Corporation Games

Location and interior design photography is something I have spoken about quite recently, and the picture above is another example of how I feel HDR techniques are the way forward for quality location photography. The company Stryker is a pharmaceutical company based in my hometown of Newbury, Berkshire, and though this was a personal photo (not a commission), I have tried to capture their building at a fantastic hour, to give it a very striking (apologies, the pun wasn't originally intended but I decided to leave it in) look.

Of course, at this time of day, you can 'get the shot' without HDR, but I believe the bracketing and HDR processing, gives the image the unique and artistic look, that digital photography has allowed to evolve.

I used to think that any photographer who has been practising the art for over 10 years was probably against HDR processing. It just seems that they are always convinced HDR is not necessary, and want to prove why a single image with lighting is better. However, they don't all think like this. I have been reading a book called 'Architectural Photography' by a fantastic photographer called Norman McGrath, who has been a commercial architectural photographer since the 1960's. I was delighted to read in his section on using HDR techniques:

"I believe that the evolution of this system [HDR], which is a collaboration between camera and software, is the single most important element since the advent of digital photography".

Wise and inspiring words indeed.

We've Been Expecting You

I've spoken recently about interior design HDR photography and stating that if I was to make a career out of photography, this is the field I would most likely go in. Well I have been making strides towards this, and have been building up my portfolio for the website that will contain my interior design work, which is HalewoodPhoto.com.

I contacted the Halfway bar and restaurant in...(I would like to say either Newbury or Hungerford, but as it is halfway between them, hence it's name, I cannot say exactly where it is. I believe it is also the halfway point between London and Bristol) to see if I could come down and take some free pictures of their establishment, of course for their benefit but also to build up my portfolio. Suffice to say they were very kind people, and let me pop over for an before opening one Sunday so I could could take as many shots as possible. They were very welcoming to me on the day as well. I haven't given them the complete finished results yet, but today I have included 4 pictures from this 'shoot' within this blog post.

When I launch my interior design business, I want to focus on the interior side of the business, because these are not so much affected by the weather outside. I am absolutely sure that shooting exteriors will come into the package, as you can see in the final photo below, but I don't want this to be the main selling point of the business.

I'm marketing myself as an HDR interior design photographer, but whether or not I heavily emphasise the HDR aspect, I am not sure is important. All the photographs today are HDR's from at least 4 exposures, but heavily layer-masked, so that they bring the reality back to the picture, without losing the dynamic range and detail of a tone-mapped HDR picture. Whilst non-photographers love HDR pictures, I don't think many hotels or restaurants want over-cooked (ba-dum tish!) HDR images, that lose the reality of their establishments. Whilst you know I think there is a place for hyper-real HDR's, I don't think the websites of businesses is one of them.

I hope you like the pictures today, any feedback is welcome! I will speak more about my ambitions in the interior design world over the next weeks, but right now am off to check out one of the latest updates to Photoshop CC - the perspective warp. Sounds intriguing!

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.....

Building a Newbury Sunset

Now I had to check I hadn't posted this photo on this blog before but it turns out I haven't. You may recognise this picture, I have had it on other websites such as Smugmug and Flickr for nearly 2 years now, but looking different. You see I have given this photo the remastered process recently, as I have done a few other pictures.

I have probably discussed on this site more than any other topic, the idea of re-processing a photograph. I have traditionally been against it, but I think (as I stated on The Swan Hotel, Bibury post) that if you have pictures that were taken on a tripod, no matter at what stage of your development as a photographer, you should be able to go back reprocess and improve it. I say 'that were taken on a tripod' because these pictures will normally be the ones that are sharp, with no blur, whether you were a great photographer then or not. And when I took this picture in May 2011 I was not a great photographer, but I did take pictures like this on a tripod, giving me great opportunity years later to revisit it.

I believe I have improved it over my original (sharper, less 'irrelevant' detail, brighter, straighter!) and reprocessing old photos this way will help you realise how far you have come as a photographer. I always liked my title for this picture, and being as the cranes in the photo were only a temporary feature, it means that the photo is unlikely to be able to be taken as it is again. My favourite kind of photo!

The Winter Church

March is not the time of year I expect to be posting winter pictures full of snow, but then the English weather is not providing me many other opportunities at the moment. I take solace in the fact that I know the rest of Europe is pretty much plunged in winter still as well, at a time when most of us are hoping to see some spring. Such is life though, the weather is certainly something we cannot influence or change, so there is no point focusing on it that much.

Having grovelled a little there, I am secretly a bit thankful as well, as the snow allowed me to go up to the village I grew up in, Woolton Hill in North Hampshire, to take some pictures of the village church, or more specifically St. Thomas' Church. I don't normally have this opportunity during the week, so did not waste the opportunity presented on this Saturday morning.

Churches and Cathedrals I find are some of the hardest buildings to photograph. This is usually due to the fact that they are massive structures in sometimes small grounds, meaning that getting the whole church in the frame is a real challenge. For the angle I chose here, I had to (carefully) walk through the graveyard to set up in the corner of the grounds. The bonus of setting up there as well is that I was under some tress, which kept me and my camera fairly dry as I took pictures (as you can tell from the picture the snow was still coming down fast). This was not possible at other angles I took.

This is an HDR picture taken from 5 different exposures. There was a lot of work and time put into this picture, mainly in photoshop to rid it of ghostly artefacts (no pun intended there), clone out some bins and do general clean up work.

Down at the Marina

Taking a slightly longer break from blogging than I perhaps thought I would, I have returned refreshed and eager to post pictures once more. It was definitely the right choice to switch my blogging habits from 3 set days a week to posting when I'm inspired. The last few days I have been able to work on these pictures with no hinderance on time and have got back the feeling of joy to post pictures again, rather than the chore it can become when you set yourself a weekly quota. This was all about the quality returning to my pictures and hopefully I will achieve that.

So what is 'Down at the Marina' all about? Well I was delighted recently to be commissioned to take photos for the upcoming website of Newbury Marina. I don't know much about Marinas, but I was surprised when I went down there that I had never heard of this place before. It is a well run set up, with all the facilities canal barges, boats and of course the people that live on them need. They are about to launch their official website and came to me to take pictures having seen some of my Canal pictures of Newbury and the surrounding area on the internet.

Being commissioned to to take photos for a certain company or institution is something I know not all photographers are interested in, but I think it's fantastic and I am very grateful for the opportunities. Having not heard of it as I said, I may never have gone down to the Marina to take pictures, and there I was having an absolute blast, finding it immensely enjoyable trying to find further ideas for pictures and taking them. I've been down there on 2 separate occasions; the first couple of pictures from last weekend when it was chilly but yet had a soft muted light, which made metering and finding the right exposure fairly simple, and the third picture was taken a couple of weeks ago when there was some lovely sunshine. In between these 2 weeks was a hell of a lot of 'drizzle' (British people will know what I mean), which is not the best set of circumstances for photography.

The pictures you see on this blog today are all HDR's, something although not unique to me, I certainly feel gives me an edge for corporate and commissioned photography, and I encourage all other HDR photographers to let people know their services are out there. Most of the pictures I provide to Newbury Marina will be non-HDR's, though taking away the artistic aspect of HDR, it was still necessary to employ for some of the pictures, especially ones from inside a canal boat looking out. It helped capture the complete light range of these kind of images.

I'm still finishing my work ready to hand over to Newbury Marina, but I certainly hope to post some more in the near future. I said to them I would use only landscape pictures for my blog for now, but will link to their website when it is up and running, so you can see more of the interior canal barge pictures. As I said, this has been a great experience and has certainly made me take great care over my HDR's, something that has helped me get back to the early days of posting pictures, when I hadn't set myself a weekly quota and when it was genuinely exciting to post pictures I was delighted with.

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.

The Spirit of Autumn

Returning to Poland was the plan for today's blog, but instead we have what is called a change at the 11th hour. Yesterday was one of the most magical 'golden hours' I have ever known, no exaggeration. My new wife and I were coming back from shopping (and who said marriage wouldn't be fun!) when we drove past this church and were both in awe of how great the scenery, coupled with the autumn sunset was. This wasn't a normal sunset though. And this is why photography is special. Because however was the position of the clouds and the sun, it cooked up a strange colour in the sky, a shade of blue that I have never seen in the sky before, mixed with a golden yellow glow. So upon seeing this I had a dilemma. I'm 3 minutes from home, I have no camera with me and I know these moments don't just hang around. My first naive thought was to remind myself to come back to this location same time tomorrow, but of course it doesn't work like that. I've mentioned it before, but Ian Cameron's book 'Transient Light' is all about this. The special kind of light that sometimes occurs that is both unique and rare. You can't just expect it to come again tomorrow, you're lucky if it lasts 10 minutes.

So I decided to race drive carefully home, pick up my camera, and return to the scene, whilst hoping the light still remains. I had more than 1 option as well. Driving further down the road presented a circus that was in town, which would have also been a great subject and was nearer to my new apartment. Having picked up my camera, I began driving back towards the church. Being very aware that this light was not going to last much longer, I decided to drive past the circus and keep going towards the church. The idea of the circus was good, but when I remembered how the church scene looked, I knew it was that or nothing. I got there as the light was still fading and whilst fumbling about with settings in the rush that I was in, managed to fire off a few bracketed shots, of which the HDR scene you see above is the best result I got.

This is St. Mary's church in Thatcham. It is not the same St. Mary's church in Newbury I pictured a couple of months ago at sunset, and I was quite disappointed to learn that the 2 churches, whilst being fairly close to each other, had the same name. But oh well there you go, this one I'm led to believe goes much further back in history, as far back in fact as the Norman times. I should pop down more often actually, it's a great location and only about 3 minutes away. Proof again that you don't have to travel far for photographic inspiration.

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!

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!

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.

Winterbourne Church

Yesterday I had some spare time on my hands, so I decided that as the evening sky was looking quite promising, I would just go out in my car and see what I could find. In fact, a lot of my photography is achieved that way. Yes I do have day trips planned now and then, but by and large a lot of my photography (especially this year) is done by just deciding I will go out and find something to capture.

I took some pictures around central Newbury, which I know I have covered quite a lot but it's not so much the locations I am interested in anymore, rather than the scene I come across at one particular time. I used to think great photography meant travelling far to capture great scenes but I know now that isn't true. I've seen many great pictures that could have been taken absolutely anywhere, such was the scene captured rather than the location. The sky was looking increasingly dramatic, so I decided to venture out of a Newbury a bit to find a great vantage point to capture the setting sun amongst the sky. I stumbled across the village of Winterbourne, which I have only been to once before (great pub restaurant there!). I saw some signs that lead to the church that was a little bit out of the village and felt that might be an interesting place. It was a nice if perhaps not perfect location, so I took the opportunity to take various pictures while around this church and found this picture to be one of the better results.

I have talked quite a bit recently about my new D700 but one thing that is a massive advantage to me with this camera, is being able to keep lots of detail in the picture, without having to add too much noise reduction. On single photos, even in lowlight conditions, the noise is hardly noticeable, but as you add exposures together for an HDR it becomes a little bit noticeable. Tackling this with some noise reduction kit (Topaz Denoise is my preferred choice) does not affect detail of the picture though, barely at all. This was not the case with my D90.

Victoria's Lions

Having struggled a couple of months ago to find new pictures for this blog, I now find myself with a fair few new pictures to choose from. Unlike the intention of this blog, most pictures that will be posted in the near future will all mainly be from the UK. I stated this at the start of the year, when I let it be known that due to a house move and getting married in September, foreign travel this year was going to be difficult. I am visiting Poland twice in the next 4 months (once to get married), so that will provide more opportunities for 'global' pictures and if I am lucky, I plan to visit 2 more countries by the end of the year as well, but we will see how things go.

Today's picture is another one I took while out looking for Diamond Jubilee pictures to capture around Newbury last week. I have lived in the Newbury area (with a few years in-between living in Cheltenham) for the best part of 27 years and have never come across this statue in a local park before. That's rather embarrassing as the park is called Victoria Park but I never realised there was a statue of Queen Victoria within it. At least it proves there are still gems to be found near your local area if you look hard enough (or open your eyes at all in my case). This is another HDR picture taken from 5 exposures on my new Nikon D700. I added a tiny bit of Topaz Adjust to the statues and used the glamour glow (very slightly) and cross balance filters in Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

The Circus is in Town

My first HDR to have been created using my D700, this was another picture taken amongst the Jubilee celebrations last weekend. I stated on Tuesday that Newbury didn't seem to offer much in terms of Jubilee celebrations but there was a circus that rolled into town for the long weekend. I recently had a discussion regarding art with a lady during which I stated that 99% of all the photographs I take are not pre-visioned in my head. There have been some in the past such as my Building a Newbury Sunset that I already had a pre-conceived idea about, weeks before I took it. But that is rare. Most of the time I turn up to locations and events to get inspired by what is around me and let the ideas crop up in my head then. This circus box office wagon is an example of an idea that gripped hold of me once I spotted it. Having noticed there was a circus in the area (the noise from the rehearsals attracted me), I wanted to find a good photographic opportunity to capture the uniqueness of the circus. Most of the area was for the time-being closed off but obviously the ticket sales wagon wasn't and after the punters had stopped buying tickets for a moment or two, I simply took some snaps of this fantastic box office.

On an artistic note, I deliberately decided to keep the noise of the sky in the picture, though at the same time softening it. I don't normally go for a really gritty look in Photomatix but because of the rain that was coming down at the time, it worked so much more for this picture than a clean look. Keeping the noise in kept the picture consistent on all levels.

A final note; my new D700 doesn't take pictures like my D90 does in 2 stops intervals (if you want it to) but only does them 1 stop at a time. Therefore, to get the usual -2 to +2 range, I have to shoot 5 exposuress but thats ok because it gives me more pictures and therefore options to play with in post-processing. So this is an HDR from 5 different bracketed shots.

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.