Ribblehead...

I recently took a trip to Ribblehead, the famous viaduct in the Yorkshire Dales.  However, it wasn't the actual viaduct itself that interested me.  In this area are some stunning limestone pavements, like the ones that you can see above.  Some of the shapes are fabulous, having been carved by the wind, rain and snow.

I took with me my 7D, Bronica and 5x4.  I wanted to give myself the options of shooting digitally, but also on film.  Next though, I think I will limit myself to just one format, as the bags I was carrying were just a little too heavy!  Needless to say, setting up the tripod on this surface proved very tricky. I had bend the legs in all kinds of directions in order to get a stable platform.  It was also quite windy that day.  This has led me to realise a few things.  I need to invest in a bigger and sturdier tripod.  I also need to invest in a bag to carry my 5x4 camera in safely.  Of course, a good sturdy tripod is expensive, as is a big sturdy bag, so it looks like I have some saving up to do!

I am fairly pleased with the results of the day, the digital files turned out nicely, no clipping of data in the highlights or the shadows, which is good.  however I feel i can probably do better, so no doubt I will be heading back soon!

Unfortunately I am unable to to develop colour film until next term, so you will have to wait to see the results of the 5x4 slide!

Enjoy!

G

A Night On The Town...

This evening I went into town to get a shot for one of my briefs.  Having got the shots I needed, I made a quick detour into a car park near by.  I was struck by how calm these empty spaces seemed, amidst the still busy city.  Also, the ambient light was just right, it wasn't completely pitch black, but the street lights had come on, which made for an interesting blend of natural and ambient light, as well as fluorescent light.  I had to play around with the colour balance to get the images looking realistic.

I have a lot of work to finish at the moment, but also some days off coming up.  Hopefully if the weather is nice I'll be able to take a walk and see if I find anything to shoot.  I also have film to develop and scan, so I'll be sharing those with you soon.

Enjoy,

G

Rain Rain Go Away....

Today I went out with my camera's to see what I would find.  I looked at the map, and chose an area that I thought would be interesting and headed off.  The weather was perfect today; it wasn't too cold, some sun, but also excellent, well defined clouds.  I took this opportunity to try out my 5x4 camera again.  Just as I put the camera on the tripod, the rain started to come down.  The rain the was very light to begin with, so I didn't see it as a problem, and carried on shooting.  Then, as I started to work out my exposure, the heavens opened, and it started pouring down.  I had to rush my light metering, so i'm not sure if its 100% correct, but hey ho, we shall see.  I shall post the results when have them developed.

I have really gotten into panorama's lately, I tend to shoot one every time I go out.  I mainly use wide angle lenses for landscapes.  This is fine 90% of the time, but sometimes, you just cut get wide enough, and if you go too wide, then you get lots of distortion, and things start to look strange.  I like how panorama's create and natural looking wide angle effect.  I normally shoot my panorama's in portrait orientation, and overlap by 30-40%.  When the photos are put through Photoshop, the software can easily stick the photos together.

Enjoy!

G

An Evening in a Field.

Apologies for my severe lack of posts recently, I have been incredibly busy with college work deadlines and such, so I have been unable to go out and work on personal projects.  As I am now at home, I thought I would take the opportunity to have a few days to relax and chill out.  As I also had access to a car, I thought I would drive out into the country and photograph somewhere a bit further afield.

I have bought a new camera too, so this was an ideal time to try it out in the field (no pun intended).  The camera I have bought is a 5X4 view camera, an example of which can be found here.  I have been shooting on Fuji Velvia colour transparency, which is an amazing film, although rather expensive.

The photo you see above is a digital shot, I won't be able to develop the film until I get back to uni after Easter, but I will be sure to share the results with you.  I also shot a panorama at another location just up the road. Unfortunately I couldn't upload the photo here because the file was too big, but you can see it here.  For the most part, i am very happy with the results, of today's shoot, but there is just one part of the panorama that bugs me.  I didn't use a strong enough filter in the shots to the right of the picture, so the sky is blown out.  I feel that this really draws my eye to this part of the image.

I think I will go back and re shoot this panorama at some point.  I hope to have a lot of photos to share with you over the coming weeks.

Enjoy!

G

The Fog....

My brother Henry came to stay with me on Friday, and we had an awesome time!  I took some portraits of him, which you can find on my flickr.  Whilst out on our walk we went throughout the uni campus, and I found some new interesting pieces of architecture to photograph.  

So this morning I woke up to thick fog, it was so thick I could just about see 30 metres in front of me. I thought I would try and get some photos in the fog, so I went to photograph at the new locations I had found.  I think I will go back and photograph them from new angles, as I am not entirely happy with the results.  I will go back when it is cloudy and see what I can get.    

My camera decided to play up as well.  Normally the camera writes files to the memory card instantly, but today it was taking several minutes to write files to the card.  I don't know if this was because it was so cold and damp, but I will need to keep an eye on it.  

Enjoy!

G

Parental Visitation.....

This weekend I had some very special people visit me....Mummy and Daddy!  It was nearly two months since I had seen them last! That's the longest I've been away from home!  They took me for meals, did a food shop for me, and we even went to see the fireworks and the bonfire in Hyde Park!  It was lovely to see Mum and Dad again, and I can't wait to see them again at Christmas!

On Saturday, Mum and Dad took me to Malham Cove, which is in the Yorkshire Dales.  When I woke up, the sky was a flat pale grey.  Not very nice to be taking landscape photos in!  I was picked up at 10 O'Clock, and we made our way to Malham Cove.  After a little detour around some roadworks, we finally arrived in Malham!  The sky had completely transformed.  There were now light clouds, and the light was amazing!  It was the sort of light that you get in the evening, but it was half one/two O'Clock!

After we had walked up to the top (I say walked, it was more like a climb!), I set my camera up.  The view from the top was amazing! I could see for miles, and they was a slight hazy mist on the horizon, which was perfect.  The limestone pavement was spectacular, I suggest you go if you ever get the chance!  It was like standing on giant teeth made of stone!  And to my surprise, some of the rocks moved when I stepped on them!  I would love to go back, there are so many photographs I could make!  I also shot a panorama, which Blogger couldn't upload, but you can find it on my flickr page, here.  May I suggest that you click on all sizes, and then original.

I would like to say thank you very much Mum and Dad, for a lovely weekend!

Enjoy!

G

Good, but Not Good Enough......

Today I had my first test shoot for my portrait brief, which you will find a brief explanation of on my college blog.  Whilst I was waiting to begin my shoot at 4, I cycled down to Merchants Quay, where this photo was taken.  My flatmate Brendan had mentioned to me that he had walked under this bridge (bottom Photo), and thought it might make for a good photograph.  He was right!

I struggled with exposures for the bridge photo.  The sun was coming under the bridge from the right rather harshly, as you can see from the blow-out bits on the right.  Had I had my ND grad with me, I perhaps could have controlled the brightness a bit better.  Oh well! At least it gives me a chance to go back and shoot it again.  Also, I would have liked more reflection of the steel beams in the water, but the water was flowing a bit too fast for a crisp reflection.

The top Photo was just along from the bridge.  I'm not entirely sure what it is, I think its a cooling tower and silos of some sort.  I'm glad I found this location, and when I reshoot here, I will put some more thought into the composition.  I think I might ask if I can get closer to get a better perspective/composition.

That is all for today,

Enjoy!

G

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

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

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

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

I saw a sunrise.....

I got up extra early to catch a sunrise this morning.  It was quite scary walking through Hyde Park, but I was ok!  I was a little late, and missed the actual sunrise, but managed to catch some of the last colour in the sky.  Just when I though I was done, I turned around and saw this beautiful mist rolling through the park.  

Enjoy!

G

Bar

This is the 3rd of the 10 images I had to shoot.  As you can probably imagine, I had a lot of fun taking this....I had to buy a few pints to get the nicest glass....and nicest beer :)

Enjoy!

G

Cloudy

Soooooo, tomorrow I move up to Leeds and start Uni.....thats what big boys do!  I still find silly noises funny (mainly flatulence) and jump in puddles! Hey ho, I'm doing something that I've always wanted to do, and that I love!  

Anyway, I shot this photo at 12, looking into the sun.  I used all of my filters, two ND4's, an ND8, and a  2 stop grad.  I've never seen clouds move this fast before, I had to work rather quickly so I didn't miss the clouds.

Just a quick post today, when I write the next post, I'll be a uni student!

Enjoy,

G

Evening Light.

Just a quick post; I thought I would make the most of a beautiful evening today, so I headed over to Calverton, although unfortunately I arrived a little too late for the best light, but made the best of what I had.

Both images were shot with a 28-80mm at 28mm, with a ND4 and an ND grad.  Exposures were 30sec for the top image, and 45sec for the bottom image.  

Enjoy!

G

Holiday Photos!

I recently went to Keswick with my girlfriend, which was fantastic! These two photos above are just a couple of examples of the photos I took, you can see more here.

Sarah was amazingly patient whilst I shot the photos; luckily it wasn't too cold!  We had a fantastic time, going on massive walks almost every day, and Sarah showed me all the great places to shoot.  We managed to catch a couple of wonderful sun sets, which made for excellent photos!

I can't remember exactly what settings I shot these photos with, but with nearly all of them, I used a 28-80mm or 14-55mm lens, with a variety of filters; ND4s, ND8s, ND4grads.  I managed to shoot a few rolls of film too, which I will certainly post when I get them back from the developers.

Enjoy!

G