Bridge 45

Recently, I've been doing a bit of soul searching with this blog, trying to figure it out what is the point of it and where do I want to go with it? Do other photography bloggers feel that? My love for photography has not diminished at all in the recent years that I have 'discovered' my passion for it but I am questioning a little if blogging is the right outlet for my creativity? There are so many different platforms out there for photographers now (which you all know of so I won't list them) and you get an incredible amount of time difference between how often some photographers post pictures compared to others. There are your daily blogs such as the incredibly successful stuckincustoms.com by Trey Ratcliff, to the post-less-frequently approach by Klaus Herrmann (farbspiel-photo.com) and many other artists on Flickr.

With this blog, I promise 3 pictures a week, which is good for me because it keeps me working on this blog and producing new photos. But in an ideal world, I do believe that like Klaus Herrmann, I would simply post pictures when I feel that one is ready. I know of all my recent pictures, that my 'Like a Setting Sun' picture has had a particularly great response on this website and other sites such as Flickr. Maybe this is the only picture I should have posted recently? The problem with promising a quantity of pictures in a certain time (and I'm guessing this must drive Trey Ratcliff nuts sometimes) is that you often find yourself not particularly inspired, but having to post a photo to not fail on your quotient. The artist in me wants not to be forced to put up with my own restrictions and sometimes plea 'Look, I just haven't got a photo today!'. But then I don't want to fail on my promises either and in the end, I'm satisfied with the fact that producing regular photos can only make me better (he says hoping).

So that brings me back to the original point, what do I want to achieve with this blog? Am I happy it being just a bit of fun and a great way to share my love of photography or am I secretly hoping it will achieve much more? Many people like myself find themselves setting up photography blogs once they have been bitten by the photography bug, because it is a fantastic and personal way to get your creativity 'out there'. But do we need to have them? Would it be more satisfying to just upload pictures occasionally, but ones that were your absolute very best work? I'm writing a lot of questions today without knowing the answers myself but that was the point of writing this blog. I thought about writing a blog on Sunday that was going to be titled 'Time for a break' and at one point had made up my mind that I was going to take a little time off and come back when I felt like (in my gut) I had a bucket load of wonderful pictures to post one blog after the next. But as you can tell, I decided to stick with it and focus on new ideas and other avenues I could perhaps think of for my photography. I don't think I really know what I do want from this blog, but at the moment, I kind of like that.

Bridge 45

I took this picture on Sunday while walking along the Kennet & Avon canal in Newbury, whilst the weather had upgraded from absolutely dismal to mediocre. I'm not an expert on canals, canal bridges or canal barges, but I think the 45 obviously means something to people who like to travel along the canal. This is actually a rail bridge that goes over the canal at this point, so that may have some significance. It's an HDR shot taken from 4 exposures (-2 to +1) and was pictured with my latest (artistic) weapon, the D700.

Overlooking Newbury

I'm happy to accept the opinion that I'm scraping the barrel now for new photographs because it's quite true. Although being the town I live nearest to, Newbury is in my own opinion perhaps featuring a bit to much on this website. Without going into much detail today, this is an aerial view of the town, pictured from the bridge that connects the Wharf with the new Parkway Shopping Centre. The stretch of water is the Kennet & Avon canal.

I know I need to go out and take more pictures but perhaps just as importantly, I need to go back through all my pictures in Lightroom and find some gems I have perhaps overlooked. I never intend to force myself into going and getting new pictures as quickly as possible, therefore Thursday's picture will be a 'classic' picture from last year. Hope you are all still with me recently though???

I just realised, it's May 1st today. May is always a good time and generally one of my favourite months, so I'm sure good things will come...

The Shire Bridge

Another picture to add to my Kennet & Avon canal collection. I should probably create a new set on Flickr now with all the photos and HDR's I've taken of this canal that runs through West Berkshire. Like Tuesday's picture, this was taken a couple of weeks ago whilst out and about in Newbury capturing some evening landscapes.

This is one of those pictures I have posted but am still not 100% sure if this will be the final version. I've gone back to it more than a couple of times and made some little tweeks, almost entirely to the sky which has been giving me the most trouble. It was a very glowing evening but there wasn't much detail in the sky, however I am satisfied with the rest of the picture I am satisfied with. I'll probably want to experiment a bit more with it when I come back to it later, though I never try to go for perfection as no photo can be that.

The Canal Path

I'm almost completely moved into my new apartment now and the computer (basically meaning my digital photography workstation) has now followed me in. So I'm back up and running full time on the photographs but need to get on and process a few now.

Today's photo is by my own judgement not a classic but it was one that I was able to spend about half an hour yesterday evening processing just after I moved my computer in. I know that the Kennet & Avon canal features quite a lot in my pictures but this is what the local scenery is like. This was taken a couple of weeks ago when we were having some very unseasonably warm weather in the UK. It has not been like this over the Easter weekend. The clouds and rain came back home. When the sun is out though, waterways and other water landscapes are always great for capturing sunsets or 'late in the evening' sceneries.

Although I am now moved in, I still have a couple of busy weeks ahead of me but without making too many excuses, my plan is to get back out and take some pictures as soon as possible. I was hoping to visit Paris again this spring but the move into this new property has made that highly unlikely. It simply comes down to all the money spent moving into here. So I'll just have to get creative in good old Blighty!

A Hungerford Photography Tale...

On Tuesday I said I wanted to tell a story about this stretch of the Kennet & Avon Canal and a photography trip I took there one evening. I didn't want to tell it while I was short on time and energy, so hopefully now I can do it justice.....

 It's an important story to me because it still haunts me to this day. It was the 12th December 2010 and anybody who lives in Britain may remember that it was a very cold time. One of the coldest on record in fact and after work that evening I had wandered into Hungerford, mainly to capture pictures of a 'Victorian Extravaganza' they were having in the town centre that night. It was about 4pm and with it being December, the light was already fading fast, so I decided to take a quick detour from the town centre and wander up the canal to see if there would be any opportunities for photographs there. I was about to learn one of the most basic lessons of photography, a very hard way.

The scene I came across on that stretch of canal was almost surreal. As you can see from this picture above, the canal is perfectly still along this stretch and in the winter the light fades in the distance beyond it. This picture however was very different to the one that presented itself to me on that cold December evening. That night I lost the opportunity to come away with a picture, that would easily have been the best picture I have ever taken and perhaps have given my work a massive helping hand of recognition. Because of the cold weather, and perhaps the warmer spell that had taken place during that day, the canal had frozen over, but not as a perfect sheet of ice. The canal had frozen and began to spilt up into many square blocks of ice. I have never seen anything like it and the pattern over the canal while the light faded in the background was simply magical. I knew I had a surefire winner of a photograph. So I took a few pictures of this scene and remained happy for the rest of the evening, knowing I'd already shot something special in the camera. But as I have already alluded to, this story is in photographic terms, a tragedy.

When I got home all excited about the pictures I had taken, I immediately put them into the computer. This is when the horror began. I had got the pictures on there but try as I might, I couldn't make anything good out of them at all. They were blurry, fuzzy, as unsharp as you can imagine and I realised the dreadful mistake I made that day. I hadn't brought along a tripod. I took the shots hand-held thinking they would probably be ok. Well they weren't. The light had dipped so much that the shutter had to remain open for at least maybe a second, still way too long to capture a sharp picture in dim light. I had created single RAW file HDR's before this day but had still not began bracketing my shots, therefore there was only one exposure taken several times of this scene. And none of them were salvageable. One of the most perfect scenes I had been in the presence of, had left me with nothing to show for it. Experience teaches a man all the lessons he will need to know. Having a tripod that day would have made me come away with the pictures I had imagined were so special in my head.

This experience has driven me ever since in my photography to always be prepared to get the shot I want and imagine in my head. I still make mistakes here and there of course but hopefully the hard (and yet simple) lessons I learn as described from this story, will come back round to treat me well when I am present in such an awe-inspiring scene again. I am determined to keep going back to the Kennet & Avon canal in Hungerford, until that picture presents itself again. But until then, Wherever I go, you can be sure my tripod is never too far away from me.

Still Waters of Hungerford

I was going to tell a story today of a time I once visited this location but to be honest, I have been so busy house-hunting recently that I do not have the time or energy to tell that story. I honestly want to do that story justice, as it was quite a learning curve in my photographic tuition, so I promise that when I post a picture from this location again, which will be on Sunday, I will tell the story I'm promising now.

However, I can say that this is the Kennet & Avon Canal, as it runs through Hungerford in West Berkshire, and I have been here before to try and get good pictures. I love how still the water is in this area and when I visited this place on Saturday, it didn't disappoint. The still waters produced a perfect reflection in the evening sky and I loved the canal boats in the distance, blowing out smoke, while trying to keep warm in the cold winter air. My only regret for this evening was that I only brought along my new sigma 10-20mm lens, and would have brought along my standard 18-105mm kit lens if I had known these canal boats would be there. I would have loved to have got in closer from this perspective but at least that's a lesson learned. I still would have wanted to take this wider picture anyway, with the clouds reflected in the canal so I'm happy with this picture as it is.

Newbury Canal at Night

With just a few days to go until the launch of this blog, I thought perhaps it's a good time to reflect over one of my highlights of 2011. Although I can see where I would change it now, this is probably my best picture of 2011. Some pictures you take, you know it's a good one straight away but I really didn't have that thought with this one. I'd been out taking pictures for a couple of hours that night and the picture I was most excited about taking was my 'Building a Newbury Sunset' which I took the same evening. I had a good feeling about this one in the processing stage though and I think posted it on Flickr first. The immediate feedback was great. Lots of comments and favourites added to it and to this day is my 2nd most viewed picture on Flickr (only beaten by one outside a football ground which would naturally have a larger fan base). Other pictures have perhaps been more successful in other ways throughout the year but this always sticks in my head as my best shot of the year.