Time to Go Hard or Go Home

Perhaps it is a little lame to reference a Black Eyed Peas song on this blog, but that sentiment matches how I feel. After a few months of indecision and uncertainty, I have a new plan with my photography to keep me busy and focused.

After only a few posts, I have decided to revert from my decision to use borders. It may seem to make my words a few weeks ago a little hollow, but after using the borders a few times now, I just don't think I like it as much as the pictures without the distractions, such as borders and watermarks. Having blogged recently about my experience of having my work copied and uncredited to myself, I know this new direction of the borderless pictures again opens me up to internet image theft, but I've decided I'm prepared to take that risk now.

The only thing I ever needed was a copyright to put with the pictures. Most top photographers have this, and it ensures that you can blog and post your pictures away, knowing that if anyone was to make any commercial gain from your pictures, you can take action. I am  now registering all my photographs with the UK copyright service. This makes me much more secure about posting them online. Yes some people will still claim pictures as their own, but they could not gain much from it, as eventually they would be found out. I do not say this out of anger, it gives me a great sense of freedom now to post pictures without worrying what someone else might be doing with them.

More importantly though, I need to have a direction to take my photography in general, and as I said in my blog 'Coming Back to what I Know' the focus will continue to be HDR photography. It is simply the type of photography I enjoy creating and I want to find my way into some of the most amazing places in the UK and abroad, to fulfil my love of HDR photography. It's not lost on me that my output this year has in general been quite low, and I'm trying to ask myself why as well.

One of the reasons I think is because posting pictures online seems to be such hard work. There seems like a new social media website to become apart of every week and it is demotivating to decide which images to post on which side, and to follow that up with all the writing that goes with it. I have written on Twitter recently how I dislike the new looks to both Flickr and Google+ and I stick by that. I never had that much of a problem with Flickr in the first place (contrary to popular opinion) but now I find the changes unfocused and an eyesore. There is simply too much going on now when you view Flickr or Google+ and I have no desire to post on these sites.

Therefore, it may surprise you to learn that I am going to focus now on Facebook, where my following is only currently 44 people. The reason I want to focus on Facebook now though, is because the image quality of the photos you present online has vast improved and of course on Facebook is where you will find not only the biggest social media audience, but also my intended audience, non-photographers. I say that because although of course I love discussing photography with my photography friends, I love the reaction non-photographers have to new digital art forms such as HDR, they just really seem to love it. And of course you don't get the cynical anti-HDR attitudes as you do on specialist photography sites.

I have decided for the time being that I am going to post a daily photo everyday on Facebook. Now most of these will have been pictures I have already posted over the last 3 years, but again, the aim is to keep me busy in the photographic media world while also working on new images. If you want to visit my Facebook Photography click the link HERE. You will find another new picture there today!

I will continue with Twitter, and occasionally Google+, simply because despite my grievances, it seems that it is continuing to grow in popularity. I have finished with Flickr though and other social media sites.

So the final part is my own websites......where does that leave them? I have been searching for the answer to a great photographic website this year and continue to be unsure. You may know that as well as this blog, I have 2 photographic websites, HalewoodPhoto and HalewoodPhotographic. With money tight these days, I find now that I cannot afford to keep both, so have to pick a website to go with. I love the functionality I have with HalewoodPhoto (built using SquareSpace), and though I have stated this as my official site for a long time now, there is a reason I am verging to switch focus to HalewoodPhotographic, and that is simply image quality. On the smugmug based HalewoodPhotographic site, the images simply look better then on any other platform you can find on the internet. Now don't get me wrong, I am not a fan of how to create a website using smugmug and it is this difficulty for non-IT literate people that has kept me from focusing on it. But again, the quality of the images speak for themselves, and I am going to try and push through my difficulties with smugmug and make a permanent home out of HalewoodPhotographic. Watch this space anyway, the final decision is still to be made.

That leaves this blog. After thinking about abandoning it, I have decided this will remain my blogging home for now. I won't be posting here everyday like on facebook, but I will post new blogs on here for discussions and new pictures.

The picture below is an HDR picture I took at West Woodhay House in Berkshire (I think) recently. Last weekend it was the West Woodhay House Garden Show, and though I do not know much about the history of the house, I knew it would be a good opportunity to venture down there with my wife and take some pictures of the wonderful landscape there.

Summer by the River

Well it couldn't last really could it? We had a fairly nice spell of weather in England recently (and hey I'm an optimist but I don't think it was quite as nice as everyone makes out, still I don't complain) and sure enough just as we thought we may get a summer this year, it leaves us again. Enough of the cynicism anyway, I'm sure there is plenty of nice weather to come.

It's one of my missions this summer to capture the British countryside in the summer weather, and while that may seem ambitious, I am a sucker for a photograph of a beautiful sunny day. Such as this scene I pictured recently within the grounds of the Newbury Manor Hotel. The river that runs through it is the River Kennet, and a drink to be had alongside this river on a sunny day is not to be missed.

This is a 5 shot HDR picture, crafted in the fairly typical, Lightroom, Photomatox, Photosho process, though like most of my pictures have these days, there is a subtle touch of Topaz Adjust in there as well.

Away From the Rainbow

This may seem like a pretty obvious and easy picture, and being as I walked about 10 steps out the front door, it's not an unfair thing to assume. But rainbows are fleeting things, and knowing this probably would have gone in 2 minutes, I was not going to jump in my car and try to find a more inspiring landscape. I just wanted a picture of that rainbow!

I do need to get out more though. Not been out much taking pictures, not through lack of motivation, just need the time to find a new inspiring location. I want take lots of pictures of the British countryside over the summer time, give them the HDR/arty look, and see how good they are. I have other plans as well, but hopefully you will see some of that soon...

This is an HDR picture taken from 4 different exposures, and layer masked using the original RAW files, hence the car is not ghosted (people often ask me how it is possible to have an HDR picture with moving cars and such, and it's really not that hard). Some more new pictures coming soon.....

Red Sky at Night

Returning closer to home now, this church maybe familiar to some people who visit this blog. I posted a previous picture of this church nearly 3 months ago. It is St. Mary's Church in Newbury, only about 5 minutes from where I live. Sometimes I think I shouldn't post a similar picture from the same location, but I think it's ok to have more than 1 picture from the same location and time. It's right that photographers should try different perspectives when photographing a scene, and to be honest I think I prefer this picture than the original one I posted. It gives a wider view of the scene surrounding the church but also covers more of the red clouds than the previous version.

It is a 5 shot HDR, processed in Lightroom, Photomatix, Photoshop and also in Nik Color Efex Pro, my favourite plugin in Lightroom/Photoshop.

Mary's Church

Yes I know, the title should really be St. Mary's Church but I thought that was a bit boring and obvious. But this is indeed St. Mary's Church in Shaw, Newbury. In fact, next door is the historically famous Shaw House, the scene of the 2nd Battle of Newbury, one of the turning points of the English Civil War. I took this picture on Tuesday night, when we had a spectacular sunset in the sky (if you know of anywhere else we have them, then please let me know...). I wasn't planning on going out and taking pictures but the light was too good to resist, so made my way towards Shaw House, hoping to capture it in some evening light. Shaw House turned out to be fairly shielded from the best sky, so I had a look at the church next door to see if that would work and voila! It is actually the first original HDR I have posted since the beginning of August, so hope you have all enjoyed the standard shots and discussions since then!

I am in fact travelling to Poland today for the weekend, so might not be able to visit blogs or comment on comments on here. But, henceforth I shall return (he says like some kind of medieval war hero) on Monday, ready to engage with you all again!

The Face

Today's picture is one I took last Friday night of this piece of artwork that I believe has recently been erected outside a block of residential homes in Newbury. I have no idea who it is by or what it is called but is one of two heads that face each other (the other one is made of different material and much less remarkable). Even a local resident who was walking by with her dog was asking if I knew anything about this piece of art, as there is not even a mention of who created it, which she found very disappointing. Maybe we will find out more about it in the near future but I knew I had to take a picture of it when I was driving past this area a couple of weeks, having not seen it myself before. 'The Face' as I have called it gives out a very striking appearance when viewed from all kinds of angles. It is a fantastic piece of art.

This is almost entirely a single exposure, processed in Lightroom (beginning with the Yesteryear preset). I did however create a separate HDR version, processed it in the same way in Lightroom, and then blended very lightly, some of the HDR aspects onto the face in Photoshop. This helped it look like the face that it is, rather than just a dark silhouette of bolts against the sky.

Photo details: F/8, 0.1s, 26mm, ISO 200

Pub Humour

For the second time in about a month, the good old British pub is the subject of this blog. Though at least with this one (as opposed to my King Charles Tavern post a few weeks back), I managed to couple it with an interesting sky. This scene is across the road from The Five Bells pub (out of the picture to the right) which is towards the north of Newbury. I took this picture while out driving the other night, looking for interesting subjects to capture and like many pictures I take that involve roads, there were a few people checking I wasn't a speed camera trap! As if the Police would be so obvious standing by the road with a huge camera and a tripod!

This may not be the funniest pub board anyone has seen but I still felt it made the picture fairly interesting, coupled with the road and the sky. There is a pub called The Halfway Inn between Newbury and Hungerford that used to be renowned for humorous pub boards. The Halfway Inn sits along the busy A4 road and the pub were always trying to tempt people in with boards that read along the lines off 'special offer tonight' or 'check out our new menu' when one day I think they had had enough and simply wrote 'Does anyone even notice this board?'. That then began a year of daily witty writings on that board, my favourite of which was written the day after England got knocked out of the Euro 2004 tournament which simply said 'Plasma TV for sale'.

This is apparently my 100th blog post today and though I would have reached that milestone a lot quicker if I had had a daily blog like last year, I feel much happier with this blog and can safely say it won't be going anywhere soon!

Time for a Clean

Now I know very well that one of the last places you would expect to find a photographer looking for inspiration is within a sewage works plant but that is exactly where this picture was taken. It's actually looking into the sewage works (in Thatcham) as I had managed to fit my camera through the fence. Even I would not really want to wander that far into this location because you can smell it from miles away as it is. Sometimes I don't know what draws me to a particular scene such as this one. I used to naively think that photography was about all about capturing beauty in all it's forms and though that certainly is a big motivator for many photographers (including myself), what about capturing something ugly, derelict or even disturbing? That's what motivates many other photographers as well and I think I am quite attracted to the derelict or abandonment of some places. Although I'm not suggesting this cleaning facility (I think it is anyway) at the sewage plant is unused, it hardly looks like it is well looked after either.

I've mentioned before a book that really inspired me with my HDR photography and that is Practical HDR by David Nightingale. Some of the urban and derelict scenes he captured in that book have definitely influenced me with some of my photography and I think that is why I am attracted to capture pictures such as this.

Olympic Fever

Oh yes, the Olympic show is coming to town and within a month, London will be swarmed with people from all over the world coming to enjoy the year's biggest sporting event (not counting the Royal Rumble). I personally can't wait to welcome all the different corners of the world to the UK, because you will all have to suffer our dismal weather along with us! Yes finally the world has to endure a UK summer as well! Of course I'm not really being that pessimistic about it, I'm very much looking forward to the games and indeed hope it is a tremendous success. 

On it's merry way to the capital is the Olympic torch itself and yesterday made it's through my neck of the woods, Newbury, and in fact even went passed the offices where I work. So we were all released from our cuffs and allowed to enjoy the Olympic torch passing us for 15 minutes or so. I did not want to waste the opportunity of seeing the Olympic flame, so took my camera along and took a few snaps. I could probably add a few more but don't want to bombard this blog with too many pictures, but still, I hope you enjoy these ones, they are the best of what I got.

An HDR snap for you all

The crowd want to savour the moment as well

Onto London (via many other places first)

The King Charles Tavern

The great British pub.....A national institution up there with fish & chips in terms of essential British culture. Ok, there are many other things such as the royal family and getting over excited about our sporting potential that also define the British, but pubs are clearly important. I must confess, though I will never be a tee-totaller, I rarely find myself in one of these nowadays. I don't know if it's settling down or being fed up waking up completely unmotivated but I just prefer not to drink these days. I hope I don't sound too boring by those comments, as I said, I would never be a tee-totaller, I enjoy going for a drink like most people, it's just I enjoy it so much more when there's a real reason such as a celebration or people you haven't seen in a long time. I'm not a beer man either, my tipple is anything vodka-based because A) I like drinks with flavour, B) I can pretend I'm James Bond for a short time and C) it helps me get along fantastically well with the Polish when I visit there!

This pub is the King Charles Tavern, commonly known as the KC in Newbury. Tavern is a word used many hundreds of years before the word 'pub' (short for public house for the non-British) was invented. This HDR shot was taken from 4 different exposures and processed in Lightroom, Photomatix, Photoshop, Topaz Adjust, Viveza 2 and Nik Color Efex Pro, which I now realise was quite a lot of them.

Before I forget, hope you like the new look! More updates to come in the very near future!

Robin Hood's Roundabout

The name will probably be unfamiliar to anyone outside the Newbury area but this is indeed the Robin Hood Roundabout, probably the biggest (certainly the busiest!) roundabout in the Newbury area. You wouldn't think it was that busy looking at this picture but it was taken on a Saturday evening. In the mornings, this place resembles an angry mob of cars trying to make their way past the many traffic lights and confusing lane changes that make up this roundabout. The name 'Robin Hood' comes from a pub that used to be present on one side of the roundabout, though it hasn't been named that for many years now. I think it's a Toby Carvery place now.

The artwork you see on the roundabout by the way is a metal sculpture called 'Couple in Conversation' which has been up for the last 5 years or so. I'm not sure why they stuck it on there, perhaps it was to commemorate something (but if you thought I cared enough to look, well sadly you'd be wrong!).

It is an HDR image taken from 4 different images. The tone-mapping as usual was done in Photomatix, layer-masking, aligning, noise reduction and sharpening was then carried out in Photoshop and lastly the final look including minor tweeks was achieved in Lightroom.

Guided by the Light

On Sunday I stated that location was becoming far less important to me with my photography these days than the scene itself, wherever that may be. Now it is partly out of circumstance that I have to think like that, because I have not been abroad this year and probably won't be until later in the summer, but at the same time I am driven by a belief that great photography (which is what I'm aiming for) can be achieved by using a little imagination in your back garden (metaphorically....or not). Today's picture was one I took while out on my lonesome on Saturday evening in Newbury and of course did not plan a shot like this. I stumbled across it while walking around looking for inspiration.

Although the sunburst came out very well in this picture, it was actually the sun beams reflecting off the rail towards the bottom of the picture that gave me the spark to capture the scene. This is the kind of picture that is perfect for HDR because without bringing together all the exposures, there would be a lack of detail and colour in whatever areas you had decided to sacrifice for a normal photograph. I used 5 exposures as I tend to have to with my D700 and processed this one largely in Photoshop for a change (rather than Lightroom), though all final adjustments were made in Lightroom.

Like a Setting Sun

And now for something completely different! I always try and state emphatically when I post a non-HDR picture on here, that my goal in photography was never to be exclusive or predominantly HDR and the thought always still occupies my mind. A lot of people who get into photography these days do naturally find themselves gaining a particular passion for HDR, because it provides something new and interesting in the modern photographic world. I still think most people gain a passion for photography first and then develop an enthusiasm for HDR afterwards. My goal has always been to produce pictures that are somewhat artistic and HDR is obviously a great method for achieving that, but if I get the look by other means, then I'm still just as happy.

One of the advantages of having my D700 and the F2.8 lens is that it allows me to get reasonably close to a particular subject and create a great bokeh effect in the background. I took this picture while out rambling along the hills of Combe in Berkshire, mainly famous for the gallows that once stood there. It's a fantastic place to get good sunsets and that was my aim on Monday night. The sunset itself was a bit hit and miss, there was a fantastic glow of red below the sun, but the mist and the clouds were too thick to get a stunning effect. Therefore, I tried something different. I always remember there being good opportunities to get close up to the wheat grass and use the sunlight to highlight the effect, as this early Flickr picture of mine shows. The sun wasn't that bright on Monday but I still tried to get some abstract shot of the glow of the sun in the background behind the moving wheat grass. What you see today is the result of that and this was processed entirely in Lightroom.

Mickey Mouse has Grown Up a Cow

Ok, so the title comes from a line in David Bowie's classic song Life on Mars? which I don't really understand but if anyone does then please let me know! There's no real hidden meaning of the title on this website, I just couldn't think of anything else to call it.

This was taken last week as I was chasing the sunset all over West Berkshire. I was hoping to come across a stretch of water such as a lake with the sun going down on the horizon but knew I wouldn't really find it. Having driven down so many endless country lanes, I came across an elderly couple watching these cows as the sun dipped down and as I drove past, my intuition said 'that's it!'. I turned the car round and parked somewhere off the road I probably shouldn't have and took quite a few bracketed shots of these cows in the field. Now I didn't use a tripod because it wouldn't stretch to where I wanted it to go anyway. I perched on a fence that quite luckily was right in front of 30mph sign and this gave me stability and a fairly steady hold as I took the shots.

It wasn't the easiest HDR to process because of the contrast in light between the foreground and background but I think the persistence has paid off. Layer masking certainly helped eradicate the movement of the cows between the different bracketed shots.

The Clock Tower

Not the famous one from Back to the Future unfortunately but the one that marks the end of the high street in Newbury, Berkshire. With the dreary weather we have had in England recently, this is one of only a few shots I have taken. I missed a potentially good shot by about 3 minutes the other day, while I was driving back to my new home in Thatcham. I crossed over one of the bridges that runs over the canal and there was a spectacular sunset sky reflected in the canal along with the silhouettes of the trees. I thought about pulling over right at that moment but suddenly remembered that despite having my camera with me, I didn't have a tripod, which would have been crucial to getting a good HDR. I quickly nipped back to the apartment to pick it up but when I returned a few moments afterwards, the moment had gone.

There are of course many lessons to be learned there but with my half glass full approach, the one that cheers me up in those situations is I think to myself 'It's better to have missed the shot, than not know it existed at all'. At least that way you can capture it another time.

The Wedding Party

A slight change for me today. I'm not a wedding photographer and despite encouragement from others, I never will be. It's just not for me. I have taken pictures at a couple of weddings I've been to but that is purely in the realms of art and creativity, not as a responsibility or service. The idea of being paid and therefore held responsible for capturing someone's special day is just not for me. Without being too modest, it's just in my nature to want to experiment with different ideas and pictures at the capture stage and in processing and I'm not sure this would be to everyone's liking. I recently took a few pictures at my friend David's wedding on Saturday and if you do want to see a few of those pictures, you can at my facebook page http://facebook.com/petehalewood. There's only a few there at the moment but there will more to come, perhaps even on this blog.

Today's picture was also taken on Saturday and is of the wedding party, once we were at the Elcot Park Hotel near Hungerford, where the reception was. The one thing this hotel does not lack is a beautiful view of the surrounding landscape, which I have tried to capture with this picture. It is a non-HDR shot and was processed entirely in Lightroom 4.

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!

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.

Newbury Twilight

                                                    It seems that it is often the case in a photographic blogger's journey that one has to plead busyness for his or her lack of activity or content. I have chosen to plead that case this week. I am in the middle of a very busy house move which is obviously (I hope you guys understand!?) taking up an enormous amount of my time (and money!). It is my fiancés and I first property together and we are currently buying and filling it with all kinds of furniture necessary. We are very excited about the move, though it is a bit of a drain on my creative energy. I still need to get round to fully writing up that Piccadilly blog from the other day but I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has kept coming to the blog site, I will have much more time to return the favour over the Easter weekend when most of the hard work with our place should be done.

Today's picture is more like my kind of work from last year but that does kind of make sense as it was pictured then. It was photographed the same night as one of my more successful pictures, Newbury Canal at Night. If I'm honest I would have liked to post something perhaps much more recent but as I stated earlier, time has just not made it easy. I used a couple of hours spare to process the Piccadilly picture on Saturday before heading to one of my mates Stag Do's in Southampton but other than that time has been spent purely on the property move. Until Thursday.....