Port of Felixstowe pt II: Wheels and Concrete
Having seen the shipping side of the docks, I have also explored the ‘other’ side, which is the equally interesting ‘nuts and bolts’ of how the port works. If you aren’t familiar with Felixstowe or the East of England, then you may not know that the port is woefully poorly connected to the rest of the country. Basically, there is one trunk road, known as the A14, which runs pretty much from the dock gate to Birmingham in the centre of the country. It is hopelessly over capacity, such that traffic often grinds to a halt at busy times. You would imagine that rail would also be a good way of moving the vast numbers of containers that we saw in the previous post – considering that one large ship can now carry some 10,000 20 foot containers, that is potentially 5,000 truck journeys, or a fraction of that number of trains. But the rail network is not great either, so there is something of a bottleneck for freight leaving Felixstowe to its destinations.
These photos were taken at various places in or near to the docks, and represent some of the more interesting things I found as far as moving the goods around is concerned.
Above: trucks lay waiting to be called to pick up their loads. There is massive security at the port, and drivers must produce a biometric ID card at the gates or they are denied access.
Above: ‘The Grid’ – the containers come off the ships and are stacked on a 3-dimensional grid system, which you can see marked on the ground. Each container is allocated an ‘X’, ‘Y’ and vertical ‘Z’ position so it can be found easily to be loaded for its onward journey. Did you know that the docks sometimes close when it snows? The reason is that the snow covers the grid markings, and the crane drivers cannot see which containers are which!!
Above: Stacked ‘Short Sea’ containers [denoting that their journey is short as opposed to from the other side of the world].
Above: a fork lift which can lift a loaded 20 foot container, which could weigh 20 odd tons.
Above: There are all manner of ageing vehicles which are only used within the yards, and which are known as ‘shunters’. This tired-looking one must have retired from the open road many years ago.
Above: Abandoned? This has been dropped off whilst another container is emptied, to be picked up again later.
Above: I for one would not like this to be my place of work, as I fear heights!
Above: Waiting seems to be a large part of the job, for the ships’ crew and everybody else reliant on them.
Port of Felixstowe pt I: Ships and Shore
The second set of pictures I took yesterday afternoon, in unseasonably warm sunshine, was from the marina at Shotley. This is a peninsula between the rivers Orwell and Stour, and within a few hundred yards of the shore here you have Harwich, to the south, which is a major ferry port for European destinations, and Felixstowe to the north, which is one of the largest ports in Europe. It being a Sunday afternoon, the port was relatively quiet, with two large container ships already berthed, Maersk Klaipeda and MSC Rossella, and one which arrived whilst I was shooting, Maersk Taurus [which is the one in the last picture].
It is quite interesting watching the movement of these vast ships – the port is now able to handle the largest container ships in the world – because although the Taurus has a weight of 94,000 tonnes, it was pirouetted 180 degrees by two little tugs in about five minutes, and looked for a moment rather graceful. The other interesting thing about shooting a large port like this is the sheer vastness of the machines. As well as the ships, which are incomparably large, the cranes also dwarf everything around them. Their drivers sit a hundred feet above the ground in a glass cab, sliding back and forth over the dock and then over the ship as they move the containers.
Pin Mill in the Afternoon
My daughter is at school quite a way from home, and as a result, when birthday parties occur, there is usually a long drive involved. Rather than try and get home and then go back again, I find it easier [assuming the weather is decent] to take the camera and find somewhere nearby to take some photos for a couple of hours. Today was just such an afternoon; the dog refused to get into the car, so I could not spend the time walking him. Instead, I took two sets of pictures. The first is of Pin Mill, a small hamlet that sits on the south bank of the River Orwell as it flows from Ipswich out to sea at Felixstowe. The light was very clear today, and the still water provided some great reflections.
Liverpool by Night
Here are a few pictures from a recent trip to Liverpool, mostly from the Pier Head area. I snuck out of the hotel and captured some interesting sights. My previous ramblings around the city were documented here.
The first one was taken out of my hotel window, and the second is a crop of the first, but with the white balance turned down to about 2200. They were all taken on my d3100 with shutter priority mode at F16 over a long exposure at ISO100. Hey, enjoy, already too soon!
Winter Sunset
I tried to do a few sunset pictures last year with varying degrees of success, using an ND Graduated filter to reduce the glare of the sun. However the sunsets in East Anglia, dramatic as they can sometimes be, do not really allow you to include the sea because you are by definition on the east coast, much to my frustration.
So I was really excited when I got lucky yesterday – work took me to Sidmouth on the Devon coast – some 5 hours drive from home, and I arrived at the hotel just in time to get out of the car, stretch my tired legs and take some photos on the beach. The temperature was already near freezing as I got there, but it was a beautifully clear day and it was too good an opportunity to miss.
As you can see, there were also some surfers in the water – I don’t know how they stood the cold, even in wetsuits. The water looked icy. So, here are my favourites.
Copenhagen in Winter
Right, to ease me back into blogging again after a lengthy lay off, I am posting a little photo diary of this weekend’s trip to Copenhagen. It was savagely cold, in a way that the UK has not been so far this winter. The east wind goes through any layers you are wearing and eats its way into your very being. Copenhagen is a compact little city, with a lot of waterways, and a few very good real ale pubs. These shots were all taken with my little Samsung point and shoot camera, because we only took hand luggage and the big camera is too big!!
Photo of the Day: La Rambla, Barcelona, 7pm
This shot of passers by was taken in the still oppressive heat of early evening by a busy news stand (oh how witty – I didn’t know a news stand could take photos!!!). It was shot in RAW format and then given a pop in Topaz Adjust to bring out all those details from the flagstones to the myriad clothing styles worn by these people.
A few more from the BBC at Mediacity
Normally, when taking a batch of photos, I will pick out my favourites for post production and posting on the blog. But after a few days, I will often then ‘have a go’ at some of the less notable photos, and see what I can do with them. In this case, I have pulled out three which were less immediate but, having tweaked them a little bit, I still like them.
Above: The tram station at mediacity, where the long exposure has resulted in a little artistic blurring of the people on the platform.
Above: The CBBC studios. The shot is not a great one, because I took it ‘straight on’ as opposed to at an angle. But I like the lead in that the floor mounted lights give it. It could do with a little straightening up as well.
Above: Aargh!! The evening I shot these pictures, it was quite windy. Whilst I was using my sturdy Manfrotto 190 tripod, this shot is slightly blurred because the camera moved imperceptibly during the long exposure.
Beached
My recent tour around England’s North-West took me in an exotic loop from Runcorn, through to Salford via a weekend at a friend’s house in New Brighton, just a short ferry from Liverpool across the Mersey. I took some shots on the beach on a sunny afternoon, because the sea front has unique qualities. The sea can retreat at low tide for maybe a quarter of a mile, leaving a vast sandy expanse; yet at other times it can seem as if it is trying to breach the sea wall and flood the [reclaimed] sea front. Here are some photos that I took with a no.8 graduated ND filter and my trusty circular polariser. A couple are HDR’s, the rest just normal.
Above: The ‘Lifeguard’ hut is a great subject for a shot or two. This is actually an HDR of four shots at varying exposures.
I love the way the clouds seem to radiate from the centre of this picture – it gives it some dynamism and almost makes it look as if I meant to get this effect!!
Above – testing out the depth of field technique of focusing ‘one third in’ to the picture.
Above” This is the sea wall and where I am standing is often under water – so the wall has acquired a nice patina.
Above: That rather dramatic sky again, captured in Black and White.
Above: Looking out to sea from the gap at the top of the steps, this is an HDR rendering of four shots taken at varying exposures, the given a ‘pop’ in Topaz Adjust.
An Evening Stroll around Media City UK
Much has been made in the British press about the BBC’s gradual move to Salford, near Manchester. It has been explained as a cost cutting measure and also as part of the ongoing attempts to revitalise the provinces and draw some of the attention away from London. Well that’s as may be, but I found myself temporarily relocated to Salford this week for a few days because of work. One evening, me and my two colleagues decided to take a wander, and so I took my Nikon and my tripod with me too. Not a great look for a casual wanderer, but it made for some interesting night time shots. I also fell victim, for the first time, to the security guard intervention syndrome that so afflicts the urban snapper. Luckily, this chap was quite nice once I explained myself as an amateur photographer, explaining that ‘we’re told to ask people, like’……
Above: The building works still continue, but the whole mediacity site does have something of a buzz about it.
Above: A shot of the Mediacity tram terminal at F16.
Above: The main square – the ‘Studio’ building to the right houses Childrens’ BBC and Blue Peter is also situated close by. My daughter was impressed by this.
Above: The quay looking towards the Lowry Museum.
Above: The sweeping glass facade of the CBBC studios, where you might meet actors dressed as unlikely, furry creatures. Or a dalek or two.
Above: The sail bridge, whose lighting, like that of much of the illuminated area, changes colour constantly.
Above: This was the view from my 15th floor hotel window. On the first evening, before the sun set, I set up the camera and tripod, and took a set of images of this view at a range of -3ev to +3 ev. Then I merged them in Photomatix to create this interesting HDR image. My hotel room had floor to ceiling windows, which made me feel a bit uneasy if I went too close and looked down. In the background is Trafford Park, which is a vast expanse of goods sheds, oil depots and container haulage yards that goes on for miles, and is the size of a small town.
Above: I took this from the 15th floor lift lobby in the Holiday Inn by setting up my tripod and camera right up by the window (which needed a clean!!!) and using a polarising filter to minimise reflections. Luckily nobody came out of the lift to see me!!!
Two more from my night shooting
These two pictures were part of the set I snapped in Ipswich Marina recently, my first night time pictures. I used a tripod and low ISO plus long exposure times for these. I didn’t bother using the two shots below when I first reviewed my photos, because they were under exposed and unremarkable, but with some trickery using Camera Raw and a bit of cropping, I am rather pleased with them.
A Gaudi View
Not much to post today, as I’ve been doing other things. This is a picture from the Gaudi-esque Parc Guell in Barcelona, one of the photos I didn’t get round to posting in my recent Barcelona Fest. I might crop the right hand side a little bit, but it’s a nice view which sums up the city – you have everything from surreal architecture, through a sweeping hillside view, down to the sea, all in one compact area.
Evening Shots Close to Home
It is tempting when reading the Photography magazines to believe that you need to travel a long way to take good or interesting photographs. But for most of us, this is simply not practical. So we have to learn to make the most of what is close to us. In my case, I have ended up getting pretty tired of shots of corn fields this summer! But last evening, I was walking the dog and decided to take some pictures of the impending sunset. It was a sunny day, so I had high hopes of some interesting shots. I also wanted to practice low light pictures, having only dabbled in this once before. So I took my tripod and waited. There is a lot of waiting involved in snapping sunsets! Also, the sun adopts the same stance as the watched kettle – it never seems to actually set!! So here are some things I learnt:
- Get a good vantage point which will allow you to be undisturbed. I used the entrance to a field which allowed me to stand for half an hour unmolested, despite the farmer driving past in his tractor and giving me a very strange look.
- Try and find an interesting feature or skyline, as the sun itself isn’t really what you want to be directly in your picture.
- As everybody says, there isn’t really a ‘standard’ F-stop, shutter speed and ISO setting to use. It depends what you are trying to do. If for example there are also waves or moving water, you might want to do a slow exposure and thus need to adjust the ISO and shutter speed accordingly. My first photo below was taken with a 1 second exposure time.
- Use and ND grad filter! I used an ND4 square filter, and in some pictures this was still not stopping the highlights from being over exposed.
- Have patience! I also read a comment from somebody who said that the real action in a sunset takes place AFTER the sun has set, not before. It may be half an hour after the sun disappears that you will find dramatic effects.
And so, on to the pictures, all taken around my home village. I also enjoyed snapping the local church, as the external lights had just come on and this led to some interesting effects.
Above: A 1 -second exposure taken at F20 and ISO100 to try and preserve the detail.
Above: Taken at F5.6 and 1/80 second exposure time, again at ISO100, about 5 minutes after the sun had set. If you look VERY carefully, to the right of the first right-hand tree, you will see a paraglider who had been buzzing about for the last half an hour.
Above: The church, taken after sunset with the lights illuminating the exterior.
Above: This last one is a single image which I fed through Photomatix to try and get an HDR effect, but it came out looking rather ghostly and eerie, which I like.
Above: The local pub after dark. Used ISO2500, 1/80 second shutter speed at F4, in shutter priority mode, as it was taken handheld.
More Boats, Water, but this time less Noise
Last week I posted some photos that I took recently in Felixstowe, where I had used the manual settings on the camera and forgotten to adjust the ISO down from a previous evening sunset photo session. This resulted in horrible shots with loads of ‘noise’ on the images, and try as I might I couldn’t really salvage them. A shame, because some interesting subject matter was around and about. Well, more recently I have returned to the same spot – in fact it’s becoming a bit of a ‘local’ practice ground for me due to the great location and changing views. This time, I set the levels correctly and got some good shots. See what you think.
Above; This is one of the first shots I took with my ‘big’ lens – a Nikon 55-200 super zoom. It really is an awesome lens. I like this shot, even though it’s riotously ‘busy’!
Above: Another very similar shot to one I have taken several times, this time correctly exposed, and a circular polarising filter taking effect.
Above: A saturated rendering of a picture of the concrete jetty which has an interesting mix of materials, all nicely weather beaten.
Above: I was really pleased with this one. Another shot with the 55-200mm lens.
Above: Almost looks like the Caribbean, doesn’t it? No, it’s the dirty, oily River Orwell. This shot, although the water is interesting, lacks any real interest or lead-in.
Above: My first try at an F4 close up with a blurry background. In fact, maybe a bit too blurry.
Above: The same shot, but using the whole of the piece of drift wood – which looks a little bit dolphin-like. I could crop the right hand side a bit and lose the small bit of sand.
Above – taken with the normal lens, as I had left the big one in the car by this point. It is straining a bit at 55mm, but would have been a nice sunset shot if taken later in the day.
Above: Another rather dramatic shot – you can see these huge cranes from miles away on the horizon; I like the stacks of containers on the right as well. The UK’s trade deficit in one image.
The End of Summer?
I took these two pictures from my hotel window this morning whilst away with work. It was a bright start to the day, and the photos show the hue of the leaves on the trees slowly changing as summer gives way to autumn. There should be lots more opportunity for this kind of shot soon! Both were processed in Camera Raw and then one was given the Topaz Adjust treatment, the other had the colour curves tweaked in PSE.
Reflections on a Shiny Floor
Moving from ships to air travel now, I have posted a few pictures below of different stages of a flight from Barcelona to London. We were waiting in the airport for some time due to a slight delay, so I took my camera and looked for some interest. You can get some real hassle in some airports if you walk around with a camera, but this one was quiet and no problems occurred. We weren’t, sadly, in the main [and far more interesting] part of the airport, but you have to make do – the effects of the shiny floors were very interesting. Then, having eventually hurtled down the runway and into the air, there are a couple of ‘out of the plane window’ shots, the first being over Northern France, the second being a very good view that we had of West London and Battersea Power Station as we descended into Stansted.
Above – the Duty Free shop was a riot of flourescent lighting and colour, all reflected in the lovely shiny floor.
Above: another reflection shot.
Above: I caught Jenny relaxing with her iPhone, whilst also managing to get the outside scene in the same shot.
Above: taken out of the plane window, [you can see the 'halo' of the camera lens reflected in the shot] and a little grainy, I still like the look of this.
Above: flying over London. You can see Battersea Power Station on the left, then to its right, Battersea Park, then moving right and on the other bank is Chelsea Harbour – if you look closely you can see Stamford Bridge, home of Chelsea FC, on the far right hand side.
A Port through a Polariser, and a forgotten setting!
I went to Felixstowe again today, to try out the circular polarising filter which I bought last week. This is a filter that basically rids he picture of reflections and enriches the colours and highlights the details in your composition. I had some great fun, and even managed an HDR shot as well. However, having now returned home and done some work on some of the shots I took, I couldn’t understand why there was so much noise coming up on the pictures. I had shot them all in manual mode, and been very careful to appy my new learning to the settings [lower F stop for close ups, higher F stop for greater depth of field]. Then I realised. I had not checked the ISO setting, which I had last set when doing some sunset shots – it was on a massively high setting and so the pictures are very grainy. I count this as a lesson and have put it down ‘to experience’……but I’ll share the pictures with you anyway.
Above – a bit overcooked for some tastes, but the result of shooting toward the sunlight using the CP filter and an ND4 grad.
Above: Today’s rather painterly HDR shot, made up of three shots taken on the tripod at -3, 0 and +2 EV exposure compensations. A bit of advice – ships are a poor subject for HDR – even with a super steady tripod you can’t stop the ship from bobbing around on the water, as I found out here!!!
Above: Please welcome the COSCO Guangzhou, weighing in at 109,000 tons and able to carry, so I understand, 9500 containers. She is apparently one of the top 10 largest container ships in the world. I created a duplicate layer in Photoshop, made it B&W, then erased the ship’s shape to bring some colour into it.
Above: You can see what I mean about the noise that selecting the wrong ISO setting creates! This was passed through Topaz Adjust and I have brought out some interesting colours.
Above: One of the day’s more successful shots – the Landguard Fort which was built to repel German invaders should they have got this far. Rather sinister in black and white – see how the CP filter has picked out the cloud detail.
So, still lots to learn, then! Hope you enjoy following me as I do so!!
Zu Den Zugen
Jenny has sent me some photos from her weekend visit to the former DDR – the small village of Goldbeck, which has some nice run down buildings on display. She took these on her iPhone 4, and I ran them through Photoshop and Topaz Adjust.
Lavenham
Lavenham, for those of you who do not know, is a small town in Suffolk which was formerly associated with the wool trade in Medieval times. It has managed to preserve its fine stock of timber framed buildings intact, and as such is now a major tourist destination – at this time of year the narrow streets are crawling with visitors on a sunny day. Despite is rather ‘chocolate box’ image, Lavenham is a rather interesting place. Most people I know, including myself, spent many mornings sitting in the main square on school art trips, making shoddy water colour paintings of the Angel Hotel. A couple of weeks ago I wandered around Lavenham and took these pictures. It was early evening on a day that had seen sunshine and rain, hence a rather interesting sky.
Above: The Guildhall, the central building in the town square.
Above: The Little Hall, now a museum. These buildings are not painted – they are washed in a substance known as Lime Wash which contains the coloured pigments you can see. They didn’t have paint in Medieval times…..
Above: Some less spectacular, but still lovely, buildings in the square.
Above: Another image of the Little Hall building.
Above: A moody view of the Guildhall. The sky is interesting in this shot, as is the early evening light reflecting in the windows.
Barca Part 4
This is the final installment of my pictures from Spain. These were all taken in various markets around the city, primarily the Mercato Boqueria, the central market just off the Ramblas. From the market in Florence, through to Kirkgate Market in Leeds, you will see that I have a fascination with these indoor marketplaces. These pictures tended towards the fish section of the market, or more correctly the seafood section. Because Barcelona is by the sea, the produce sold here is fabulous and very fresh. Some things were still alive! I hope you enjoy the photos, even though some of them are, I will warn you, rather gory – don’t read this post directly before your breakfast, dinner or tea.
This old Berkel weighing scale was used to weigh out cured sausages and sliced ham.
Above, not being a fan of crustaceans, I can only guess that these beauties are big prawns, or possibly crayfish. I don’t know. But they were still struggling away, whatever they were.
Above: At the market in the Gracia district, this hardware stall made an interesting photo.
Above: These fierce looking fish were a little eel-like, with savage looking teeth on display. Not what I would want to find on my plate for tea!
Above: Crabs. Lots and lots of crabs. Still very much alive and ready to fight with anybody who wants it!
Above – rather a graphic view of the counter at an offal stall. When I lived in Huddersfield many years ago, there was a small shop called the Tripe Shop. It catered for the [mainly elderly] population who were used to eating such choice cuts as tripe, cow heel, windpipe and so on. It did not survive into the 1990s. However in mainland Europe, the frugal cultural approach to the animal means that France, Italy, Spain and many other countries that are essentially rural still have a strong tradition of eating every part of the animal. And as you can see from the picture above, that means every part of the animal – I was taken aback to see skinned sheeps heads, but I understand that they are cooked and provide a lot of meat for 1 Euro 50 cents!
Above: Without wishing to present a photo assignment from an abattoir, this picture shows the elderly boss of a meat dealer’s stall at the edge of the market. They were hauling in great big beef carcases and cutting them, then presumably the other butchers in the market buy the meat in more manageable sizes to finish cutting. The carcases were all hung up from hooks which you can see in the background.
Above: Anchovies! I love these!
And finally, slightly surreal, very gory but strange – you may know that when fishmongers deal with the bizarre looking Monkfish, they refer to their product as ‘monkfish tails’. That is because the fish has a hard, cartilage-filled head which is all but inedible, as opposed to its meaty rear section. And so here is a box filled with the heads, cut off and discarded and no doubt bound for the cat food factory.
Barca Part 3
And now another installment of random pictures from my walks around Barcelona. I plan to do a separate post on the Boqueria Market because it’s a bit more specialised! These, in contrast, are the result of me moping around with camera ready for action, poking my nose in where it doesn’t belong. It’s mostly people this time, although there are lots of sweets too.
Above – a sweet stall in the market. Those colours are all natural, of course – no additives involved!
Above: Another picture taken in the LACentral book store one evening.
Above – another favourite. In the district near to the hotel, we found many north African and Asian establishments and great street life. Some parts were a little bit heavy, but I couldn’t resist snapping this chap in the midst of a very serious evening haircut.
Above: This is credited to Jenny, who managed to get these street musicians to smile, whereas I normally provoke unfriendly glances if I point the camera at anybody!
Above – throughout the city there are many performers who pose as statues to make money from the tourists – here is a chap taking a break in the shade of the cathedral but still wearing his face paint.
Above – everywhere we went there were people sitting playing games – dominoes and chess mainly.
Barca Part 2
Back to Barcelona now, if you don’t mind. I’m slowly working through the mass of photos that we took, and applying some post processing effects to some of them. There is no real theme to these posts, it’s rather like a wander around the city taking random snapshots. I hope you enjoy.
Above is a shot of Jenny in the most wonderful book shop in Barcelona, which extended into many, many rooms full of books, including some English language versions, and a very impressive music section, featuring books about many punk and alternative bands [Husker Du biography, anyone?]. There were also lots of cool gift-type things and I bought my daughter a very nice little ipod sock.
Above – now a night shot. This is a continuation of the walkabout in my last post, where we wandered through the Fiesta Major de Gracia – a whole district basically holds a massive street party lasting from lunchtime until…….whenever you feel like giving up. This shot was taken under the customary canopy of rope lights that get hung the length of every street in the barrio.
Above – the same Fiesta, but in the early afternoon. A major Domino tournament had clearly started, and the elderly participants took up tables and enjoyed the shade. I got the impression that these gatherings [the tables were used later on for massive sit down meals] are actually for the people who live on that particular street, so it’s a little bit like a massive old-fashioned street party, the likes of which we used to get in England before people decided that it was both more profitable and more enjoyable to loot their local retail park of an evening.
Above: Returning from a trip to the beach. Because Barcelona is a city adjoining the sea, you enjoy the rather surreal experience of being able to head off to the sand by underground train! In the evening, the trains are packed with people carrying towels, beach bags and inflatables! Fabulous! The underground system is also cheap [ish], fast, reliable and most wonderful of all, air-conditioned.
By taking the underground, you can get to the Funicular railway that takes you up to Montjuc, a hilly district which contains the most beautiful gardens and affords views of the whole city as well as containing the Stadio Olympico, a massive stadium used for the Barcelona Olympics for which I believe we have the fascists to thank. These flowers were commonplace, and look rather lovely.
Above: And finally for this installment, more of those lovely botanical gardens in Montjuc. We’ll be heading back to the market for the next installment.
Barca Part 1
After a lull in posting for a week, I have returned with a few pictures from my jaunt to Barcelona. There will be more, but here is a taster to keep you occupied.
The above image was taken in the market in Gracia. It shows the pretty stunning light effects from the glass ceiling of the market.
Above: These taxi drivers were standing chatting outside the Sgardia de Familia, Gaudi’s famous unfinished monument and the biggest tourist draw I have ever seen outside most of Florence. I didn’t realise at the time, but when I sharpened the image later the towers of the famous church were captured in the back door and window of the taxi.
Above: This is a bit of a ‘work in progress’, as I need to remove the halo-ing around the roof and the sky.
Above: Possibly my favourite image from the week. The street cleaners had just been watering the plants of this street in the Gracia district, taken at about lunch time.
Above: Caught out! I failed to see the tree and the effect it had on the otherwise simple image – however I quite like the effect that the windscreen gives it! I need to remove some of the colour ‘fringing’ on the lines on the road.
Above: Another fave, this is a street corner in the Gracia district.
Above: loading beer in to one of the many street bars during the ‘Fiesta Major’ in Gracia.
Above: I liked this tall house, and again am guilty of some haloing of the sky which I need to remove.
Above: One of my night time photo attempts; the fiesta meant that the streets were all lit from lights dangled across them at about 10 feet high – in addition to the street lights above them this made it incredibly difficult to get a correct exposure, even using a high ISO. Oh, and these are little individual potted lettuces, if you’re wondering!
Above: You’ll be seeing a lot more of the Mercato de Boqueria, the central market, which has some amazing stalls selling edible things and creatures of every description. Including sheeps heads.
Above: The green lights on this restaurant in Barcelonetta were attractive.
Post Processing Fun and Games
Armed with a mac and a few bits of clever software it’s interesting to see what you can do. I’ve been using Photoshop Elements for a while now, and have also had some fun with Photomatix HDR Light. I’ve also been trying out an awesome new tool, this being Topaz Adjust. It allows all sorts of post-production effects and, because it’s a Photoshop plug-in, can be used in conjunction with all the other neat tools. I’d like to share my initial experiments with you, most of the base images you will have seen on this blog before – but not like this!!
When I went fishin’ on Saturday, the place I parked in was next to an ambulance garage. There were rows of them parked up there, in varying flourescent liveries. This shot, like all the others, was taken in raw format, then fed through an HDR effect in Topaz Adjust, with a change to the curves in PS and some adjustments via a layer to the green, yellow and reds.
Above is a shot of a covered walkway at Great Fosters, a hotel in Surrey. This is a great rendering, and I particularly like the tone of the flagstones.
Above: From Saturday’s set, another green picture! This is one where I used an HDR type effect on a single exposure and I rather like the result.
Above – an evening shot of the Norman gate and Cathedral Tower in Bury St Edmunds, this time with an added contrast adjustment which really draws out the darkness and dirt accumulated on the stones.
Above – The Head of Steam real ale house adjoining Huddersfield Rail Station. More beautiful honey coloured stone. I initially thought the people walking into the shot on the right were a nuisance, but their bright Asian clothing and the fact that they are almost all sporting the same colour makes it rather nice.
Above – I find this really stunning. This, for those of you who have not read my previous ramblings, this carbuncle is the St Peter’s Building in Huddersfield. Formerly a YMCA and then student halls of residence, it has now stood abandoned for years slowly decaying whilst still dominating everything around it. The light in the photo and the detail of the millions of bricks is stunning.
