A Second Bite Always Brings the Results

I have to admit to being a bit of a perfectionist.  Those that read my blog regular will know that I often call myself my own worst critic.

Just before Christmas, I posted some images of a river and waterfall that I had taken.  Although they were quite pleasing they weren't exactly what I was after.  In fact they were far from it.  As it happens fate would intervene and set me on the right track.

A good friend of mine lent me a copy of The River by Ted Hughes, one of my favourite poets.  Accompanying the poems was a series of photographs taken by Peter Keen.  The photographs in this book gave the impetus to return to the river and re-shoot and yeas, I came back with the shots I wanted.

 It's true that I re-shot some of the wider landscape images again.  This time I wanted a monochromatic image that brought out the movement of the water along with its texture and that of the rocks.  I also wanted something more abstract so I looked for patterns in the currents and so shot some images like the one at the top of this post.

With this image I wanted to process it so it had a sort of retro film feel to it.  The image itself was taken with a faster shutter speed so the water didn't go completely milky; that some texture was preserved.

Again this image was shot in pretty much the same way.  Getting close in to the water, keeping the aperture open and ISO up to keep the shutter speed up; to give a sense of movement but to pause some of the action.  With this a similar treatment to the top image was applied to give it 'a film' feel.

The wider landscape shots were to give that feel of texture and movement and were all treated in the same way.

Finally, I came to the shot of the day.  Sometimes you just see something and you know that this is the image that you want.  You look through the viewfinder and you now know you can trust your eye.  You set the camera to get the look to the image that you want and you step back and fire the shutter.  When you get the image on the back of the screen you see it is everything you want it to be but you don't get your hopes up.  There is a big difference between whats on the back of the camera and what is on your processing screen.  But, when you get home and open it on the screen and it is exactly how you wanted it you get very excited.

Then comes the responsibility of processing, which to be honest can make or break the image.  For once the image below had a lot of work done on it.  The initial phase a process in Lightroom then opened up in Photoshop for selective sharpening and quite a bit of dodging and burning to bring out the texture in the image.  This is my shot of the day.

Perhaps my next journey back to the river will yield different results!

Merry Christmas

Just a quick post to wish everyone a very merry and peaceful Christmas.  Enjoy whatever you are doing over the next few days.

Best wishes,

Lee

Blogging of the Photography Kind

As this is a photography blog and I've wittered on too much later have some pretty pictures to look at.  These are re-workings of recent shots.

The Process of Thought

It is true to say that when I'm working on one of my projects I do tend to plan quite a bit.  In fact the logistics of getting a shot can be quite as important as the shot itself.  Both are inextricably linked; if the logistics fail the shot fails.  That being said, I'm not adverse to a bit of randomness.

Anyone who reads my blog on a regular basis will have seen the shot above a few days ago.  This was taken on one of my unplanned shoots and was very much a work in progress as the shoot went along in that I started shooting traditional 'large scale' landscape images working down to 'micro landscapes' like this.

The whole point of this post was to show you the process of thought behind the finished image.  For that I have to go right back to the beginning a show you the original file (click on it for a larger version).

I knew I wanted a monochromatic image so the colour wasn't too important.  I also thought I wanted something high key so I over exposed the shot (for any numbers geeks it was shot at 55mm for 30 secs, f20, ISO 200).  So I went home with a shot that I was reasonably happy with.  Next was to process the image in Lightroom.

The first image out of the bag was this one.  I don't use many Lightroom presets and certainly not for my mono work, I just don't like them.  I tend to work from what I see.  If it looks right to my eye then it's probably right.  90% of the time it works.

I was too happy with this image and I thought it was going to end up in the bin.  Its a little too flat and lacked the drama that I have been looking for.  So a couple of hours later it was back to Lightroom for a second attempt.

The second go at processing was a little bit closer that the first.  The differences between the two are very subtle.  This one is a bit more contrasty and has a bit more fine detail in it but I'm still not happy with it. Time to leave it a lone and come back to it.

At 2am in the morning, I wake up and can't sleep.  The image is playing on my mind.  Time to get up and try and work it again.  This time I know exactly what I'm doing.  I add grad filters to the corners to darken the two stones down, add a vignette to direct the eye to where I want you to look (namely the centre stone) add some film grain (don't normally do this, but it seems to suit this image) and add a brozne coloured cast to the shadows to give it the colour tone.

Then the images is exported to Photoshop for some more work.  Namely, cloning out dust spots, dodge and burn to give the image an almost metallic look, a little work on the levels and selective sharpening using a high pass filter to give it an extremely sharp finish.

So the next time a photograph catches your eye be it on the internet, TV or magazine stop and think how much work, time and effort has gone in to this image.  Anyone who love photography as much as I do puts in this amount of effort to every image.

An Hour in the Water

I have to admit I have gotten to quite like writing.  I don’t think I am particularly good at it but I suppose Pixel has brought about a hidden journalist/blogger out of me.

That being said this is a blog about my photography and shouldn’t be too text based.  So here are some pictures from a recent shoot around a waterfall.

I must remember to stop doing stuff like this in winter.  The water was bloody freezing!

To compete or not to compete...

People join camera clubs for many reasons.  Some want to learn how to use their cameras or learn the finer aspects of composition without embarking on a course at a local educational establishment.  Some however, join a camera club for the competition.

My reason for joining a camera club was very different.  I wanted to network with people that enjoy photography and it is true to say that this has happened.  In fact, some of the people have become very good friends.

One of the main stays for a camera club is its competition calendar.  Competitions take place regularly throughout the year and (in our club at least) the points are totted up at the end of the year for someone to be crowned Photographer of the Year.

In my first year of being a member, I made sure that I entered every competition.  I always entered my full quota of digital images and tried to enter at least one print.  Last year, I entered very little.  I supported the annual exhibition but did not enter the full quota of prints or digital images and I just entered a competition if I had something to fit the theme.  This was fine.  The camera club had a strong and active membership and all competitions were reasonably well supported (with the exception of prints).  However, times change and people move on.  As a result our membership has decreased a little and I worry if there is enough support for the clubs competitions.

It’s fair to say that while there was no pressure to put some stuff in for competition I have had the best photography year to date.  I completed Remnants, I changed my style of photography, I got involved with a lot of new people and of course Pixel started to do well.

To go back to competing would mean a change in what I shoot and how I shoot it; it mean’s working to tight deadlines on subjects that I may or may not care about; it means not concentrating on what I want to shoot.

Of course, I will continue to support the Annual Exhibition but this will be from images that I have shot in my style.  As for the other competitions, I just don’t know.

Being Retrospective

I'm not a person that looks back in to the past and analyses everything in my life.  I try and sort of keep pushing towards the future.  With my photography, however, I do like to take a look back through the archive every now and again.  I don't mean I troll through every image I have every created or look at every image I've ever shot.  I just have a quick review of what I have done recently.

Every now and again, I get a nice surprise, like the shot above.  For some reason, I overlooked this shot preferring one that I had taken  about half an hour earlier.  In all honesty, I still do prefer that shot.  However,   although I didn't delete the original of the shot above, I didn't pursue beyond the digital negative stage.  So, a quick review of the image and a little more work in photoshop to adjust levels and work on localised sharpening and the above finished image is ready to go out.  I actually now prefer this one to the portrait version posted earlier.

Moral of this story; don't be too quick to delete, it's good to look back every now and again.

Its All A Question of Colour

The other day a couple of friends and I were having a discussion.  All of us had been out at roughly the same time on the same day and found the light pretty challenging.  The colour in it gave our images a funny colour cast.  Anyway, the conversation got round to an effect that both Bob (the deputy editor of Pixel Magazine) and I really like.  Bob cited this image of the Grand Canal, Venice by Colin Homes in particular as a point of reference.  I have to admit, I really find this image stunning.  The discussion got round to how the image was made.  We both realise that it had been shot on film with an incredibly long exposure at sunrise.  However, we weren't sure whether the subdued colour pallette was down to a trick of the light or some dark room trickery.

The next day I was driving to work and I noticed a near identical look of light at the edge of a fog bank.  As the day went on it was apparent that the fog was going to lift so I though I would try and take a couple of shots at the end of the day.  The idea here wasn't to create a nice image; it was to see if I could replicate the effect of the Venice image.

Unfortunately, I couldn't jump on a plane and fly out to Venice.  I'm just not that lucky to be able to do that.  So, I had to settle for sunny Barnoldswick, or in this case not so sunny Barnoldswick.  The sun had all but gone out of the sky but the effect was there.  Instead of a pink, orange, cream pallette, I have a grey, green and blue pallette (oh the joys of living in Lancashire!).

Back at my desk the files were loaded in to Lightroom.  It would have been easy to subdue the colour there. However, the images posted here have had both their Vibrance and Saturation increased and yet I still have the subdued colour pallettte.

So the conclusion was that yes, you can do it but the conditions have to be right.  However, we still suspect some processing trick as well.  We hope to be able to replicate it digitally soon.

Woodlands

To say I'm a sucker for woodlands would be an understatement.  I love the UK's rugged mountains and moorlands and the feeling of isolation and beauty that they have to offer but and there is a but; for me is somewhere special, it just seems that little more... well wild.  In addition to this each woodland is very different and entering an unexplored woodland is like meeting a new friend.


Over the years I most of taken hundreds if not thousands of images of woodlands.  Some have been straight documentary shots like those that are seen here; some are art images very abstract and look quite removed from the woodland from where the image originally came from like this one from my archive; and finally it would be a miss of me not to mention my natural history photography.  Images from Bluebells to Nuthatches, from insect to fungi I have done something around much of woodland life yet a few images and indeed species still evade me.

The other shots taken at the same time as the one at the beginning of this post can be found on my Flickr stream here.

Many of the woodland and wildlife shots that I have taken over recent years can be found on my fotothing page here.

More on Weets

The other morning we had an extremely hard frost.  In fact to say it was cold (for this country) was an understatement.  However, the late sunrise and an early rise allowed me to be on Weets at sunrise.  It was cold.  In fact it was so cold that despite wearing gloves my fingers were stinging.  Despite this I came away with a couple of nice shots.

Another trip later in the day and I managed to get sun down as well.  I am going to continue to document this hill but I think it may take me a while to get to the summit!

One of the final shots of the day is one that has become one that I consider to be of my best of this year.  It is looking back towards Blacko Tower and the monochrome conversion serves to remind me of one of my sources of inspiration, Fay Godwin.

See the rest of the shots on my Flickr stream.

Long Drive Home

Just been doing a little processing and quite liked this image.  So I thought I would share it!  I quite like road photographs.  They have something about them.  Perhaps it's the idea of a journey or exploring a landscape.  Whatever it is, they tend to remind me of Robert Frank's The Americans.

December Pixel Out Now

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A Wander on Weets

It was a crisp clear day when I decided that I would venture out to Weets Hill again.  In truth, it was bloody freezing.  The upside of this was that the ground was frozen solid and the sun was shining for a change.

I sometimes believe that it is silly to try and photograph Lancashire landscapes in good weather.  More often than not, when I venture for the hills I tend to end up being damp, wet or very wet and the camera doesn’t come out of the bag that much.

That being said it is fantastic when you do get great light.  I know that everyone says this about their favourite places but there is really no where like Lancashire when the light is great.  Don’t believe me?  Take a look at the last post.  Take that Lake District!

As I was saying, before going on a mild rant, I packed up the camera bag and set off for a wander.  I weren’t going for a sunset or a pretty picture.  I was just going to see how the ground lies for the Haiku project, so this was a record and fact finding mission.  I have to admit here that I am a fan of record photography so most of the time I’m not too worried about the light.  I’m doing what record photographers are supposed to do, record.  However, I did come back with a couple of shots that I do really like.  Will they make the final edit?  I’m not sure yet.  Oh yeah, I also ran in to a couple of people.  Some would say that they are quite big headed though!

 What do I do when it’s raining?  Photograph laundrettes of course.  But that is a whole other post in a few weeks.

Its Cold on Top!!!

On Friday, it looked like it was going to be a half decent sunset so I thought I would go and take some images of the Abbot Stone on Boulsworth Hill.

After parking my car about two miles away from the Hill I set off along the old pack horse route across the moor.  It soon became apparent that the sunset was going to be more spectacular than I thought.

Although there was some lovely dramatic light on the Abbot Stone I became more mesmerised by the light, mist and ice show that was going on towards Pendle.  As a result I parked my backside just below my original location and pointed the camera in the opposite direction.  It was very still and very cold (-4 degrees Celsius on my jacket thermometer) but it was worth it.

As the sun continued to set I carried on taking images.  I also shot out towards Trawden and Pen-y-Ghent but my attention was always brought back to Pendle.

It wasn't long before the street lights were coming on and it was time to leave the hill but not before switching the wide angle lens for the telephoto and capturing some nice distance shots.

By the time I had come down off the hill it was completely dark and as I made my way back to the car light pollution and the night took over the sky.  I couldn't resist grabbing a couple of extra shots.

This is an exercise that I am going to have to repeat! I couldn't see in the dark and neither could the camera.  So everything had to go to manual and a system of try one shot adapt and try another.  One thing I have learnt though.  My camera can see stars better than I can!

Having a Sort Out

The other day I got a lovely message from my Flickr account saying that it was getting full so I thought that it was time to have a sort out.

Some of the images from the Boulsworth, Weets and Pendle sets are images that are to serve another purpose.  As a result these are being moved to another location to be worked on.  That being said, the best and my favorites from these sets will still remain on my Flickr site.  There will just be less from those series of images.  As I add images to the new location they will also be put on here as a slide show.

The Stone Man of Pendle

A few weeks ago I went out to find the rumored stone man of Pendle Hill.

The story goes that a quarry worker was killed when working in this location.  His friend was so distraught that he carved a likeness to him in to the stone.

The quarry also has a Pendle Witch connection.  This is the location that Demdike's familiar, Tibbs, first appeared to her.

In reality it is a gorgeous place to be.  There are extensive views out over the Pendle Valley, down through Accrington, Blackburn and beyond.

Pixel Announcement

Today, we are proud to announce the launch of Pixel Magazines website.

Combined with our e-magazine, Facebook page and Flickr group we aim to keep you up to date with all news from the Pennine Lancashire Photography and Arts scene and the world of photography in general.

Features of the site include a slideshow from our Flickr group, subscription forms so Pixel comes direct to you, a directory of Pennine Lancashire Photography organisations services and people.  You also have the ability to comment on the posts.

Have you got some news that you would like to share or a photograph you would like to post.  Why not drop us an email and we’ll put it on the site.

We hope you enjoy the website and being involved in Pixel.

www.pixelmag.co.uk