Mechanical Landscapes

  • #210 – Using black and white, using colour.

    #210 – Using black and white, using colour.

    It struck me recently that I probably convert too many of my photos to rblack and white. I got to thinking why that was and I remembered back to when I was putting my RPS portfolio together, and I was advised not to mix colour and black and white. I noticed as well that many…

  • #209 – Tornado!

    Couldn’t resist posting this from the Southport Air Show – I’ve been trying to get a photo like this of the vapour coming off a fast jet wing for years and never really managed it. However, for this, all the planets seemed to be in alignment, and I finally managed to capture it! Chuffed! Hopefully…

  • #208 – Roy Chadwicks* Finest Hour

    Back in the 1980’s I was a teenage air cadet and mildly obsessed with anything aeronautical, and particularly obsessed with anything Vulcan related. On my bedroom wall was a large poster of XH558, the last surviving flying Vulcan, which was at the time the RAF’s Vulcan Display Team The highlight of my visits to the…

  • #207 – Steam On The Isle Of Wight – Part 2

    #207 – Steam On The Isle Of Wight – Part 2

      As I was on a holiday day trip, rather than a day out photographing trains, I didn’t have the opportunity to explore the line and look for some good vantage points. That said, railway photography in summer doesn’t always yield the best results as the warmth tends to result in a poor exhaust and…

  • #206 – Steam On The Isle Of Wight – Part 1

    #206 – Steam On The Isle Of Wight – Part 1

    I last visited the Isle of Wight in 1977 when I wasn’t very old at all, and if I leave it another 34 years to go again, I’ll be in my early 70’s. To that end I thought it wise to take a look at the Isle Of Wight Steam Railway while I was here…

  • #205 – Mobile Landscapes

    I’m a member of a Flickr group called Mobile Landscapes which is for landscape photographs taken on mobile phones. In some respects this is a faintly ludicrous concept, as landscape photography is traditionally regarded as a contemplative art, where you take your time in choosing the optimum composition, wait for the best light, and often…

  • #204 – ticket to Ryde 2

    #204 – ticket to Ryde 2

    OK, here’s a few more of the PS Ryde in the Isle Of Wight. I’d like to have taken a longer, closer look, but that just wasn’t possible in the circumstances unfortunately. The hull is in a terrible state. Note that it’s rusted through in places – mind you the ship was built in the…

  • #203 – ticket to ryde 1

      As I drove onto the crunchy gravel car park of the swish, modern marina near Newport on the Isle of Wight, it occurred to me what an odd location this was for the beached, rusting paddle steamer PS Ryde. The futuristic harbour control centre, million pound yachts and motor cruisers seemed a world away…

  • #202 – High Dynamic Range Photography – A Substitute For Creativity?

    Astley Green Colliery Several years ago, I experimented with using Photomatix to produce High Dynamic Range (HDR) images. I reasoned that as a lot of the urbex pictures I was taking were in low light, then this would be the ideal tool to capture the full range of visual information, or something like that. However,…

  • #201 – before and after – articulating your vision photographically

    “It is impossible for a photographic print to duplicate the range of brightnesses (luminances) of most subjects, and thus photographs are to some degree interpretations of the original subject values. Much of the creativity of photography lies in the infinite range of choices open to the photographer between attempting a nearly literal representation of the…

  • #200 – 200 not out (time for a holiday)

    2 years, 200 posts. I’ve somehow managed to make an average of 2 posts a week for 2 years, no idea how (OK, the first few were reposts from my old blogspot blog, but let’s overlook that…). Mind you, I’ve been places and done stuff that I’d never even heard of  two years ago, so…

  • #199 – Nokia N8 – Printing A3 from a cameraphone!

    While the needless insanity that was the compact camera megapixel race has seemingly slowed down, the rate of progress seems to have transferred over to the mobile phone market. I heard recently that Samsung (or was it HTC?) are planning a 16mp cameraphone, while my Nokia N8 has a 12mp sensor, which is as many…

  • #197 – Gwrych Castle Part 3 – No Entry

    Taken from a similar vantage point to one of the photos in the first post of this series, I zoomed in a bit to emphasise the shadows. In doing so, the photo has less depth as it is primarily just the flat wall, but I like the way the shadows fell and the different textures…

  • #198 – Gwrych Castle Part 4 – Ivy

    Final one from Grywch Castle, taken from the castellated wall that takes the driveway through the stables to the owners entrance hall, which is some distance from the visitors entrance on the lower level of the property. Large swathes of the walls were once covered in ivy, much has been cleared away but it’s growing…

  • #196 – Gwrych Castle Part 2 – Weeds

    It never ceases to amaze me how quickly nature takes over when man abandons his structures. Like walking through a woodland path the undergrowth makes seeing the stairs increasingly difficult. Meanwhile, inside (I use the term loosely, there’s been no roof for several years), this little plant had managed to take root on the reinforced…

  • #195 – Gwrych Castle Part 1

    Gwrych Castle(pronounced “Grick”, apparently), is notable for being the only castle in the UK to have no vowels in it. Or did I make that up? Not sure. Anyway, if you’ve ever driven along the A55 past Abergele, you’ll probably have seen this place on the wooded hillside to the west of the town. I…

  • #194 – The Myth Of Manual Mode

    A recent discussion on Talk Photography got me thinking about camera technique, something I don’t tend to give much thought to. Someone had asked why they should use manual mode, and the consensus seemed to be, quite refreshingly, use it when you need to, but don’t use it slavishly. Great advice, although some people still…

  • #193 – Moo Cards: a portfolio in your pocket!

    Not being a professional photographer, I’ve had no real need for business cards – the only ones in my wallet are for my real job, and that’s got nowt to do with taking pictures. However, when I heard about Moo and their double-sided cards that you could put anything on, my attention was grabbed. They’re…

  • #192 – Beauty in Decay?

    #192 – Beauty in Decay?

     “Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it”. Confucius  “Bleak factory buildings and billboard-cluttered avenues look as beautiful to the camera’s eye as churches and pastoral landscapes. More beautiful by modern taste” Susan Sontag Wabi-sabi is a somewhat nebulous Japanese term without any straightforward definition. In this context, Wabi has come to mean humble and simple, while means rusted…

  • #191 – Published (again) in Amateur Photographer Magazine

    May has been a good month, and the third bit of good news was today when I picked up Amateur Photographer (Saturday 4th June Edition) to see my pictures had been printed in Reader Spotlight, and had been chosen for ‘Editors Choice’! I don’t always buy the magazine, but if I’m out and about I’ll pick…

  • #190 – Royal Photographic Society Portfolio Part 7 – The panel

    Finally some pictures!!!! I’ve been working on them for that long that I’ve now got some better images, but at some point ou have to freeze the selection, otherwise you’ll never submit. I’m considering pushing on and putting together a panel for the Fellowship, but that’s 20 images, and it sounds like they’re going to…