#58 – Paddy’s Hole

Fishing boats at ‘Paddy’s Hole’ on South Gare on the River Tees. I liked the contrast between the little harbour in the foreground and industrial Teeside in the  background, and of course the setting sun always makes for a nice sky:) I took this when the light was fading rapdily, and as I didn’t want…

#57 – sunset

I always moan at how in the UK we don’t get those lovely skies we see in those fabulous photos of steam in China. This is as good as we get in Preston. I wanted to capture the young lady at work on the engine, perhaps need a bit of dodging to bring her out…

#56 – adding a bit of atmosphere 3

More steam trains! If on the off chance you read this blog regularly, you’ll have noticed a few recent posts of steam train pictures. I love steam trains, and have done for years, although I kind of drift in and out of photographing them. I enjoy the challenge of trying to make something creative and…

#55 – wheels of industry

I was approached via my main website (www.theviewfromthenorth.org) by a director of a mill in Huddersfield. They’d bought the old Brook Dyeing site and wanted a set of photos for their archives. I agreed on the proviso that they let me photograph their other, working, mill in Huddersfield. They agreed, and I spent an interesting morning…

#54 – it doesn’t always go according to plan….

What’s missing off this railway viaduct? A train. The steam hauled ‘Cotton Mills Express’ was due to travel over it, unfortunately the engine failed at Preston, so they cancelled it. I didn’t find this out until I got home, having waited for well over 2 hours. I kept thinking, I bet it’ll come as soon…

#53 – LX-3 Low Light Performance

Got to admit, I’m disappointed by the level of noise in this photo. OK, so I’m used to very low noise on the D700, but this was taken at ISO200 on the LX-3, and the noise levels are poor (and I’ve reduced the noise in post-processing). My old Fuji F31 was much, much better than…

#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….

#49 – The Art of Cropping

I was one told that a good way of deciding how and where to crop was to cover up the bits you wanted to keep and just look at the bits you want to crop. If they contained nothing of interest, or didn’t add anything to the image, then cut them off. With that in…

#47 – Panasonic LX3 High Dynamic Mode Part 1

I’ve barely used my LX-3 since I bought it in October, but there again I’ve done virtually no photography whatsoever since then for that matter! A trip over to Teeside to photograph the industrial landscape seemed like a good opportunity to dust it off and explore a little more of what it can do. One of…

#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…