An Enchanting Part of Poland

Disney title perhaps? Maybe, I was indeed struggling to come up with a title for this picture, especially as the one that kept coming to my mind 'The Land of Krzeszow' had already been used on a previous photo. In the end I couldn't get away from the 'magic kingdom' feel to the picture (maybe that's just me), albeit this being a very real and wonderful place. Yes this is one of my favourite pictures to come out of my recent trip to south west Poland, and an idea I hope of how truly beautiful the landscape and scenery is in this part of the world.

It is has been quite a long time in the making this picture, even the last day or so I have been uploading to my HalewoodPhotographic.com site and then reloading it, because I have made tiny adjustments I think will improve it. I know it can be a dangerous game spending too long processing a picture, but in the end if your heart is telling you it can be improved, then it's best to go with it.

This is a single image taken hand-held from near the top of a hill that overlooks the village of Krzeszow in Poland. I didn't want to have to say it again on this site, but one more time, the wonderful holy building you can see in the picture is the Basilica of the assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Have I mentioned I got married there recently?

Gateway to the Basilica

The Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Krzeszow is not a name I want to keep writing (for obvious reasons!), but when it is surrounded with so much photographic inspiration, it's very hard to refrain from blogging about it. As the title suggests, this is the entrance to grounds of the Basilica, and as I was taking pictures around the ground that evening, I noticed the sunlight peering through the gate, which gave a fantastic effect against the lightly coloured gateway. The pathway you see in the picture leads directly behind the point of view towards the Basilica (this is shot from within the grounds).

This is a 5 shot HDR (-2 to +2) and was shot handheld with my D700, not easy to do, but as I have mentioned recently, I was having so many problems with my tripod keeling over on me in Poland, that I began to view it as a nuisance. I have since bought a new and much more professional piece of kit.

When I talk about HDR as I have above, and you are still not sure what it is, you can now read the 'What is HDR?' page on my official website HalewoodPhoto.com. This I hope gives you a good basis on what a HDR (High Dynamic Range) photograph is.

The Priest's House

The Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary has been mentioned a few times since I returned from Poland, but I haven't spoken much about the surrounding area. Within the grounds of the Basilica, there is another smaller church (although even older than the Basilica!), a mausoleum, a nun's house and also this, today's picture, the priest's house. If you were to turn 90 degrees right from this picture, you would see the Basilica right in front of you. I'm not sure if it has been officially declared it yet, but the basilica and the surrounding area is to become a world heritage site this year, a very deserving accolade and one I hope draws more attention to this spectacular part of south west Poland. I have been in the Priest's house on a couple of occasions, mainly to sign away any rights I may have had to allow a Church of England boy to marry in a spectacular Catholic basilica in Poland, but it wasn't that much trouble and of course I have no regrets.

This is an HDR picture made up of 4 exposures (the 5th and brightest exposure was useless and unnecessary), which I took handheld due to having tripod troubles. As this was evening, I had to crank the ISO up to about 800, but due to the D700's ISO handling ability, it wasn't a problem. That would not have been the case with my D90. The tripod troubles were caused by bolts coming loose and therefore having unstable legs, and since I have come back to England has busted completely (ball head broke). I don't want to get petty and name the make, but I can safely say that tripod was the worst money I have spent during my time with photography. I had it for about 9 months until it was unusable. The truth be told I shouldn't have bought it in the first place, I don't even like the way it works, but I thought it would at least give me stability for a while. I have now done what I should have done in the first place and bought a decent Manfrotto setup, which is ten times better and will hopefully be my trustworthy tripod for years to come.

Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Krzeszów

Easily one of the hardest buildings I have ever tried to photograph, the Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a very special place to me, as it was here that I was recently married. Yes it beats the local village church! Or I should say an English village church, because Krzeszow is only a small village, and this is how they do their churches! Ok that's not really true, it is indeed a rarity to have a Basilica this massive in a small Polish village, but sometimes that's where these grand holy places turn up. The area itself has switched hands a few times between Poland and Germany over the last 1000 years and I believe this Basilica was part of a Germanic state when it was built between 1728 and 1735. There is an old painting inside of the virgin Mary that dates back to the 13th century and is a holy relic.

As I said at the beginning though, photographing this building is a real challenge. I had a DSLR with my last year when I visited and didn't get any satisfactory close up shots. As you maybe able to tell, getting the whole building in the picture is very far from easy. I was lying down on the ground, nearly as far back in the grounds as possible to get this evening shot and you can still tell the distortion and warping issues you have (after correction I should add). Although I shoot with a full frame camera now, the only way you could make it easier is to shoot with a 14-24mm lens but I still think the distortion and warping issues with that must be immense. There are many single shots like this I have been working on with this church, and I'm sure more will appear but the thing I actually most like about this picture is the person you can see at the bottom and to the left of the Basilica. It gives you an idea of the sheer size of this building, and it was a joy to see my English guests for the wedding completely overwhelmed at the first sight of it.

One thing I did not picture and do not intend to, is the inside of this Basilica. Ok so you aren't supposed to take pictures inside, but nevertheless many people do. It's amazing outside but inside it is simply one of the most stunning buildings I have entered and though I am a photographer, I do not believe a picture could even nearly do it justice. I was delighted to see the photographer Jeremy Cowart express a similar sentiment on Twitter recently, that he couldn't bring himself to picture a sunset he was witnessing, because it was too beautiful and he couldn't hope to do it justice with a photo. That is how I have always felt about the inside of this building and it's great to know I'm not the only one thinks like that!

News Update!

Ok so it is not my intention to brag about any accomplishment I achieve within the photographic world, but like the Grass Snake I spoke about on Sunday, something happened yesterday that completely made my day. My Justice for the 96 picture was selected as the lead photo in an article by Liverpool Football Club entitled 'Eleven Stunning Pictures of Anfield'. This means that my photo is currently appearing on the front page of the website (see picture below)! It never bothered me, but I always thought it would be great recognition to get a photo of mine on the Flickr Front Page but to be honest, appearing on the front page of my beloved football club's website I will take over Flickr any day of the week, month, year and so on forever!

Here is the link to that article http://www.liverpoolfc.com/news/latest-news/eleven-superb-anfield-photos

Rural Poland

Getting closer to the Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary now, this is clearly different from Tuesday's picture, by being taken on more level ground. It was actually captured the evening before the last picture, but was nonetheless a great opportunity to picture the spectacular Polish landscape, this again being the village of Krzeszow. Whilst out in Poland, the weather for most of the time was very good. Unlike England, you get a much better sense of autumn out there, and indeed all the trees were starting to, or had turned, a beautiful shade of orange and red. With the sun being out a lot, the sunsets in the hilly landscape were quite stunning and I drove a short distance out of the village to get this picture over the misty autumn evening as the sun set.

I'm not always in agreement that you should take your tripod out with you on every photography trip. I often find it can be cumbersome and unnecessary, especially when you are working with daylight. Even HDR's in that case can be done handheld (of course there are other factors that affect that possibility), but with today's picture, a tripod was absolutely necessary. First of all, because the light really was quite low and any handheld shots would have been unsharp and potentially blurry, and secondly, because HDR was essential in this case, to capture all the light and tones of the landscape. So after experimenting with a few different compositions, apertures and ISO's, this is final image I think worked best on all fronts. I think this picture works in black & white as well, but I will perhaps save that one for another day.

Coming up on Sunday: I put my wildlife photographer hat back on, with a picture of a Grass Snake pictured at Cuckmere Haven near Eastbourne last weekend!

The Return of HDR - The Land of Krzeszow

Most of the attention I have got for my photography (and that is a big IF I have got any attention) is still probably down to my HDR photos. It's still a relatively new field of photography, though it's roots go back decades. I had never heard of HDR photography until about 2 years ago, just a few months after I developed a passion for digital photography and I really wanted to learn the techniques to produce these artistic and 'different' photographs. It's been an interesting road to follow over the last couple of years, from initially thinking that most HDR photos worked because of the saturation to the already interesting processing, to the current trend which tends to favour a less saturated look (demonstrated very well by the some of the excellent recent photographs by Artie NG on Flickr). My output has tended to be less HDR in the last few months, as I'm back to wanting to capture images through natural photographic techniques, but I still want to be up there producing great HDR photos, and I know that is what drives a lot of other photographer bloggers out there as well.

Which brings me to today's picture, one I took whilst on my recent trip to Poland. This was taken from a small, rebuilt (it was literally just ruins a few years ago) chapel on top of a hill that overlooks the village of Krzeszow (pronounced c-shes-shov). The view you could see from this small church was amazing and I wanted to capture a kind of 'looking through the door' picture. The church you can see in the middle of the picture is the spectacular Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and yes this was the place I was married recently. That itself is not an easy building to photograph close up as it is literally so huge, but the pictures will be coming soon! I know this may have looked better had I not had features such as the ladder and the unhinged panels, but unfortunately I had no control over those things. I'm very glad to have got the picture though, as the light at the time I visited was on my side, and I would have regretted not getting the picture.