Winter Wonderlands

Saturday evening is here which means it's time for another blog from myself. I don't actually try to aim to post them on Saturday evening, but with things to do on Saturday, it's the first chance I get to post a blog.

As mentioned on Thursday, I have prepared some winter (or festive) pictures below, to celebrate the time of year. I stated that I had no new winter/christmas ones this year, which is true, but I'm quite inspired recently to try some Christmas Bokeh pictures, so might get one of them on this blog before Christmas.

A couple of the pictures below (Gainsborough Stud and red house winter picture) go wayyyyy back. Back as far as 2010 I believe, and though they may have appeared I think on Flickr, I don't believe they have appeared on one of my blogs. Further to that, the picture of Donnington Castle in the snow, I don't think I have posted anywhere at all. The Winchester Cathedral picture and The Winter Church have definitely appeared on here. So my last post before Christmas will be on Christmas Eve, but based on the possibilities of new pictures, I may post an additional blog as well.

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!