Dark Days at Lacock Abbey

Another Sunday evening post, as opposed to a morning blog post. Been very busy today, but would not fail to blog on Sunday as standard. It was a very tough choice for a picture to post today. I feel like I am moving on a bit now from the recent batch of Poland and Eastbourne pictures, and now looking for new subjects. I decided to go back a few months to when I visited Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire.

I processed today's picture nearly 4 months and honestly never imagined I would publish it online. It was intended as an artistic experiment really, because I don't believe I have ever (actually I think I have once before) used the 'Burnt Sienna' filter in Nik Color Efex Pro. It is a very unique filter and I imagine would only be used with a very specific type of image. I don't necessarily know what that type is, but nonetheless I took a photo of the front of the abbey, put it through the Burnt Sienna filter, played around with the sliders, and then worked on the picture even more in Lightroom. Having been looking at some of the pictures in my digital collection, my wife and my brother both said they liked this picture, so then I began to get curious what other people may think about it.

It was intended as a rather dark picture (despite the fact it was actually quite bright that day), and while I was processing it, I had the idea of naming it something related to Dante's book (from The Divine Comedy) Inferno. I thought this was unfair however, because A) I have never read Inferno (it's on the reading list) and B) I didn't think it was fair to label a religious building with a connotation of Hell. It has that artistic 'look' that I often try to get from my pictures though, and it has definitely grown on me over the months.

It's Summer so Let's Play!

Well I hope the weather in England, indeed wherever you are, is fantastic today because it's less than a week now until the end of August and the beginning of autumn. Not that autumn isn't a great time for the photographer, indeed some rate it as the best season. As I said on Thursday, I am currently in Poland this weekend, returning tomorrow. In fact, I'm writing this on Wednesday, so it wasn't really said on Thursday at all. This has gone all Back to the Future, so I'll quit while I'm ahead.

This another picture I took within the grounds of Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire. No one including myself can resist picking up a Croquet mallet, should it be lying on the ground waiting to be played, and indeed it is what I did after I took this picture. Croquet is such a uniquely summer game, that it seems a shame looking at it now, knowing that the on/off (mainly off) summer we had in England is shortly to be gone. Oh well, here's to what's left of the summer, hope you had a great one!

Finding Salvation

Ever since my blog a few weeks ago about where I want to go with my photography, I've been thinking about going in directions I never thought I would. Since I bought my D700 with a F2.8 24-70mm lens a couple of months ago, it dawned on me that having these 2 bits of equipment means I can become a Nikon registered professional user. I finally did my registration yesterday and am glad to say I am now a professional user but becoming this intrigued me a little. I've spent so much money on my photography (haven't we all!?) and now have professional equipment. Isn't time I started to make some money back? Even just a little? I have always wanted to be good and successful at photography doing what I pretty much have been doing, taking architectural and landscape shots, whilst being creative with them at the image processing stage. I'm in my thirties now and don't live in dreamland (my fiancé will disagree with me on that one), I know that relying solely on this approach could take years to recoup any substantial benefit, though I have sold a few pictures at exhibitions and local shops. But I am drawn now to want to make money from ways I never thought I would such as weddings and events. The idea of wedding photography never really did it for me, but having seen some stunning wedding photography out there (and I particularly recommend Catherine Hall's website catherinehall.net) I really feel that I am starting to get inspired by it. I have taken a few wedding pictures in the past (see my facebook page) but having also seen some local examples of what people pay for, I simply feel that I could offer a lot more. Just thoughts I've been having anyway, I'd be a very happy person to get paid for taking pictures.

Today's picture is another one of mine from Lacock Abbey that I visited last weekend. Having just mentioned getting my D700 recently, I have also learnt with this that I can't really get away with shots that I used to. For instance, I used to do a lot of handheld HDR (often because I would be out with other people and would not want to annoy them or slow everyone down) but with the lack of Vibration Reduction (VR) on the ridiculously expensive lens I bought and the weight of it all now, I can't really get away with doing handheld HDR anymore. The more exposed images simply come out a tad too shaky, which makes the HDR difficult to look sharp. Therefore, I think more single shot images like this one will come out of my Lacock Abbey collection rather than HDR's. The D700 I think will certainly make me a better photographer, as it won't let you take shortcuts to getting a good picture as I probably have in the past with the lighter weight equipment. I am looking at going on some photography courses as well soon, because apart from reading books, it's probably about time I took it seriously and learnt some proper photography!

Photo details: f/4.5, 0.001s, 32mm, ISO 200