Once Again......

Once again I headed up to Hyde Park this morning.  On my way up to Hyde Park, I thought I'd photograph the hill I now have to walk up everyday for college.  I may even use this image in my landscape brief.  I took two photos, and merged them in photoshop.  I took one exposure for the sky, and one exposure for the foreground.  In photoshop, I then masked out the sky in the foreground exposure, to reveal the sky of the sky exposure.

The light was amazing this morning; it had that warm but cold feeling to it, the kind of light you only get early in the morning in the winter time.  Its my favourite light to photograph in!  I love the shadows and pools of light leading my eye through the bottom image.  Even though i've taken many photos in Hyde Park, I find the light is forever changing, and I always find new compositions, and different things to photograph that I didn't notice the last time I was there.

Enjoy!

G

Monsters in Leeds.....

Hello good people of the internet, many apologies for my lack of blog postage over the past few days, I've been visiting my lovely girlfriend Sarah, who is the best,  at university in York.  York is a wonderful city, I suggest you go if you should ever get the chance, there is a fantastic fudge shop, that gives free samples. I'm yet to try this, but I'm going to take multiple outfits with me and keep walking past, maybe even get a fake moustache....You lucky people are getting two blog posts squeezed into one today, just because I'm too lazy to write two individual ones. 

Anyway, back to the matter at hand.  Sarah and I went on a walk, and it was like walking into another world.  Its odd; if you turn left out of Sarah's accommodation, you find yourself in the uni campus, but if you turn right you end up in the middle of some fields!  The light was really strange; there was bright sunshine, and there was this strange mist in the distance that made everything seem to fade away.  I have a feeling we will be walking along here quite often.  

I went on a walk around the back streets around my accommodation today, to get some photos for my Landscape brief.  I'm happy with the results, but will keep shooting, refining my ideas and shooting style for this brief.  

On my trip, I had a horrible surprise.  I was walking along minding my own business, looking at how the light was falling on the street and the houses, when suddenly I stepped in something squidgy.  I thought to myself, 'please don't be what I think it is!'  I looked down, and sure enough I saw a monster pile of excrement, spread allover the pavement.  Now, there must be some sort of creature stalking the streets of Leeds, because no dog I know of could have produced something as rancid as that.  But don't fret, I've cleaned my shoes and they're all squeaky clean now.  

Anyway, here are the results of my travels.  

Enjoy!

G

Wet, Wet, Wet....

Today I went into town for a walk, to see if I could get some photos.  It was raining, windy, and cold. Lovely weather for taking photos!  I didn't take many photos, and this is my favourite from what I did shoot.  I really like the lines in this photo, the red in the barrier catches my eye, leads it to the two ladies, and across the image.  I played with the colour balance in photoshop, to give it a colder feel.  Also, I increased the contrast to help give the photo some more depth.  There was a very soft, but warm light today, which is what I prefer to shoot on the street in.  The light reflecting off of the pavement really helps to emphasise the two ladies, and as you can see, it was quite slippery!

Enjoy!

G

Filtration....

Today I thought I would go out and try out my new ND filter.  I spent ages trying to find something to shoot on google maps, and eventually I found this.  This is the structure of a footbridge in Merchants Quay.  It was a bit of a trek to get there, I went past it, got lost, then found it!

Anyway, this new filter is a 10 stop Neutral Density filter.  This means that it reduces the amount of light hitting the sensor/film by 10 stops; so if you were trying to photograph a tree, and the shutter speed for a correctly exposed image was 1/100sec.  The filter reduces this time by 10 stops, so the new exposure time would be 1/10.

I also had an ND 8 and 2 ND4 filters stacked on top of the ND110 (10 stop filter).  This gave me a 17 stop reduction in shutter speed!  So with that said, would it surprise you that the image above was taken at 2 O'Clock today, in bright sunshine, with a 8 minute exposure!  I'm going to have a lot of fun with this filter!

Enjoy

G

A successful day in the darkroom...

Today I had my first day in the darkroom since I did an introductory course a few years back, and it was good to be in the red light again!  Yesterday we were given a film and told to go out into town and shoot until we had finished it.  Then today we developed the film, mixing up the correct amount of developer and water, making sure it was at the correct temperature.  We then made contact sheets (bottom image), and then Ross, the tutor, said if you know what you're doing, you can make a print.  

So I did a test strip, which is where you cut a strip of photographic paper, and expose it to the image, but holding some card over the majority of the paper, leaving only 2cm's of paper exposed to the light.  You then move the card along 2cm's every 5sec exposure, so you end up with a strip of paper going light to dark (after you've developed it of course!).  From this, you can tell how many second you need to expose the real print for, 5, 10, 15, 20 seconds etc. 

I printed the top image on Illford multigrade paper, which means you can print any contrast grade on to it, and it won't come out looking funny.  A 'Grade' is basically how much contrast (the difference between black and white) the image has.  The scale goes from 1 to 5, in half stops, for example; 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5 etc.  The colour of light also changes, grade 1 is yellow, then orange, red and then 5 is magenta.  

Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

G

P.S My hands STINK of chemicals! but I do quite like it :)

Long Exposure.....

Went up to Hyde Park again this evening.  I wasn't looking to get anything in particular, and the sky was pretty bland.  I wanted to try a new panorama technique, which in the end didn't work how i wanted it to, but hey.  When I first saw the bottom photo on the LCD screen, I was surprised to see some cloud movement! I liked how the clouds were picking up some colour from the distant city lights.  

Enjoy!

G

College work....

If you want to see what I'm doin at college, there is now a link to my college blog in the helpful links bit

G

Mystery Light Source....

It was Light Night here in Leeds last night, so my friends and I went around the city, looking at the exhibitions.  Although I won't be putting those pictures in this post, I will share a link with you soon to my Personal Professional Practice blog.  I will be posting college related things on, which you can look at if you wish.

Anyway, I was walking through the back streets near college, walking into town, and came across this scene.  I thought it was odd that just this section of the wall was lit up.  I looked for a light source, but couldn't find one....How strange!

Enjoy!

G

Live Brief......

On Tuesday, my course leader announced that he had managed to organise a competition specifically for the Leeds College of Art Photography students.  The Park Plaza Hotel in Leeds is having a refurbishment, and they want some photos for the rooms, corridors and reception.  There are 3 categories, an architecture, people and landscape.

These 2 are for the architecture category, not sure which one I like best though, let me know what you think!

I'll keep you posted on the progress,

G

Visually explore your new surroundings.....

This was shot for my assignment, re-viewing your surroundings.  Although it probably won't be used in the final 4 images I need, I think it is a good starting point.  When I looked at it on my mac, it reminded me of a photographers work, who's name I forget.  I'm just about to go on a walk now, so if I get anything worthy of sharing, I will!

G