Longing For A Letter

A few weeks ago I paid a visit to the Oak House in West Bromwich. It's very beautiful. It sits right in amongst rows of victorian terrace houses, beautiful in it's black and white splendour.
I have to say it was quite spooky and there where some strange goings on. I witnessed a huge travel chest move like it had been kicked when no body was near it. Then, standing at the top of the stairs shooting an image of the stairwell, something phyiscally shoved me and I had walk down two steps to steady myself. No body was in the house with me except the staff who where all across the other side of it. Needless to say, I soon legged it outside!
Still despite of that the light in this room with the dark wood was beautiful.

Hand held (-2/+2) belnded in Photomatix, processed in CS5. ISO was 400 so the noise was reduced in Niksoft Define.

Thanks For Looking

Spotty!

The Church...

This was my first ever vertorama. This is when you realise that your tripod head only pans up so far. What do you do then? Take the camera of the tripod and boldly go hand held? Tilt the tripod dangerously backward risking a floor Vs. camera explosion or stick with what you shot? I stuck with I had.

Tech stuff is the identical to my last post except the mono conversion, so check that out too if you want to know how it's put together!

Thanks for looking

Spotty.

The Church & The Trinity...

The Church & The Trinity / All Rights Reserved, originally uploaded by spotty photo.

St. John The Bapist Church, Hagley, Worc.

I was early for an appointment yesterday so I thought I'd drop into the little church on the hagley estate. I'd been once before but not been happy with what I shot so it was time for another go. I don't tend to like shooting in the late morning so I used it as an excuse to have a go at a couple of vertoramas (vertarama?). I'm quite pleased the result!

Sometimes when I have processed an image I sit and look at it and begin to wonder what drew me to the composition. Some images I have shot it was quite clear, pre-planned or just jumps out at you. Others, like this one, I just don't know. I remember thinking I liked the grave in for ground and the rest of it is a blur. Still it turned out ok I think!

4 shot vertorama, each image in the 'rama was a 3 image HDR (-2/+2) HDRs prepared in Photomatix, stitched & processed in CS5 converted to mono in Silver Efex.

Thanks for looking

Spotty

The Alien Cannon...

An enjoyable afternoon spent at RAF Cosford on Friday with a friend of mine. I've always found this a very difficult place to shoot. Every time I have gone there I have never been happy with what I have come away with. This time though I had a secret weapon (no not the cannon!), a Nikon 14-24mm f2.8. It just opens the world up. You just begin to see things differently, it's a stunning lens, the colour rendition is superb!

I quite liked the alien feel of this field gun sitting in the load area of an Argosy.

3 image HDR (-2/+2) blended in Photomatix and processed in CS5

It's Not All Sunrises & Landscapes!

It's gone all quiet on the landscape front at the minute. I've been working on a lot of stuff I'm not able to publish here unfortunately but here's a clue!
I'm planning an escape next weekend as long as nothing else comes up so hopefully I'll have some new images to share!

I love portraits shot for promotional work in 1930's movies. So simple, so beautifully lit. Not so easy to achieve with a bunch of kids tearing up the place! Did I sort of manage it? What do you think?

For those of you that like this sort of thing -

Single key light & shoot through white brolley (which fell over and bent...!), 1/250's at f2.8 (I think?!), shot into weak sun for slight rim lighting around the hair on the left.

Thanks for looking

Spotty!

The Boat House In The Mountains

The Boat House In The Mountains / All Rights Reserved, originally uploaded by spotty photo.

Cregennan Lakes, Arthog, Wales

I made a special effort to go and find this beautiful place on my last visit to wales. After a pretty hairy drive up to the lake I was awe struck by how beautiful it was.
The light was absolutely awful as you can see but the colours where awesome. I love the fact that there is a boat house in this remote place!
I had a good walk round it and found several locations for a good sunrise, role on May!

This image was made up of 3 vertical images stitched together in CS5 to create the square. Each image comprises of 9 exposures (-4/+4) blended in Photomatix processed in CS5