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.

The Winter Church

March is not the time of year I expect to be posting winter pictures full of snow, but then the English weather is not providing me many other opportunities at the moment. I take solace in the fact that I know the rest of Europe is pretty much plunged in winter still as well, at a time when most of us are hoping to see some spring. Such is life though, the weather is certainly something we cannot influence or change, so there is no point focusing on it that much.

Having grovelled a little there, I am secretly a bit thankful as well, as the snow allowed me to go up to the village I grew up in, Woolton Hill in North Hampshire, to take some pictures of the village church, or more specifically St. Thomas' Church. I don't normally have this opportunity during the week, so did not waste the opportunity presented on this Saturday morning.

Churches and Cathedrals I find are some of the hardest buildings to photograph. This is usually due to the fact that they are massive structures in sometimes small grounds, meaning that getting the whole church in the frame is a real challenge. For the angle I chose here, I had to (carefully) walk through the graveyard to set up in the corner of the grounds. The bonus of setting up there as well is that I was under some tress, which kept me and my camera fairly dry as I took pictures (as you can tell from the picture the snow was still coming down fast). This was not possible at other angles I took.

This is an HDR picture taken from 5 different exposures. There was a lot of work and time put into this picture, mainly in photoshop to rid it of ghostly artefacts (no pun intended there), clone out some bins and do general clean up work.

The East End

Just a short blog today, as I am heading out very shortly. This place is far from the East End in London but actually a small place outside the village of East Woodhay in Hampshire. East Woodhay is a neighbouring village to the village I grew up in, Woolton Hill. I chose to venture out here while undertaking the Woolton Hill postcard project because the project remit allowed the option to venture further afield to get good photos of the local area. I wanted to get both a natural and detailed look (especially in the brickwork) of this picture, which meant applying about 4 filters in Nik Color Efex Pro. Additionally, desaturating individual colours and other tweeks were carried out in Lightroom.

In Faith

This is another picture taken from my recent postcard project for the village I grew up in, Woolton Hill in North Hampshire. Whether they will use this one or not I have no idea, I have a feeling it's a bit too 'arty' to be appropriate for a postcard but I was quite pleased with the shot nonetheless. I took this outside St. Thomas' Church, the only place of worship in Woolton Hill. There have been quite a few Union Jacks popping up in many places this year, mainly because of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee but this flag was put up more than a week after those events had taken place, which I was a little perplexed about. It wasn't up the week before when I began taken pictures of the village, which was during the jubilee bank holiday. Nothing wrong with having a British flag up of course, was just a bit confused about the timing.

The stone cross it is next to is actually part of the war memorial that stands outside the church, to remember all the men from the village who died during the first world war. While not trying to use that as a tenuous link to talk about TV programmes, I always tell my fiancé she must watch Blackadder Goes Forth, which despite being a comedy programme is perhaps one of the most poignant pieces of television ever made about the first world war. It's most notably remembered for the final scene of the last episode but another part that always gives me goosebumps is the scene where Baldrick reflects on all the people who have been lost during the war and complains 'Why can't we just say no more war, let's just all pack up and go home, why would that be hard, tell me why?'. I know not every war is as simple as that but it always strikes a chord with me.

Postcard from Woolton Hill

Recently I mentioned that I have been given a project to create some postcards for the village I grew up in - Woolton Hill in north Hampshire. The criteria was that it should represent Woolton Hill in the summertime and being as the weather the last few weeks has been everything but summer, it has been quite a challenge! Luckily, we managed to have a warm period a few weeks ago and that is when I managed to capture most of the shots.

Today's picture is one I took just after I got my Nikon D700 and one I will be putting forward for the project. I'll be giving updates to how the project goes, it's in the next couple of weeks that I have to hand over the finished pictures and then let the organisers decide which ones they want to use. Once that has been decided, I will put all the pictures used on this blog.

I would just like to say thanks for all the support on this blog and other websites for my last picture 'Like a Setting Sun'. Definitely seems to have been quite a popular one. It has only got 45 views on Flickr (I always find it trickier to get views when it's a non-HDR) but of those 45 views, I have got 13 'favourites' which is a pretty good ratio I think. As I said, the view count always goes down when it's a non-HDR because I can't put it in all the HDR groups I normally do, so if anyone who uses Flickr has any ideas what other groups I can put it in, it would be much appreciated! I have put it in the common groups such as FlickrToday, FlickrCentral and FlickrAddicts, as well as Nikon specific ones (D700 group, Nikon Digital) but if there are any others people would recommend, please let me know.

The Old Farmhouse

Luckily we had a small break in the blanket cloud cover we have had in England the last couple of weeks, for me to capture this picture yesterday. This came out of a project I have been given recently to take some pictures for postcards of Woolton Hill, which was the village I grew up in. The brief was to capture Woolton Hill in summertime and I was fortunately able to complete most of the pictures a few weeks ago when we had a heatwave. The brief sunny weather yesterday allowed me to complete the pictures I intended to get for this project.

This farmhouse is actually just outside Woolton Hill near a neighbouring village called East Woodhay. I don't think I will be using this picture for the project, mainly because it's obviously somebody's property and I would in a normal world, probably need permission to print. I was intrigued by this scene though as I was driving round narrow country lanes, hoping that a scene would jump out at me. It would have perhaps looked more perfect at sunrise but I'll plan that one maybe for another time!

For Success or Art?

The New Forest Heathland

It's rare that I decide to gear a blog towards the current photographic industry but this is where my blog today leads to. I should offer discussions like this more often. The thing I've been trying to answer a lot recently, especially with my own work, is do you (anyone) take photographs for art or for success?

Now I have no doubt at all that we all got into photography because we loved the idea of seeing a particular scene and wanting to capture it as perfectly as possible. We thoroughly enjoy it and this is what has led us further and further down the photographic path. However, with all the social media and technology raging in the world these days, I am seriously starting to question whether the love of photography seems to come after the importance of raising one's 'profile'. I'm trying to figure out in myself where I fit into this as well.

Most people will know that I am an optimistic thinker and accept success in all forms. If someone is well known, they are definitely doing something right. What perhaps is bothering me a little now though is the fact that quality in the photographic internet world seems to becoming sacrificed in place of exposure (no pun intended there!).

Of course, quality art is an interesting concept to debate in the modern world itself. And yes I would love to raise my profile as a photographer as well. But the problem I find is the whole 'get your name out there' concept, which is very unnatural and awkward for me. It does go against artistic principles I know to have a blog that promises 3 pictures a week because art itself should never have a quantitive promise or restriction. It should take as absolutely long as it needs to take. One person may have hundreds of poor and unpopular photographs but if there is one picture that they worked on for years and became a masterpiece, whatever they did in the social media world would be irrelevant. Art, and particularly masterpieces, are timeless and not affected by what happens in the social media world. There are great artists who probably do not own a computer but having focused entirely on their craft their whole lives, profile-raising does not become necessary.

So I find myself again questioning whereabouts do I sit on this issue? I guess I have a foot in both camps. I have this blog site which I love working on and I also have a Twitter page which I also enjoy updating now and then. But truthfully, I know it isn't social media that is going to lead to any potential success I have. It's simply how good the photos are that I am taking. This is all there is to it. I would happily trade in never trending on Twitter or becoming part of some Google+ debate if it meant taking years to becoming appreciated as someone who worked hard on his craft. In the meantime, find me some more people on the net with perhaps little 'exposure' (sorry again) but some mind-blowing photography and you will have found yourself a new fan.

The Red Coats

With my Downton Abbey weekend last weekend, I've spoken quite a lot about the Battle Proms event I attended at Highclere Castle last July. It was a great event to take a camera to and I did indeed come back with many images I have used on the web from that day. Today's picture is another one to add to that collection, this one being taken fairly early in the afternoon before all the big displays and orchestra had begun. Although this was not a fully fledged battle reenactment like some of my English Civil War pictures, it is still a representation of history. If I remember rightly, it was a display of the English army during the time of the Napoleonic wars.

The red coat was the uniform of the British army for many, many years and actually began with the creation of the new model army of Oliver Cromwell and Sir Thomas Fairfax in 1645. Despite the new model army being disbanded in 1660, the red uniform carried on for more than a couple of hundred years and is often seen in Hollywood movies such as Zulu and The Patriot.

I processed this picture months and months ago so I can't remember if I HDRed it but I'm pretty sure I did. I've haven't tried to represent this is a 'moment in time' picture as it's pretty obvious it was taken during the modern day (what with members of the crowd huddled in the picture) but nonetheless I have tried to give it a bit of a historical flavour. As with my 'Timeless Torcello' picture, I blended this with a texture of rock from the Czech Republic, this one having lots of old writing written on it, which I knew I would want to use as a texture one day. Who knows, may even use it again or indeed many times.

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.

Say Goodbye Sun

There isn't much to say about this picture really. I don't get the chance to visit the coast very often so sunset shots over the sea from me are always going to be very rare. This is another shot though from my recent New Forest trip, more specifically, Barton-on-sea on the south coast of the New Forest. This was the place I had in mind when I planned the trip to the New Forest that day and though the sunset wasn't spectacular that evening in terms of colour, I did manage to capture the briefest appearance of the sun through the clouds with this shot. This was honestly the best it got, it's appearance lasted about 10 seconds.

The Sigma 10-20mm lens has gone

Yes it is with some sadness that say I chose to return the Sigma 10-20mm lens I bought recently. In an ideal world I would have swapped it for another copy but that option was not available, so I settled for a refund. My decision was based on the fact that the images I got back were just not what I thought, they were very soft throughout the picture and left me with a lot of work to do in post-processing. As all photographers know, lenses are not cheap and you have to ask yourself, does the lens I bought for £380 really make £380 difference? I'm sorry but I just couldn't agree with that. £380 will get you a nice few days in Venice and that does make a difference. Is it really that different to the 18-105mm lens I already have? Well it is different (the CA is virtually nil) but again not £380 different. And of course the kit lens is very versatile. I do accept that maybe I just got a bad version and as I said, if I could have replaced it I would have, but I couldn't. I still might buy another copy in future to see if there is a difference with another copy, though if not, I will put the money towards some further photographic investment in the future.

The Edge of England

Well part of the edge anyway. England with the rest of the British Isles is entirely surrounded by coastline, and this is one of the most southern parts of it. This is another picture from Barton-on-sea, which is at the south side of the New Forest. It was my first day shooting with my new sigma 10-20mm lens and though I find it quite hard post-processing pictures taken with this lens, it definitely has it's advantages. The HDR's come out really well and the chromatic aberration is almost non-existent. I still find a little soft though, which means I have to do a lot of noise reduction and sharpening. Does anyone else with this lens have that problem?

This was shot towards the end of the day, and by this time I was mainly going for long exposure of the sea. I fortunately managed to combine a long exposure shot with HDR in this picture and even I'm surprised how well it turned out. The final picture is taken from just 2 shots, processed (after photomatix) in Lightroom, Photoshop CS5 (warming filter) and Nik Color Efex Pro 4 (very slight touch to lighten up the rocks and clouds). The noise reduction was done in Topaz Denoise and the sharpening achieved using Unsharp Mask (in Photoshop).

Always a Way Out the Woods

Yes perhaps it is a bit of a metaphor on life, but for me this is one of those pictures that has been lying dormant on my hard drive for about 7 months. I remember processing this picture last summer, though being quite undecided about it and hence I have never posted it before. It's just one of those pictures that has grown on me over time, but also makes me miss the fabulous greens of summer! This is actually an area not far from where I live in Woolton Hill, North Hampshire, and it is one of those really boggy woodland areas that had to have this elevated wooden path added because even in the summer it is so wet and boggy. The woodland is actually much denser than the picture perhaps suggests, but I'm happy I managed to capture the sun breaking through between the trees.

This is an HDR taken from 3 shots, and though I can't remember exactly, I'm pretty sure it was largely processed in Lightroom. This was processed in my pre-photoshop days and while I still largely process in Lightroom, back then it was virtually all I did.

Upon the Heath

This lonely Silver Birch tree stands tall upon the heathland of The New Forest. It's perhaps not commonly known that The New Forest in Hampshire is actually approximately 50% heathland, which is made up of dry heathland and lowland heath (one of the rarest habitats in the British Isles). The remaining part of the forest is deciduous woodland. This heathland is incredibly important to wildlife though, and as well as many rare bird species, the New Forest contains all 3 native species of snake to Britain; the Adder, Grass Snake and the very rare Smooth Snake.

As I was visiting this area in early January, snakes were not really something I had to watch out for, though this is perfect habitat for them in during the summer months. The good thing about sunshine in the winter months is the sun does not reach very high in the sky and dips quite quickly. This was taken at about 3pm and already the sun was not too far off the horizon, hence it's a great opportunity to capture some great colours and patterns in the sky, without staying up all evening. I took many different shots of the sun setting on this heath, but this is my early favourite so far.

Footpath Closed

I've mentioned quite a bit recently that I now have a new lens (Sigma 10-20mm) and tripod for my photographic gear, and this weekend gave me my first opportunity to try them out. I really did feel like a pro landscape photographer wandering around The New Forest with a huge tripod and wide angle lens, it was great fun. I'm a bit comme ci comme ca about some of the images. I thought they would be sharper than they were, some of them are really quite soft but I will work at sharpening them and learning more about the lens in future.

This picture was taken at one of the most southern parts of The New Forest - Barton-on-sea. The daylight was shrinking quite fast at this point and I'd looked for ages to find a path down to the sea, which I eventually did. My aim was to get a picture of the sea, with the foreground being one of those wooden stump fences going out to sea. However, my path to that was blocked by this unsubtle hint not to go any further. I did obey and did not go any further but that was really because the rocks beyond this point (and next to the sea) would have made it extremely difficult to take a shot with the new tripod I was lugging round. A flash of inspiration came to my head when I decided to make this obstruction part of my foreground instead, though I accept it has become the dominant part of the picture. Nevertheless, this is the first of what I'm sure will be many, many pictures to come from my new wide angle lens.