Category: Black and White

  • #85 – Mastermind

    Saw this as I squeezed through a door in the mechanics workshop at Vernon Carus. It’s only when I got home and converted it to black and white did I realise the shaft of light was hitting the chair. I suppose I should really re-visit the photo to accentuate the effect, maybe one day!

  • #83 – Welcome To Oblivion 1

    You think that barbed wire is going to keep me out…………?

  • #79 – Vale Mills Re-Visit

    I’d nothing to do, so I decided to head back over to the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway to check out some possible locations. After a brisk walk around Keighley, I headed back up to Oakworth to check out Vale Mills. This time I put on a 24mm prime to give a wider field of…

  • #77 – Haworth Landscape

    First shot of the day from my visit to the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway was from a road bridge that overlooks the sheds at Haworth. Although the railway have an excellent viewing area that overlooks the sheds, I tried here first and was rewarded with a view along the rainy valley (it was absolutely throwing…

  • #76 – Vale Mills, Oakworth

    War Department 2-8-0 storms out of Oakworth Station on the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway. I’d spotted this location when I was on the train earlier and drove down for a closer look. When I got there, I had a walk round to see if I could include the mill and the railway in the shot,…

  • #75 – rare station photo

    I’ve said in the past that I never take pictures in stations. So here’s one I took at the weekend! As I’m not a ‘rivet counter’ I don’t get much satisfaction out of taking photos of stationary trains in stations. But as the train was delayed, I thought I’d see if I could make an…

  • #74 – it’s grim up north

    Vale Mill, Mytholmes. I think that this was a path from Oakworth village and I imagine that it was used by generations of mill workers going to and from the mill in the valley floor. I took this when I was unsuccessfully trying to figure out a composition where I could include the mill and the…

  • #62 – Details

     Who said railway photography has to have the train as the main, or only, compositional element? OK, so unless you are a railway enthusiast you may not recognise these lamps as being used on steam engines, but as part of a larger set of images, it adds a different perspective to it. As I often…

  • #61 – British Industry

    I took this photo about 5 years ago on an old film camera, and developed the film myself. For some reason, it’s one that I keep coming back to and remains one of my favourite industrial images. The composition was almost forced upon me as I just poked the camera through a fence and hoped,…

  • #52 – Adding a Bit of Atmosphere 2

    Following on from my last post, here’s another from the East Lancs Railway. Same idea, as before, although the engine is now a much larger part of the overall scene. However, I chose to compose it with the mill, water tower and signal box all in the scene, to help add a bit more visual interest.…

  • #51 – Adding a Bit of Atmosphere 1

    I’ve now been using the Nikon D700 for exactly a year, and I know this because the first place I took it was to the East Lancs Railway winter steam gala at the end of January. One year on, time for a return visit. Other than a nightshoot at Bury, I’d not done any railway photography since then,…

  • #46 – the last resort

    I’m a fan of the British photographer Martin Parr (or certainly his earlier work), and when I saw this scene at Redcar,  I was reminded of his book ”The Last Resort’. If you haven’t seen it, it was an ironic look at New Brighton which showed the somewhat squalid conditions endured by visitors to the…

  • #45 – re-visiting old images

    I took this photo back in 2005 at Ramsbottom station on the East Lancs Railway. I loved the photo, especially the station master emerging from the steam on the right. Unfortunately, as I was shooting straight into the light, I got some ugly lens flare on the front of the engine, and try as I…

  • #43 – the importance of a good title

    When entering photographs into competitions, especially ‘open’ (i.e. unthemed) ones, it is critical to choose a great title for your entry. A good title can make the difference between a judge (or any viewer) looking at the image and thinking ‘I don’t know what the photographer is trying to say!’, or thinking ‘Ah, I get it’.…

  • #40 – The Industrial Tourist

    #40 – The Industrial Tourist

    For better or for worse, Britain in 2009 is very much a post industrial society. The physical and economic landscape of the north (and other regions) has been transformed with the well documented decline of the traditional industries, and the rise of the service sector. The skylines of our towns are different to 20, 30…

  • #39 – Industrial Lines

    Taken on a recent tour of a steelworks. I deliberately underexposed, and then did a bit of masking and curves adjustments to get the image I had in mind when I took it. I think they used to call it ‘previsualisation’ in film days.

  • #37 – Industrial Throwback

    It was the smell that hit me initially. A deep, slightly sulphurous smell that reminded me of the aftermath of a passing steam train. But while that is fleeting, this was a permanent, pervasive smell that could be smelt well beyond the shoulder high perimeter wall Inside, the site was dusty and grubby, and outside…

  • #36 – cold war victor

    Trying to photograph people using long exposures is nigh on impossible, as it’s difficult to stand absolutely still for more than about, 1/30 sec apparently. It’s not too bad if the person is at a distance, as any movement is less noticeable, but even so there is a limit. I’d taken most of the pictures…

  • #25 – Luneside Landscape

    The River Lune in Lancaster has not been used as a port for over a hundred years and much of the dockland area to the east of the West Coast Railway line over the river has been restored and regenerated, much of the area to the west is derelict. This is the site of the…

  • #6 – ARCHIVE JANUARY 2009: Revisiting old sites

    #6 – ARCHIVE JANUARY 2009: Revisiting old sites

    I rarely go back to sites I’ve already been to. Several reasons – 1) I always feel I’m pushing my luck, 2) I try to see as much as I can first time round, and 3) there’s plenty more places to go. However, I was after some easy explores for a college project, so I…

  • #5 – ARCHIVE December 2008: Proper Use of HDR

    #5 – ARCHIVE December 2008: Proper Use of HDR

    A quick tour of any of the Urban Exploration groups on Flickr will show you how many explorers murder their pictures in post processing. Sorry, and I’m not trying to blow my own trumpet here, but in my opinion, the best way of using HDR is with a degree of subtlety. This photo of Grove…