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

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

Cloisters of the Abbey

After all the excitement of Team GB's Athletics performance at the Olympics last night, I pushed back writing today's blog until this morning (normally I write it the day before), so that is the reason it is up perhaps a bit later than usual. Amongst all the Olympic hysteria currently engulfing Britain, I visited yesterday the village of Lacock in Wiltshire, in particular Lacock Abbey. The abbey is a fantastic place for a photographer to visit, not just because it's a great place to photograph but because of it's place in the history of photography. The owner of the abbey during the early part of the 19th century was William Henry Fox Talbot and he was enthusiastically into the recent development of photography. The earliest known photographic negative dates back to 1835, which was taken by Talbot at the abbey itself. Today, there is still much information and history about photography at the museum and when I visited yesterday, there was an exhibition of Michael Palin's travel photographer's work, of which contained some stunning images.

The abbey dates back to the year 1229 (I'm guessing that wasn't an Olympic year) and elements such as the cloisters pictured above have survived since around that time. There are quite a few HDR shots on the web of cloisters from various different abbeys and monasteries throughout the world, so I was excited to be able to get a picture of my own. Some pictures have a panoramic view of both sides of the central pillar and though I have taken pictures that could make up a panorama, I'm not too sure I will attempt it yet. Although it shows off fantastic technique, if the image isn't calling for it, then I wouldn't do it for the sake of it. In fact, these are great places to try out a few photographic techniques (not just HDR), so there will probably be quite a few pictures of Lacock springing up over the next few weeks.

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!

Wilton House

When I launched my 2nd photography blog last year, TheNightBoat.com (the first was the short-lived and appallingly named recordsofday.com), pictures of Wilton House were quite common from me, as I had only just visited there around that time. However, I never processed this picture, a portrait like HDR photo of the front of the house. This is indeed the first time Wilton House has appeared on this blog as well.

It's been so long in fact since I posted a picture of Wilton House, that I can barely remember anything about it! So rather than go into various different internet sources now, I will just say that it is indeed a spectacular country house near Salisbury in Wiltshire, surrounded by some spectacular scenery and gardens. Unlike when I visited Hever Castle a couple of months ago, Wilton House was not visited on a sunny day. In terms of HDR, that's not too bad as clouds can be much more interesting than a plain blue sky.

As I said, this is an HDR from the fairly standard 3 different exposures and processed in Lightroom, Photomatix, Photoshop and Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

Just a gentle reminder, why not have a look at my new website HalewoodPhoto.com!

HalewoodPhoto.com Launch

Yes here it is, the announcement I promised last weekend, my brand new official website. Finding a website package for displaying my photography has been as challenging as finding great photo opportunities themselves. Some of you may know that as well as this blog, I do have another photography website petehalewood.com and though I have previously termed that my 'official website', I have now decided that all my efforts will now go into HalewoodPhoto.com, which I feel is the website I've been wanting to create for all these months. I built it using the Squarespace.com service, which I wholeheartedly recommend to other photographers, and though I don't want to turn this into a commercial for them, they have provided all the tools I have wanted to create a photography website. It integrates beautifully with this blog page (something my petehalewood.com site couldn't do) and I am very excited to move forward with my photography with both my new official website and this blog.

So what's unique about this new website? Well, I figure that people come to a photographer's website mainly to look at photo's, so that's what the essence of HalewoodPhoto.com is. On the home page are the 7 galleries that make up the pictures collection. These 7 galleries are all in different sub-genres of photography and reflect my best work in these fields. I will attempt to upload new pictures as often as possible but the essence of these galleries will always be my very best photos. If people like the photos so much they want to purchase them, there is a link to my RedBubble page, though I do need to complete adding all the photos at my RedBubble page at the moment. There is also a Latest page, an About me page and also a page dedicated to videos of my photography. Of course, like any website there is also a Contact page. I have many planned additions for the website, so the website will simply grow from how it is at the moment.

I would really appreciate any feedback and comments regarding my HalewoodPhoto.com site, what you like or indeed don't like. I really would like to hear any good ideas and suggestions people have, so I can therefore implement new features and functions.

All that's left to say is why not take a look at it yourself, at www.halewoodphoto.com! Then leave a comment of what you think about it on this blog.

Creaky Steps to the Lake

There are many pictures like this on Flickr, the little pier going off into the lake and I was never sure whether to post this picture because of that. Most of the ones you see on Flickr are beautifully straight, wonderfully crafted piers but I was not blessed with one of those in this case. This is in south west Poland, a region I shall shortly be revisiting twice in the next couple of months, the second time of which to get married and though I have my priorities fully in order, it will also give me an opportunity to take D700 abroad and hopefully capture some great landscapes.

I did do a vertical portrait shot of this scene, as so many of these pictures are on Flickr, but I found it much more interesting with the boats and the landscape in. I feel it perhaps does make up for the unspectacular pier. Perhaps if my Photoshop skills were better, I could have straightened out the pier a bit more, but overall I'm happy with it. It was never going to be easy with the risk of making the boats look unbalanced on the water, which would have looked obvious. Anyway, not going to bang a drum about it but I have something new to show on Sunday, so if you have a spare couple of minutes, do come back then!

The Leaning Tower of Albert

Now I never assume I will get comments on a particular picture or what those comments will be but in today's case, I truly hope that nobody says to me that this picture isn't straight. It's not me, it's the tower! Not a likely phrase but this is the Albert Clock in Belfast and does indeed have a pronounced lean. The 'Albert' it refers to is Prince Albert, as in Queen Victoria's husband who had recently died, therefore this tower was erected as a tribute to his memory. I had to go quite far back through my RAW files to find a picture I wanted to post today but I'm surprised I never did post a picture of this tower, as it was always my intention once I returned from Belfast last September.

I mentioned on Sunday having a 'major announcement' coming soon and I just want to state that I did not mean that as a shallow PR trick to get people coming back to this site. I'm not good at that stuff anyway and I know how annoying it is when websites go on about a big announcement in the near future, only to find out the announcement was completely underwhelming and of only real value to the person announcing it. So just to clarify and be specific, I will definitely have something to announce this upcoming Sunday, it's not life-changing but hopefully you will enjoy it and it won't cost you anything! I was hoping to have it ready by today but that was optimistic and saying this Sunday gives me plenty of time to finish the preparations.

Highclere Castle

One from the archives today. I'm a little concerned that one day I'm going to post one of these 'classic' shots that has already been posted but hopefully that won't happen. I did just have to check I hadn't posted this one before as I have posted pictures of Highclere Castle already (from my Downton Abbey weekend) but this was my first and most successful picture of the building. I think it is still my second most popular picture on Flickr and this is perhaps a lot to do with Downton Abbey. I think it is a good picture in it's own right though, without all the attention from the Downton Abbey bloggers and I remember being pleased with this as a landscape shot at the time.

I have spoken before about re-processing a picture many months after originally processing it and though I think it can be beneficial, it's not something I will be doing any more of. Unless there are serious flaws with the original or there are techniques you really did not know of at the time, it is unlikely you will improve a picture. I say this because I recently decided I was going to reprocess one of my civil war battle pictures but after spending quite a while on it, realised that it is far away from my original picture and not nearly as good. I trust my original intentions of a picture when I first process it and intend to stick with that original vision now. Today's picture for instance, if I was to change anything, it would be the rather unsubtle vignetting but I accept that for whatever reason, that was how I intended the picture to look at time and what I thought was best then and therefore I'm happy to stick with how I saw it.

It looks like the weather might be turning for the better in England (just in time for the Olympics!) and so I will probably be out and about with my camera more. All that's left to say is I have a major announcement coming soon as well!

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.