Faces of the Civil War

Battle reenactment photography is probably no one's specialist photography field, but there is a great opportunity here to try and capture a sense of real history. My latest venture was to Basing House for a Sealed Knot reenactment, and though I took quite a few pictures, I wasn't that satisfied with them. The battle itself was quite far away to get any close up pictures this time, but it was always my intention to get more people shots as well, again to try and capture that sense of history.

The people involved in the battle were very willing photographic subjects, which not really being a people photographer, I am very grateful for. I shot and processed this as an HDR image, but masked in the original RAW images for their faces.

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.

Antonio Vivaldi Museum

I've been very busy this week completing my pictures for the Woolton Hill postcard project and seeing old friends, and I haven't had much time for photo processing. So I've decided to do something I have not done for a while and that is post one of my (self-professed) 'classics'.

It's good timing that this picture comes onto the blog because it's about time I added a bit of an international aspect back to the website. Venice is not short of significant historical figures and right up there with the best known is the classical composer Antonio Vivaldi. The museum dedicated to him in Venice is actually quite small but worthwhile nonetheless. The instruments on display were used during the time of Vivaldi or perhaps indeed by the maestro himself.

This is an HDR from a single RAW file. I wanted to do a 'real' HDR but the room was just too dark (whilst using the camera without a tripod) to capture the brighter exposures. They came out too blurry. With the emergence of even more photo software, it's one I have always thought about revisiting and may attempt to fix the blurry RAW files but that project is for another day. This picture never lacked attention as it is on websites such as Flickr and is always one that pleases people at exhibitions I have held.

Victoria's Lions

Having struggled a couple of months ago to find new pictures for this blog, I now find myself with a fair few new pictures to choose from. Unlike the intention of this blog, most pictures that will be posted in the near future will all mainly be from the UK. I stated this at the start of the year, when I let it be known that due to a house move and getting married in September, foreign travel this year was going to be difficult. I am visiting Poland twice in the next 4 months (once to get married), so that will provide more opportunities for 'global' pictures and if I am lucky, I plan to visit 2 more countries by the end of the year as well, but we will see how things go.

Today's picture is another one I took while out looking for Diamond Jubilee pictures to capture around Newbury last week. I have lived in the Newbury area (with a few years in-between living in Cheltenham) for the best part of 27 years and have never come across this statue in a local park before. That's rather embarrassing as the park is called Victoria Park but I never realised there was a statue of Queen Victoria within it. At least it proves there are still gems to be found near your local area if you look hard enough (or open your eyes at all in my case). This is another HDR picture taken from 5 exposures on my new Nikon D700. I added a tiny bit of Topaz Adjust to the statues and used the glamour glow (very slightly) and cross balance filters in Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

Tudor England

I like to think that historical pictures are one of my specialities in the photographic and HDR worlds and it certainly is my ambition to use my imagination to present scenes from our past. Opportunities I have had in the past such as attending civil war battle reenactments are certainly a way that I can capture a bit of historical magic and I'm constantly looking for other ideas to present history in photographic form. HDR processing helps enormously as well because for me it has always been the artistic look HDR can give to photos rather than 'capturing the entire light range' that makes HDR so special. It really helps give pictures an extra dimension and although of course I love standard photography, HDR provides more opportunities I feel to create an artistic look.

The location in today's picture is again within the grounds of Hever Castle, with the focus of this one being the Tudor Village that lies behind the castle. Now this part of Hever Castle does not actually date back to the Tudor period (1485 - 1603 for the historian buffs like me) but was created in the 20th century to house extra guests that would be staying at Hever Castle. You're not allowed to walk round it either, nowadays I believe it is specially reserved for weddings and other events. Therefore, I got this picture while stood by the castle, whilst looking towards the Tudor Village. I found it quite intriguing that there was a boy who was in and out of this boat by the village and felt this would look good as part of the picture. I'm sure he works for the castle but luckily was not wearing any kind of uniform that would look out of place in this picture.

Processing wise, this is an HDR picture taken from 3 shots and after a lot of painstaking work, I merged in a texture from a rock that I also pictured from within the grounds of Hever Castle. In the final image I did think about going a bit lighter on the texture but then I lost the authentic historical look of the buildings, which I was not prepared to sacrifice, therefore I kept the strong texture look in.

Hever Castle

Finally something from a new place on this blog! In fact, this photo is a bit of a change in more than just being somewhere new but in actually looking more like a real photograph. I spent all of yesterday's glorious sunshine at Hever Castle in Kent and whilst the sunshine was very welcome, the blanket bright blue sky did not really lend itself to taking HDR pictures. So it was back to my photography roots with the intention of just capturing a single shot fantastic landscape, which for this scene I wouldn't have done any other way. I will perhaps be a bit more creative with this scene in the future, like making it look a bit historical with a filter or texture maybe but with over 500 photos to go through, I'm pretty happy with this for just being back at the computer for a couple of hours.

So this is Hever Castle in Kent, a place I have wanted to visit for a couple of years now. Hever Castle is best known for being the childhood home of Henry VIII's second wife Anne Boleyn. She lived here from soon after her birth (circa 1501 believed to be in Norfolk) to around perhaps the time she was made Queen in 1533, with a 6 year gap in the middle (circa 1516-1522) during which she lived in France. She was 1 of 2 of Henry's wives to have been beheaded, the unfortunate victim in a conspiracy to replace her as Queen (almost certainly because she had been unable to provide Henry with a son). As I intend to post many more pictures from around Hever Castle in the near future, I won't go into a complete biography of Anne Boleyn now but naturally she is fondly remembered at Hever.

You can walk round inside Hever Castle, where you will quickly learn it's not really a castle at all but a large country manor house. It can be toured inside in half hour but what really makes Hever special are the gardens and landscape surrounding the castle. There are beautiful statues, fountains, streams, lakes, mazes, waterfalls...it really does go on. It's a fantastic place for the photographer and I highly recommend it. It was a fantastic opportunity to try some creative shots within the grounds of Hever Castle and as I said, will post many more of them in the near future.

The Beatles Story

Back up north now and amongst all the things Liverpool is famous for; the maritime history, the football etc, the story of the most successful band ever to live is of course way up there. Despite my family's origins being Liverpool, I didn't really start to listen to The Beatles as a fan until about 5 years ago. Of course, I have always loved their songs but as an avid collector of their music, particularly their albums, that took a bit longer to develop. Have you all seen Across The Universe by the way? That has to be one of the most underrated films ever and an absolute must for Beatles fans.

This picture is taken quite obviously outside The Beatles museum in Liverpool, by the Albert Dock. This was the 2nd time I have visited the place but it was the first time for my fiancé, who I was taking there. This is an HDR from 3 different exposures and is 1 of 2 pictures I processed of this scene, but this version was by far the better one.

There is an extra treat today (because I like to go that extra mile sometimes), please take the chance to see more Beatles photos below. These are pictures I took the same day from within the museum.

The Cavern Club

Yellow Submarine

Sgt. Peppers

Yellow Submarine Artwork

John Lennon Tribute

Gateway to the Castle

An appropriate picture and title for today's blog, as my most recent bit of news involves castles. More specifically, postcards of castles. Two of my Warwick Castle photographs are now on sale at Warwick Castle as postcards and of course I am very excited about this. I was contacted a couple of months ago about using these pictures (Link 1 and Link 2) for postcards at Warwick Castle and now this week I have been sent my own copies and couldn't be more thrilled that my photography is now available to buy (yes I know they're only postcards!) at Warwick Castle.

So to tie in with that good piece of news, I am posting a picture of another castle, Windsor Castle, one of the oldest and most majestic historical structures in the British Isles. This is not an HDR picture (that's 2 in a row, a record for me?) and was processed entirely in Lightroom 4. This is not the great gate that is the main entrance to the entire fortress but one of the smaller entrances, once you are within the castle walls.

Is anyone else in the UK struggling with photographic motivation and inspiration with all the miserable weather we've been having recently?

Shaw House

I said the other day that I would probably post an oldie today but having given myself a little time to wake up after my friend's wedding yesterday, I've decided to post one of the pictures I took yesterday. I was best man for the wedding yesterday and honestly photography was not really on my mind. I decided to take my camera along anyway to take advantage of any opportunities that presented themselves. Having arrived a little early for the wedding, that took place at this location Shaw House in Newbury, I took a couple of pictures of the building itself.

Shaw House dates back to Elizabethan times and was once visited by Elizabeth I herself. It was also the key focal point of the 2nd Battle of Newbury in 1644. Nowadays it is still thriving and is a tourist attraction as well as a registry office for weddings. This is an HDR from 2 shots (-2, 0) and processed in Lightroom 4, Photoshop and Nik Color Efex pro.

2nd Battle of Newbury 1644

As I spent all yesterday evening at my new apartment, moving stuff in and setting up broadband (amongst other things), I have decided to post today another one of my 'oldies'. As I said the other day, I have not had much time to sit down and process new photographs, although I'm confident that will change over the weekend.

I do apologise to some of the people who have visited my websites often, you have probably seen me post today's picture on more than one occasion but as I have stated before, I want to try and get as many of my best shots on this blog site as possible at some point.

This is one of my more successful pictures, taken at The Sealed Knot reenactment of the 2nd Battle of Newbury, at the Newbury Showground last year. I am often asked how I processed this one as an HDR but as a lot of people who visit this site will know, it is easy to produce an HDR from a single RAW file, which is exactly what this is. Very often good photography is simply a numbers game. I must have taken over 80 photos of these people firing muskets, hoping to perfectly time the shot with the muskets firing and with this shot I achieved that. It was definitely one of those 'gut feeling' shots as well. I knew as I soon as I looked at the back screen on the camera that this would be the one to keep.

My Little Empire

It's taken me a little while but here is my first picture of Windsor Castle. I've said in previous posts that I wasn't overwhelmed with my pictures of the castle itself when I visited there about a month ago but it was always my intention to process this one. This is actually a panoramic shot made up of 2 sets of 2 HDR's. I needed to do a panoramic shot to capture the width of the picture. I know this doesn't really look like a panoramic shot and the truth is I'm not really a big fan of those long and thin panoramic shots you see on photographer's photostreams. I can understand it if you are creating a picture to print it and hang it somewhere but on the internet they just don't look good.

What am I saying with the title My Little Empire? Well, it's really about looking at this part of the castle in isolation. Windsor Castle isn't like Bodiam castle where you can capture a large portion of the castle in a close up shot. Windsor Castle is simply way too big for that. So you end up picturing bits of it here and there. This little tower over looks a mound made up of palm trees (I  know, in England!?!) and other exotic plants. With the pond at the bottom as well, it doesn't really look like it's defending much. This is an HDR as I said and though I did the stitching and tone curve work in Photoshop, the final look owes a lot again to Lightroom 4.

If you are interested in seeing where else I am on the web, here is my little empire:

Facebook Group - www.facebook.com/PeteHalewood
Twitter Page - www.twitter.com/PeteHalewood
Flickr Photostream - Pete Halewood Photostream
Pinterest Page - www.pinterest.com/PeteHalewood
Official Website - PeteHalewood.com
Online Gallery - HalewoodPhotographic.com

I am in other places such as Google+ and 500px but I keep a minimum presence on these sites. I do not try to make myself appear everywhere!

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.

The Path of History / Lightroom 4

Adobe Lightroom 4 has just been released and I have got my copy! I've said many times that Lightroom is my favourite photo-processing software and that remains the case. I'm always a bit reluctant when they bring a new version out of something that to me is already good, as they potentially change things they didn't need to. I was happy when I bought Nik Color Efex Pro 4 but there are things I don't like about it that I wished they had just left as they were in Nik Color Efex 3. Suffice to say, Lightroom 4 has not presented anything to me that isn't an improvement. All the new controls are great and they have created functions that work just like a charm. I should mention as well that it is half price at the moment, which means that if you are upgrading from Lightroom 3, it is only about £60 which is more than a good deal. In no particular order, here are my 5 favourite new functions of Lightroom 4:

* Shadows control - They have changed the top exposure sliders in the the develop panel, getting rid of brightness, recovery and fill light (and probably something else I'm forgetting) and created a more streamlined Highlights, Shadows, Whites and Blacks. The new shadows function is the best shadow adjuster I have seen on any program. Rather than making changes to the whole picture, it uncannily manages to pick just the shadow area (you'll know what I mean when you play with this bar) and makes the changes simple and effective.

* Remove Chromatic Aberration - CA is a particular enemy of HDR photographers as the HDR process tends to amplify any CA in the picture. I spent many frustrating hours trying to correct CA using the old Lightroom 3 options which were to adjust the CA sliders until you felt it was right (this again inevitably affected the rest of the picture). Now however, there is a simple check box 'Remove Chromatic Aberration', it's brilliantly simple and it works. So easy, just like that, done. I love the person that created that switch.

* Single Colour Tone Curve - As well as using the tone curve to make general colour adjustments (RGB) you can individually select Red, Green or Blue and apply a tone curve for just that colour tone. This is great and gives some fantastic artistic effects to enhance mood. I used this function on the picture above by selecting a tone curve for the colour blue and dropping the shadow areas a bit to give it a more yellow and historic look.

* Clarity - The clarity slider has always been a bit of an insider's trick to make a picture look sharper and now it has been hugely improved. You wouldn't probably whack the slider all the way to the right but even if you did the effects are much less extreme but still effective. Many pictures can now have an abundance of clarity, without the addition of Halos. This will work great for single pictures and HDR's.

* Blurb Booksmart plugin - I used Blurb Booksmart to write my recent book 'West Berkshire in HDR' and now there is the option of creating any book directly in Lightroom. Brilliant.

I have watched many of the excellent Lightroom 4 tutorials on Adobe's Lightroom Youtube page and I cannot recommend them enough. This is something I need to do much more for Photoshop but watch the videos of the new Lightroom 4 and learn how it all works. A couple of hours spent watching the tutorials and your knowledge of Lightroom can more than double.

The Path of History

I chose to post this picture today as I have processed it almost entirely in Lightroom 4. It is a 3 shot HDR and apart from the Blurb plugin, I've used all the improvements listed above and many more to create this picture. It is of Donnington Castle (what's left anyway) in my hometown of Newbury, Berkshire. I did send this over to Photoshop for a bit of noise reduction and sharpening but as I said, this was largely worked in Lightroom.