An Easter Egg
You may have missed the news that Google has just made the Nik Collection free. (If you bought it in the last year you can get a refund. If you bought it before that, well that’s Capitalism for you.) So I’ve been playing around with it, and as you can see from this horribly over processed fake cyanotype, I need lots more practice. Although I would say in my defence that this comes from a fairly unpromising starting shot.
Up The Creek
Although it didn’t exist during my lifetime, in my childhood the folk memory of the tide mill that stood on this very spot was still strong. Now a petrol filling station stands on the site. Sustainable, clean, low tech, inexhaustible energy has gone for ever – they filled in the creek and built a Morrisons on it. The future is up the creek.
Story of the shot
Access was very restricted, behind a wall at the head of the creek. Ideally I would like to have shot from lower down – close to water level – but that wasn’t possible. The dimensions of the creek allowed me to emphasise perspective using a vertically oriented shot and a short focal length (20mm). I only had a few feet on either side to change the composition but I’m reasonably happy with position of the leading line provided by the channel. The light was tricky – clouds meant it kept changing. I underexposed by one stop (f8) to avoid burning out the sky but still got 1/750th exposure on ISO 100, so hand held. Minimal post processing other than using a gradient to notch back the exposure on the clouds slightly and black and while conversion and tweaking via an Adjustment Layer. Probably would have been better to tweak the sky with a polarizing filter but it was starting to rain so I didn’t – it was also darn cold and I needed to go to Morrison’s.
Waiting
Afternoon spent waiting for lift engineer to free trapped person.
Evening spent waiting for Godot.
Final Score: Lift Engineer 1 : 0 Godot
Fiat L.E.D.
In the beginning Edison created the light bulb.
And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And CREE said, Let there be LEDs; and there was light.
LEDs have come a long way in a short time. Don’t confuse the current generation of high output LEDs with the cheap battery powered and solar crap you can buy. These 6500K CREEs pack a real punch.
And yes, since you ask, I am a bit of an LED nerd.
Traditions Collide
Modern Tradition: Two week post-Christmas Skiing holiday (Spending the Kids Inheritance).
Victorian Tradition: Save up all your life for a stone memorial.
That was the year that was
I don’t know how many shots I took in 2015, somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000 (it’s complicated – 2 cameras, iPhone). 10% got deleted in the device and never made it out of memory, 89% got deleted in the first screen on the monitor. I have kept less than 1% and published far fewer than that. I’ve spent more money than I intended to on kit (although less than most people seem to be happy to spend). But I feel that I have grown as a photographer, and in that sense it’s been a good year. I’m now at the point where I can say I am happy (but not satisfied) with 0.01% of my shots. Like this one.
Three Trees. Nikon D5200 Tamron 17-50mm f8 18mm 1/250 ISO 100
Original:
Celebrate
Normally, today would be the shortest day. But this year it’s not (it’s complicated). In reality, around these parts the shortest day is determined not by the calendar but by the weather. On Saturday there was no dawn. In fact, it never really bothered to get light at all. But today, the sun dawned bright and clear at 08.14 sharp. Which is reason to celebrate.
Then it rained.
Nikon D5200 Tamron 17-50mm f4 17 mm 1/4000 ISO 100
Mono version:
AJC Photography 