Kissed By The Sun

A Sun Light Kiss / All Rights Reserved, originally uploaded by spotty photo.

Barmouth, Wales

Due to the very low cloud my intended spot for shooting the sunrise had been wiped out and the cafe we have breakie at being closed until 9am, we went for an explore.
I took a single track road just outside of Barmouth that lead up into the hills beyond. We followed the road until it turned into a mud track and decided it was best to stop. I got out and followed the public foot path up over a small hill and passed what was left of a sheep that had met a particularly grizzly end. As I walked over the crest of the hill this wonderful scene greeted me.
Unfortunately, alot of the detail in the cloud around the sun was lost when I converted it for the web but I still like it.

9 shot HDR (-4/+4) in photomatix and converted in CS5.

Thanks for looking!

" Arrr They Came From The Sea.......!"

"They Came From The Sea......." / All Rights Reserved, originally uploaded by spotty photo.

Barmouth Harbour, Wales

I saw this scene in the harbour and instantley thought "Arrr, they, they came from sea"! I could image the bouys dragging themselves up the beach some how with people screaming and running away, just like some 50's horror movie (sometimes, I think there is something wrong with me, would normal people think of something like that?!)!!

9 shot HDR tone mapped in photomatix (-4/+4) processed in CS5.

Thanks for looking

The Boat House In The Mountains...

Cregennan Lake, Cader Idris, Wales

The boring skies at the weekend lead to some location searching for future visits.
This lake sits at the foot of Cader Idris in Wales. It's really well known but it was my first time there. It was breathtaking, it was crystal clear with stunning views. I tend to get a bit carried away in places like this and shoot everything and anything!
The flat sky just didn't do it justice, I'm going to have to go back for a sunrise in a few months time.

4 image panorama with each image being made up of a 9 exposure (-4/+4) HDR file created in Photomatix and processed and stitched in Photoshop.


Thanks for looking!

When The Boat Comes In...

When The Boat Comes In / All Rights Reserved, originally uploaded by spotty photo.

Barmouth Harbour, Wales.

Flat skies, that's what greeted us this weekend. There's nothing worse than gray cloud with no definitionis there? Just before we left there was a break in the cloud and the sun came out. It only lasted a few minutes, just enough time for a couple of images!

This is the first one. I liked the blue colour in the boat and the yellow buoys.

9 exposure (-4/+4) image, tone mapped in Photomatix and processed in CS5.

Thanks for looking

Spotty!

Narnia Calling...

Narnia Calling... / All Rights Reserved, originally uploaded by spotty photo.

Dudley, West Midlands

I love going for a wonder to see what I can find. Having gotten lost in a local wood, I came across the beautiful place
The sun light was pooring through the trees making the frost glow and sparkle. The leaves had vanished off the track and had been replaced by grass. This gave it an even more fictional feeling, just like being in Narnia...

Its the middle ish' part of a 7 shot pano, with each image comprising of a 9 shot HDR (-4/+4) file.

Shot on a Nikon D300, Tripod, processed in Photomatix and CS5.

Thanks for looking, hope you enjoyed it!

Spotty

Rise of the Machines...!

Another image from the weekends photo walk. The building we where in had at some stage, been turned into a castings factory. The factory had shut and the machinery just left to rot for god knows how long. Great for us photographers though.
HDR reveals colours that just are not there when you view them with the naked eye.
I couldn't say what the yellow and green blobs are though. My first instinct was they where lens flare but I can't work out where they are coming from... Spooky!

9 image HDR +4 / -4 exposures, blended in photomatix, processed in CS5, tweaked in Topaz and sharpened in Niksoft Pro Sharpener 3.0...

The Lights Fantastic!

Mailbox, Birmingham

I've seen so much superb urban HDR lately, I really wanted to give it a try. I've never shot in a city centre and didn't really know what to expect. I hoped if I got there early enough, it would be reasonably quite and fairly devoid of people.
I got into Birmingham at 6am this morning (Saturday 12.02), there was hardly anybody about but I only managed the one image and this is it. I decided I needed a wider lens and somebody with me to keep an eye out while I was shooting (I'm clearly a coward!).
This underpass connects the entrance to the Mailbox with Navigation Street. I love the colours of the lights and the purple ambient light.

It's a 5 image pano comprising of 9 shot HDR images (+4/-4 exposures).

Check out my photostream @ www.flickr.com/photos/spottyphoto

I've Seen Better Days, I've Had Better Times

I went out on a photo walk with Stourbridge Photographic Society this weekend.It was pouring it with rain, really windy and generally not fit weather to be making photo's in. On the way home we stopped off at the old Lion Works.  It's in a right decaying state, such an important building as well in my opinion. The rubbish weather did add to the over run down ambiance of the place.  



And Then The Snow Comes...

Why does snow bring England to its knees? Post doesn't turn up for a month, shops begin to run out of food and despite having plenty of warnings, councils (mine at least) appear to not ever want to grit? Schools don't open, planes stop flying, cars get abandoned and your gas bill becomes half your annual salary.
Still, it's great for photographers - here's to the next lot!

A Winters Morning

I finally managed to get out and about in this lovely snow and Ice this week. I had scoped a couple of likely new locations on my way to shooting a wedding last weekend and was eager to return.
I managed to make a gap in the diary of a couple hours between editing and made the journey over towards Shifnal. The weather looked fantastic until I got within a mile or two of the location and was met with a wall of freezing fog. Visibility was down to about 20 feet - great...

I turned around and drove back towards home. I decided that I would take a walk down one of the local footpaths and found this. The trees where covered in such heavy haw frost they looked like leaves, just beautiful.

This image is available as a print. drop me a line if you would like to enquire.

In Love...

I'm very much looking forward to shooting Stuart and Claire's wedding tomorrow at the Mount. I've got some nice new ideas to try out and have a lot of fun with the bride and groom! I can't wait, I want to start shooting now!
The image above if from Mark and Laura's wedding I shot in August, it's going to form the basis of my new marketing campaign so keep an eye out...

The Beach

Have you ever visited Black Rock Sands? It's a huge expanse of sand which you can drive your car onto (if your brave enough). It's also great for dramatic sky's especially when they role in off the sea. I loved the reflections in the wet sand with the tyre tracks running through it. 

The Waterfall

What do you think about colour? I love deeply saturated colours that explode out of the image what ever type of image that may be. Is there a better time of the year to make an image like this than right now? With all the gold's, reds, browns, greens and yellows it's just beautiful.
This water fall is at the top of a really small country lane between Barmouth and Portmadog Wales. The place has a magical feel to it and I wanted to capture that essence. This is a small side stream off the main flow and the water is quite deep in the margins so you have balance the tripod and yourself quite carefully else you're going in!  

Golden Light

Another image from my cold adventure in wales. I don't know why but I'm always drawn to water and love to include it in my images in whatever form it takes. A fellow photographer Trey Ratcliffe (a very deep and thoughtful man indeed!) said a few weeks ago, You are either a water, mountain, countryside or city person and you will naturally gravitate towards these type of images. I think he is absolutely right. I'm defiantly a water person, what type of person are you?

Mist in the Valley

Such a beautiful morning with so many opportunities for photographs I filled all my memory cards within about 3 hours. The mist was rolling around in the valley constantly changing the scene. The sun was rising behind the large hill to the left and filled the trees with golden light. I shot everything for full scale pano's to my favourite square detail shots and everything in between so plenty more to follow.

Shot on a Nikon D300 17-55mm f2.8 ISO 200 1.5 sec @ f11

Beautiful Wales

I spent the weekend in Wales. It never fails to amaze me just how beautiful it is no matter what time of year you go but in Autumn it is something else. There are photographs everywhere, the light is wonderful and the colours stay with you for ever!

This is image was shot on our way to Barmouth (then onto LLanfair and Porthmadog). I have shot this scene many times but each time is some how different. I really liked the way the clouds where forming over Idris, very epic!

Welcome

Hello all and welcome to my new blog! This is the place to view my latest work as it happens, find out whats coming up, get in touch with me and generally discuss all things photographic (and sometimes not!).

If you would like to see some of my older work, check out my flickr site linked below and feel free to comment. I'm always interested what people have to say and how folks react to what I produce so type away.

In the mean time I have posted one of favorite images from the summer to get going. It was taken in Barmouth (Wales) on the day of the general election in May at about 7pm 'ish. It seemed like I had the whole place to myself as nobody was about. It was quiet eerie and reminded me of those Hollywood end of the world movies.

The sky and colours of the cloud are genuine and haven't been altered. I put it down to all the Icelandic ash flying around at the time. It was certainly spectacular though whatever caused it! Prints of this image are available so get in touch for further info.

Shot on a Nikon D300 and 17-55mm f2.8 lens @ f11 with a Lee 0.9 ND grad to hold the sky back.