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

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?