, I took this picture the same day as yesterday's one (July 30th 2011). The event I took it at was the Battle Proms event that is held every year at Highclere Castle. Last year was the first time I had attended and it was a spectacular patriotic event, complete with orchestra, fireworks, proms music and my highlight of the event, the flying of the Spitfire. It circled round the castle and graced the sky for a good 10 minutes, something completely awe-inspiring and led me to take this picture (click link). I took today's picture a short while after yesterday's picture, when the sun had appeared. If you are wondering where the fence posts have gone from yesterday's picture, I zapped them out with Photoshop. It's much easier to do things like that when it is a single exposure image like this one, as opposed to yesterday's HDR.

As I said yesterday, this weekend's pictures are really for fans of Downton Abbey and do feel free to use this on blogs and websites. All I ask is that you please link back to this site. I hope you have enjoyed these pictures, this one is a particular favourite of mine and today is the first time I have posted it on any website.

DID YOU KNOW: Highclere Castle is the home of the Earls of Carnarvon. The 5th Earl of Carnarvon, George Herbert, was the financial backer of the expedition to discover Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922. He was there when it was discovered with Howard Carter. The Earl never returned from Egypt, dying there in 1923.

Downton Abbey Part 1

As promised, this is a Downton Abbey weekend on this blog for all the fans of the hit TV show. As I have stressed before, I have never watched it myself but I do live a 5 minute drive away from the real downton abbey, which is of course Highclere Castle. This gives me easy access to take pictures of this fabulous country house. I say 'easy access' but that's not strictly true, Highclere Castle is closed to visitors for most of the year and getting close to it at other times is anything but easy. Hence, I have taken landscape shots of the castle before such as this (click for link). The picture you see today was taken while I was at the Battle Proms event last year, which led me to be able to get closer to the castle than ever before. This is an HDR image, made of 3 different exposures.

The landscape shot I linked to in the last paragraph is one of my most popular pictures. It has actually sold quite well in the past and is my second most viewed picture on Flickr. I know this is partly because people have linked to it on Downton Abbey blog sites, which I am most grateful for. That is one of the reasons I wanted to do this Downton Abbey weekend, to give fans of the show a couple of great (and large) views of the building that has once again become culturally significant. Feel free to use this on blogs and websites, the only thing I ask is that you link back to this site. As it suggests from the title, this is part 1 of a double bill (to get a TV pun in there), tomorrow's picture will be a none-HDR shot but one I think is better than this one and that I hope you'll agree. Until tomorrow.....

DID YOU KNOW: The architect of Highclere Castle, Sir Charles Barry, was also the architect of a small group of buildings in London called the Houses of Parliament.