Mechanical Landscapes

  • #84 – Air House

    This was my reward for a gruelling trip to Pyestock back in 2007. The day had started early, leaving Lancashire at about 6, picking up two other explorers in Manchester at 6.30, and then getting to Pyestock mid morning. After getting lost in the woods we eventually found access, and made our way onto the…

  • #83 – Welcome To Oblivion 1

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

  • #82 – Mechanical Landscapes Book Update

    Bit of an on and off one is this project. I’ve slowly been going through my archives for photos for a book, but am still trying to find a balance between urban exploration photos and industrial / urban landscapes. I don’t want it to be a mix of both, but getting the balance and the…

  • #81 – White Balance Nightmare!!

    I’d only had the camera a few weeks when I took this, so I suppose that’s my excuse for not fathoming out how to take a manual white balance for this scene. In actual fact, i struggle the whole night with the sodium vapour lighting, but for the most part I was able to correct it in…

  • #80 – Sayers of Lorenzo Drive – Then and Now

    I was exploring the world with Google Street View recently, and decided to have a look at places I’ve known. I was keen to see the bakery of Sayers Confectioners in Norris Green, Liverpool, where I worked for a couple of memorable years as a graduate trainee. I’d heard that the place had closed in…

  • #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…

  • #78 – Book Recommendation – Within The Frame

    #78 – Book Recommendation – Within The Frame

      I read a lot, and the book I am currently reading is Within the Frame: The Journey of Photographic Vision by David DuChemin. David is a documentary photographer who works for humanitarian organisations across the world, which means his photographs have sod all in common with mine. However, his thoughts on creativity and vision absolutely hit the…

  • #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…

  • #73 – Abstract 3

    Following on from my previous posts – start to recognise it now? The message here is that you don’t have to stick to the conventional views of buildings, or anything for that matter. Often, you won’t be able to fit everything in to the frame anyway (these were taken with a Fuji compact which was…

  • #72 – Abstract 2

    Another one from the Sydney Opera House. I was truly fascinated with this building, and it was as interesting inside as it was outside. In fact, I’d say that it was more interesting to shoot the small details of the place than it was the whole (apart from at night).

  • #71 – Abstract 1

    An interior view of one of the most famous buildings in the world – the Sydney Opera House. Recognise it? No? Perhaps not surprising, as most photographs you see are of the spectacular exterior, but the interior is just as interesting, and (speaking as an engineer) it is nice to see that the concrete segments…

  • #70 – When colour works…..

    I’ve blogged a few times about how sometimes colour works best, and sometime black and white does. Here’s one where colour does. I visited Jumbles Quarry deep in the Trough of Bowland with David Kitching (see his excellent website here), after failing miserably a couple of weeks back. Tracing the route of the old railway…

  • #69 – Threads

    Sometimes I take a picture and then review it and for some reason just find it interesting. This is one of them. Cheers.

  • #68 – light and location (part 1)

    For me, location is hugely important in railway photography. Once a good location has been found, it is well worth re-visiting, especially at different times of the day and different times of the year. These are taken at Townsendfold on the East Lancs Railway. This first one was taken in 2007 at the winter steam gala,…

  • #67 – Colour? Or black and white?

    I took this late on a February afternoon, with the sun low in the sky on the other side of the bridge. Clouds kept partially obscuring it, but I kept getting some terrific light on the railway arches, but no train! It finally arrived (on time), and I got this image. I must admit that…

  • #66 – it doesn’t always go according to plan… (part 3)

    Somewhere in this valley is a quarry that was abandoned in the 1920’s, complete with steam crane and some railway track. Unfortunately I’ve no idea where. I’d seen a report on a forum containing some pictures from the 70’s, and a search on geograph eventually showed me where it was. However, with all the recent…

  • #65 – over-reliance on technology?

    Stabilised lenses (VR in the case of the Nikon system that I use) are a fantastic innovation that has allowed me to take photos in circumstances that would be impossible with a normal lenses. However, I learnt an important (but cringingly obvious) lesson the other night – by and large, they work best when the…

  • #64 – Guesswork / bulb mode

    Sometimes, you run out of pre-set exposure times on your camera and you have to resort to the ‘guess’ mode, AKA  Bulb. This particular scene was tricky as the big floodlight in the background kept being turned on and off, which made exposure a pain. After several tests, I ended up thinking f*ck it, counted to…