Mechanical Landscapes

Category: Black and White

  • #352 – Cwm Bychan – Another Get Carter Landscape – 3

    And so to finish off this short series, a few black and white images. After lugging my tripod several miles to allow me to do some exposure bracketing, I realised in post processing that it probably wasn’t necessary, there was adequate information in the correctly exposed raw file. But as I’d gone to the effort…

  • #349 – Bank Bottom Mill

      Bank Bottom Mills in Marsden are a vast complex of mills that continued in production until 2003. On my brief visit in 2007, the mills appeared to be mothballed and still full of machinery, but still partially occupied. I did think they’d since been stripped, but having seen a number of reports on the…

  • #345 – Reworked Images 11 – Dinorwic

    This is the same scene that I posted up a few posts back, albeit a few feet to the left and a few feet higher up. I’ve not made it as contrasty as the other one as I don’t think it needs it due to it being entirely monochrome. I’m not convinced about the cohesiveness…

  • #344 – Reworked Images 10 – The Gate

    Oakwood mill is a complete ruin, quite why it’s been deemed worth keeping up rather than being demolished is beyond me, when some magnificent structures elsewhere have been flattened. I didn’t even bother looking for a way in, I took a few externals and moved on to look at other stuff in the area. I…

  • #343 – Reworked Images 9 – Jumbles Quarry Crane

    Maybe it was because I visited the quarry with someone (I seem to produce better images alone, although the venerable Tarboat was excellent company) or whether the location itself was a challenge, but I didn’t come away with many images that really inspired me. I felt they made a good record of the place but…

  • #342 – Reworked Images 8 – Bailey Mill Loom

    Another one I’ve never done anything with, although I do have a similar image taken on film on theviewfromthenorth.org. The problem in Bailey Mill was the light coming through the windows, as at the time (2007) I wasn’t aware of the possibilities of bracketing to capture the full dynamic range of a scene. The raw files…

  • #341 – Reworked Images 7 – High and Dry

    When I visited the Duke of Lancaster a few years back, I took the opportunity to take a lot of photographs, from as many different angles as I could think, on a variety of different lenses. At the time, I only actually processed about 10 or 12 of them, but after a 3 years break I…

  • #340 – Reworked Images 6 – Jumbles Quarry

    This was an image I’d scratched my head with in colour. I just couldn’t do anything with it, and I didn’t think it worked well in monochrome, so even though I liked it and thought it had potential it never really went beyond basic adjustments. I’ve always thought it an intriguing image, but one that…

  • #339 – Reworked Images 5 – Dinorwic Flower

     The finished image The starting point – pretty much straight out of camera with one or two tonal adjustments. I originally cropped this into portrait format, processed it, and subsequently presented it that way for several years. When I revisited it, I decided to process it in its original landscape format, and then decide afterwards…

  • #338 – Reworked Images 4 – Pleasley Colliery

    Pleasley Colliery is the only preserved coal mine in Nottinghamshire, and is worth a visit if you are in the area.  I don’t think I’ve posted this before and it’s probably the best one I took on my visit. Unfortunately the sun was behind the mine when I was there, which made photographing it from the best vantage points…

  • #337 – Reworked Images 3 – Chatterley Whitfield

    Another rework, with some quite dramatic changes to the mood. It is somewhat timely as I read this morning that two of Britain’s remaining coal mines are under threat of closure. The storm clouds continue to gather over Chatterley Whitfield with every passing year resulting in further deterioration, and I really don’t know what the future…

  • #336 – Mechanical Landscapes – my new website

    Sometime in April 2007, in a paradox of high hopes and no expectations, I launched theviewfromthenorth.org. Since then the journey that the website and I have been on has been an interesting one to say the least, and one that shows no sign of coming to an end. The site has now had over 2…

  • #334 – Reworked images 2 – Grove Rake

    This is another problem image that I’d had several goes at over the years and never came up with anything that I liked. I think it’s getting somewhere now, although I’m not sure it’s there yet. The problem has always been in balancing the tones. The light on the day was constantly changing as the…

  • #333 – Reworked images 1 – Bridge of Doom

    This was an image I’d struggled to do anything with in monochrome. As a colour image, it works quite well, but converting it to monochrome always left it looking flat. That’s not a problem as the initial conversion normally does look flat, but I could never get anywhere with it after that. However, after my…

  • #332 – Review – Digital Monochrome Workshop with Martin Henson

    Experience has shown me that in many endeavours where there is a high level of skill involved, you start to plateau and need either a change in the way you do things or a change of tutor / mentor. This is especially so of you are working on your own in isolation. Last year, I…

  • #328 – Bridge of Change

    I’ve posted before about the once-vast Leyland Motors works in Leyland. Its buildings sprawled for several miles from Lostock Hall right the way down into Leyland town centre, employing thousands of workers and manufacturing lorries for the home market and for export all over the world. Following privatisation it was bought by DAF who went…

  • #323 – The Last Days Of Bamber Bridge (New) Mill – 7 – a few more in monochrome

    As I was about to go on holiday, I thought I’d swing by after work to get a few more shots of the mill, in case it had gone by the time I got back (it hadn’t, it was still there). The evening sun was largely in my favour, and with a cloudy sky, there…

  • #322 – The Last Days Of Bamber Bridge (New) Mill – 6 – a few in monochrome

    With a spare hour after a week spent on the road, I made the short trip up the A6 to see what was left of the mill. The answer – everything that was there on my previous visit the week before, nothing had changed. Unfortunately, I’d forgotten that in the morning, the sun is behind the…

  • #315 – Lucerne to Zurich Express

    A recent business trip to Switzerland resulted in the opportunity to use the countries railway system to get to the airport. I’d never  been to Switzerland before but knew that the Swiss railway network, ran like the clockwork mechanisms the Swiss are famous for. And indeed, it did, everything ran bang on time, the trains were clean…

  • #312 – Mill Yard

    I revisited these pictures of Bailey Mill recently and re-processed them more to my liking. The first one is taken from the middle window of the bridge that you can see in the second picture. The bridge was well and truly sealed up at one end, so I couldn’t get into the other building, in…

  • #311 – Mechanical Engineering 2

    After posting the last photo of rusting machinery, I remembered this one I took of the old steam crane in the Jumbles Quarry. I wish I’d tried some different compositions as I don’t think this is the best one, but it’s the only one I took like this, regrettably. Whether a photo should have a focal point is a…