Category Archives: Black & White
One Step Beyond
I’m enjoying taking shots around the passageways on the London Underground just now; there are many places which provide excellent symmetry and some interesting features. When it comes to the tube tunnels themselves I always thought if you had seen one of them you had seem them all, however I bet they are just as unique when you start looking around them, especially as many tunnels have been built at different times.
This particular shot was done from a platform looking in to a tunnel on one side; I haven’t got the know-how or the inclination to actually wander around the system itself.
Windswept
If you have been following my blog at all this year you’ll likely know that this shot was taken on the South Coast on an overcast day, at the same place all of my other black and white shots recently published have been from 
I was walking along a country path doing a little handheld work and quite liked this tree, so managed to grab it without the surrounding noise and opted to leave quite a lot of negative space at the top as it was the only thing I could think to do to, oddly, add to the scene.
I’ll sometimes give a shout out here to a blog that I follow which I feel should get a little more traffic than it currently does, and admit this may often just be friends who are starting out with blogs. There isn’t much advice I would give to someone who is starting a photo blog, and I know that there are several of my contacts who are starting to do so or are contemplating it, but here is one thing that I think is important.
Try to be consistent.
You don’t need to post daily, but if you only post 2 images a week try to do so on regular advertised days so your readers know when to expect new content. There’s nothing worse that sitting at a PC thinking ‘oh, I’ll just check out that blog where I saw that great image last week and see what’s new’ to find that there is nothing new there and no expectation on when you’ll see something new.
On that note, Dylan has been posting to his new blog for a month now and deserves a little love. There are several great images in that short space of time and I for one am looking forward to seeing what else is produced throughout the year, and for attempting to come up with different shots during our photowalks. Check out his website at dfacer.co.uk.
Coastguards Cottages
On a recent trip down to East Dean I popped over to Hope Gap to take a few shots of the beach and cliffs in that area. On my walk back from there to the Golden Galleon in Seaford where I was due to have a spot of lunch I stopped to take a photo of these cottages.
The other shots I had taken of these cliffs from this area pretty much had no focal interest to the right of them due to the fact it was nothing but sea, so it was nice here to be able to get a glimpse of them and use the cottages as the main area of interest, and to squeeze in the bench for that little something else.
Although there is still quite a bit that is not really doing anything, the sky and the grass, I still feel that there are three very separate areas of interest at different depths with the bench, cottages and then cliffs.
Again the overcast day was doing nothing for the colour in this image so turning it to black and white seemed to do the trick for me.
Hope Gap
This weekend I trundled off to the coasts to try the new camera in an nice rural environment. I must admit to being a little bit lazy, as usual, though as I didn’t get up for a sunrise, nor venture out to see a sunset. Instead I just moseyed around during the day, in weather which wasn’t the best when it comes to photography…but in many ways could have been worse.
Due to the lack of colour in the sky I opted to shoot a few images knowing that they would eventually be processed in black and white, which was the case with this one.
The title comes from the small area I was in, if indeed my memory serves me well and that is the name of the location. It was a nice little beach area with easy access down steps from the cliff side, and offered some nice formations when down there. I think a sunrise from here looking towards the Seven Sisters would be lovely.
Plastic Pirate
A couple of weeks ago I went to ‘Winter Wonderland’ in Hyde Park with John, James and Dylan. It was a very cold night as we stood around taking a few photos, and though I didn’t take a lot that I liked it was good to be able to play with the new 24-70 2.8 as this was the first time I had really been out with it. It was also nice to finally meet up with YorkshireStacked and mattomatto who kindly popped down to say hello; hopefully we’ll get to go on the long overdue photowalk soon (even if you do shoot Nikon).
Outside one of the rides was the pirate you see above. I have no idea what the ride was, but I liked the way he stood out and allowed the background lights to fade away. However once I was processing the lights were actually a little distracting from the subject so I opted to process as a black and white instead.
Royal Exchange
This is a shot of the Royal Exchange in London, taken at night at a lovely long exposure to really get the flare of the lights and movement of traffic in the shot. The colour version did nothing for me so I turned it into monotone, and this did nothing for me for a long time, however looking back at it today I think I’m pretty happy with how it did turn out in the end – it’s always funny how a fresh look at something often leaves you liking it when you didn’t shortly after processing.
I haven’t been able to get out with the camera much lately, nor process any of the images in my archive really – the mojo is lost at the moment so I’m relying on those images which I’ve already spent time on. Hopefully I’ll be back into the swing of it sometime soon.
I guess I should start thinking about buying Christmas presents also…
Little Boots
Friday at long last. I’m looking forward to a nice long weekend of mooching around the flat, watching TV, sleeping and attempting to get over this cold. I’ve been trying to ward them off for so long I’m actually glad this one has managed to catch me, or me catch it, so that I can just get it of my system and start refreshed.
Here’s a shot I took last weekend while on the woodland walk. The boots belonged to the 2 year old of our party and were bright blue – so I of course removed any evidence of this during post and often for a more monochrome look.
I hope everyone has a great weekend.
Generation Gap
I was recently on a boat which was making it’s way up and down the Thames a few times, and one of the spots we kept passing was the Millennium Bridge. This shot was taken looking up at the bridge from the boat, and is a single hand held shot which was then processed.
When I cross the bridge on foot I get a little annoyed at times by the number of people who are there, often dawdling. Of course my double standards kick in when it’s myself dawdling…but even more so when I’m looking on at the scene and am actually quite appreciative that these people happened to be stood at this location, looking down upon my boat at the time I was passing.
I hope you all have a great weekend, see you next week.
Support
This shot is taken below the North side of the Millennium Bridge and is part of the supporting structure. The two sets of four wires that you see start to extend to the outside of the bridge as it progresses across the Thames, and are held by separate support sections on the South side as they do not tuck back under the bridge on that side; you can see a shot from the South side here.
Tonight I’m heading to the train station after work to take a 5 hour journey to Cornwall for the weekend. I arrive at around 00:30 where I hope John will already be there to pick me up from the train station, and then we have four days to drive our way back to London – hopefully taking in a few sunsets and sunrises, urbex locations and, essentially, nice dry weather.
Ha!
I’ve scheduled posts for the next few days to maintain my week daily post limit, and look forward to catching up with you next week.
Majestic
Friday at last – and only time for a very quick post today.
The above image was taken on Chancery Lane in London, and though I may be mistaken I think it is King’s College. I could easily be wrong though as I was paying no attention to this at the time of taking the shot. I had just been up the BT Tower and found that I wanted to look up instead of down as I was walking around that evening, and this building provided a perfect opportunity.
I have a couple of urbex trips planned this weekend so have a 5am start tomorrow, and lots to do today. I hope you all have a great weekend, and thanks for all of the link love over this past week – you guys rock!
Space House
I’ve walked past this building many a time during my jaunts around the Covent Garden area, but I’ve never taken the time to actually stop and shoot it.
After a trip to the BT Tower, and on the way down to St Paul’s, I finally stopped beside here to take a few snaps. I’ve always liked the circular form to this building and the symmetry it has to offer, so didn’t mind too much which angle I approached it from. I of course opted for the angle that would involve a raised platform to stand on, as this helped to clear the fence and also likely provide an angle that other people don’t shoot from as much.
When it came to the processing I opted quite quickly to do this in monotone; I felt colour in this particular shot detracted from the shot as it gave a little too much to look at. Reverting to this simple colour form allows the architecture to really shine through.
The weather was pretty changeable on this night, resulting in lots of white and grey clouds in the sky and some excellent cloud formations which add to the scene nicely.
The Bridge to St Paul’s
Today I am pleased to be sharing some excellent news with you.
St Paul’s Cathedral, who regular readers will know is one of my favourite buildings in London to photograph, recently completed a 15 year, £40m restoration project which aligns with their 300th year anniversary. To celebrate this they held a photo contest for amateur and professional photographers to submit their shots of St Paul’s.
I’m pleased to be able to let you know that one of my shots, Sunny St Paul’s, was included in the top 10 images and will be on digital display in the crypt of the Cathedral during the Oculus: an eye into St Paul’s experience.
But there’s even better news!
Another of my images, St Paul’s – World AIDS Day, was chosen as the overall contest winner!
I’m obviously pleased as punch by this good fortune and my first contest win (out of 3 entered, I think). You can view the competition page and the rest of the winners on the St Paul’s Cathedral website.
Here is my winning image, and the other which is in the top 10 finishers:
St Paul’s – World AIDS Day (winning image) – view original blog post
Sunny St Paul’s – view original blog post
And now back to today’s post. After shooting at the BT Tower on Monday I headed out to do a little bit of early evening and night photography with John (Happy Birthday John!). The light was pretty good by the time we had dinner and walked over the Millennium Bridge to the south side, and I had wanted a new St Paul’s image to go up on the blog along with today’s news – the shots I took from the helicopter on Sunday and the BT Tower on Monday didn’t really have any good, usable ones of the cathedral.
John suggest that I stand on one of the side support structures to try and get a unique shot, which I did indeed try. I then got higher and higher trying to find a better angle until I realised the only way I was going to be happy with the lines in the shot was to actually sit on the four metal rods that are the side support for the bridge (probably not the term the architect would have used on the original plans) and work my camera in between them.
The shots I took came out quite well, and I was pretty happy processing this one in colour, especially as it’s an angle I don’t think I’ve ever seen previously, and when you’re at a location that is so heavily photographer a unique shot is often hard to come by. Recently Vulture Labs has been producing some excellent work, in particular the B&W Toned series of shots, and that inspired me to go for this one in B&W, and I’m glad I did – this is certainly my favourite shot that I’ve taken from this location to date.
Lone Tree
I had a mental checklist of a few things I wanted to get a shot of during my trip to Scotland. A few things I didn’t manage to get (star trails, rainbow, majestic stag beside a castle), and a few that I did (fisheye of a highland cow, castle at sunset).
One of the shots I had in my mind was of a lone tree, preferably windswept, which I could process in black and white. This one fit the bill almost perfectly.
As we drove around the Scottish countryside I was always keeping an eye out for potential trees, and many passed us by that weren’t quite what I wanted. Eventually, one did leap out at me as a potential candidate, and so we pulled up at the next available spot, I grabbed my gear and ended up walking back down the road and through a bit of a field to get to it. Steve opted to sit on the beach section where we had parked and wait for me.
After a few shots of my tree I headed along the water to meet him, and found him sitting on a rock relaxing and pointing to a tree nearby claiming I could simply have taken a photo of this one instead of walking all that way for this other.
He was right; this new tree was the one in the shot above and was a much better one than that which I had found (though of course, only by wanting the other would we have found this one). I wanted to shoot it with my nifty fifty, and due to this and the composition I once more had to kick off my shoes and socks and work my way cautiously over slippery rocks so that I could stand in the cold water, submerge the tripod and set up.
I’m a big fan of the work of Ansel Adams and so had him in mind when first capturing this scene as I knew before I even found the right tree that I wanted to do so in black and white. Though different to the image I had in my mind before starting the trip, I’m very pleased with how this one turned out.
Japanese Garden
One of the spaces in Kew Gardens had a Japanese Garden, with this lovely structure there.
I think the rest of my shots from this location have been a little too sunny and bright, and full of nature and flowers and leaves and stuff, so with the last shot of the bench and this shot I really was trying to go for something different and a little processing which may not be the usual from this location.
I thought that this shot worked quite well in black and white and with the main focal point being the building with everything else pretty soft.
If you remember I’m in Scotland this week – so am writing this in advance. I have no idea where I am just now as this post goes live. I could be asleep in a tent, or I could be on the open road, or I could be walking around a ruinous castle. Hope everyone is having a good start to their week wherever you are.
Screw It
Time for another black and white shot.
As I mentioned yesterday, I really should find out more about locations I visit so that I can go ahead and talk about them. This device, regardless of the title I gave this post, probably doesn’t screw. It likely bores, or just turns, perhaps sifts – I’m not too sure.
I was looking straight down on this piece of machinery for this shot, so the blurry background you see at the top and bottom of the image is actually the floor I’m standing on. I really liked the shadows that had formed and thought these would turn out well in black and white, which is why I opted for that style of processing.
Night Lights
For my final monotone image of the week I’m returning to a partially built building in East London which offers a good (but not spectacular) view of London.
As with all of these kinds of shots, I love playing ‘spot the landmark’, and you’ll be able to see several iconic ones rising from the London skyline in this particular shot. I actually quite like this shot in comparison to my other night time, high up ones. When I first started to take them, a whole six months ago now, there was always an orange tint as I a) didn’t set the white balance in camera and b) didn’t have a clue you could use the ‘tungsten’ feature (or other WB features) in post. To go from that to this is pretty different.
I finally took the time to check out the new HDR tutorial from Matty over at ShutterRunner.com. I’ve read a few HDR Tutorials before, when first starting out, and have seen a couple of videos on the matter since so wasn’t too sure if Matty could offer anything unique in his one. It’s split into two parts:
Part One – Capturing the Brackets
This part quickly goes through the camera settings used when taking the initial shots of a scene and is pretty standard. I don’t feel I learnt anything here, but would like to emphasize the use of Aperture Priority mode when shooting for HDR. I’ve been on a few trips with friends who are learning and note that they are trying to set up the shutter speed themselves rather than leaving it to the camera and have certainly found better, more consistent results, in AV mode. Certainly check out this section if you are new to shooting HDR.
Part Two – Processing the Photo
Here Matty takes a look at correcting white balance, doing the initial tone mapping in Photomatix and then doing further post in Photoshop. I enjoy watching these types of videos, though rarely actually do bother to watch them. It’s interesting to see the way other people work though, and good to compare with the way I currently do things.
Straight off the bat here I started to learn things. Having only used the preset white balance options in Lightroom previously I was pleased to see another way to set the white balance which is likely to bring out better results.
I don’t think the Photomatix stage had much to add for me, I’ve become pretty familiar with this software over the months.
The final stage in Photoshop just made me realize that I really do need to learn how to start masking things properly, something that’s pretty new to me. I felt that this stage ended a little abruptly and would have liked to see a little more on the techniques used in post, though perhaps that would have only been possible with another image as the focus point of the tutorial.
All in all it was a good tutorial, and I would suggest that you check it out…particularly if new to HDR. If you’ve been doing this for some time you may not learn too much that’s new, but may find it interesting to see the way someone else works and, like I did, certainly learn a few things that will be useful for the future.
Check out the ShutterRunner.com HDR tutorial now, and thanks to Matty for taking the time to produce and share it.
Asylum Seeker
Today’s monotone is of myself in my usual urbex mask as I check out an old asylum.
This was my first visit to this place, but the five people I was with had all been there previously. As such, I quickly lost them all as they went to the various spots that they wanted to shoot and I was left to navigate the place solo – something I like, but with no phone signal or idea as to where I was going I felt that part could have been better planned.
I liked the light coming through the doorways in this corridor, and after taking a few test shots decided that the closest doorway was the best place for me to stand. I originally processed the shot in full colour, and quite liked how that had turned out, but thought it also worked quite well this way and of course it fits into this week’s theme of posts that are all being done in monotone.
Corkscrew
You may have noticed a little pattern in the images being posted this week, and their lack of colour. Hopefully I’ll be able to have a whole week’s worth which are in black and white or this lovely tone.
For this shot we’re back to the Millennium Mills where one of the main features were these grain chutes which run down through the floors. The floors themselves are very unstable in places and there are sections that are missing either because the machinery has been taken out or the floors have simply decayed and fallen through, as is the case in this shot.
Windows and doorways in the background provided the bursts of light from the sun.
Shy Stacks
This photo of a wall could almost have been taken from any industrial site with a derelict building. A wall such as this, with many windows and missing panes of glass is certainly not an unusual site to see in a factory or foundry.
This wall is that little bit special though, and if you have managed to work your way up the image to the top you will see glimpses of two chimney stacks at the very top of the image, though the angle of this shot does not portray their true size and grandeur.
For this is a shot taken inside the iconic Battersea Power Station.
Looking at the station itself, the edges of the stacks you see above are the two on the left hand side of the below image, with me stood inside the building looking up.
Stairways & Shadows
Stairs are just awesome for taking photos of.
Perhaps it’s the fact they offer some nice lines, perhaps the symmetry or because they generally offer angles where the light is shown and others where it’s nothing but shadow; maybe it’s something else, and it’s the fact the viewer can then try to image where the stairs are going to take you that is so appealing – I don’t know, but they are very photogenic.
After I saw the light bouncing off the wooden panels in this shot I knew that the only way I wanted to process it was in black and white and that worked out well I feel. I introduced a faint orange colour to the windows as it was pretty sunny outside and this gave the image a more natural feel to how I remembered it on location.
Train Chain
Here’s a handheld detail shot I took from the side of one of the trains in the yard. It was just hanging down on one of the end carriages, and I assume it was used to hook two cars together, perhaps to ease the stress between them so that the constant start and stop motions didn’t work the brake cords too heavily.
Though initially in colour I feel these shots often work better in a more black and white style, unless there’s a lot of gloriously coloured crusty rust on the item.
Again, I love the move away from a HDR titled photoblog as this allows me to grab a shot such as this and post it without resorting to HDR, something that I don’t think would have added a great deal to this image.
It’s a simple image, but I like it.
Vacant
As the lock suggests, this toilet was indeed vacant.
That’s a good job considering the door is open…and the fact it was taken in an abandoned hospital!
If the status of this had been ‘locked’ or ‘occupied’ I think I would have been out of there before I was able to take a shot.
One of my problems when it comes to photography is that I can be pretty lazy at times. Sure, I can stand in the street and wait an hour for a clear spot to suddenly arrive in order to shoot it without people, or for the right light to arrive onto a scene – but when it comes to the simple things such as changing a lens to take a shot I’m pretty bad at it. I carry several lenses with me on each trip, adding to the weight in my bag, but rarely bother to change them – my 10-20mm is on there 90% of the time.
As such, when it came to take this shot I didn’t bother switching lenses, I just zoomed on in to the 20mm mark and pulled the camera up pretty close to the door. It’s something I often find myself doing…and sometimes it does just work.
I guess nowadays it’s pretty easy to add a little blur to your image in order to give it a nice focal point, so shooting a scene where it’s all in focus and then selectively blurring it has great advantages. It’s much more difficult to shoot a scene that already has a shallow depth of field and then find you want to try and make the blurred parts pretty sharp.
Hung Out To Dry
Another shot from West Park. After arriving on the property I made my way through the same entrance as previously and walked through a few corridors I hadn’t been down before in an attempt to get a phone signal. I found a set of stairs and thought up would be the best way as the higher I was the better chance for a signal…eventually I got one and received a text with the location of a few buddies who were already on site.
“We’re in the padded cell” was the message.
Hmm…I had no idea where that was, so I pulled up the map of West Park on my phone and clicked through the helpful locations of key sights that I had recently put onto the map with the aid of my previous visit and a handy set of information provided to me by a fellow urbexer last year.
Google maps is all well and good for giving you the general location of a place, but how to get there between everything that’s been borded up is another story. The location was actually in a place that was fully locked down and boarded up on my last visit, so I was pleased to be able to see this now and headed off in that general direction, eventually finding the right floor and location to hook up with the others.
As they had been on location for a while and were keen to move on to other rooms I didn’t stay in this wing for too long, and had a quick couple of shots in a few different parts.
The coat in the image above was one item that stood out as I walked past a particular room and casually glanced through the door. It’s likely been shot a hundred times before, I’m not sure how long it’s been hanging there for, but a simple straight view really did nothing for me in this instance. It was pretty eye catching on that glimpse through the door, but extremely flat and ‘set up’ when looking at it through the lens.
There were several other photographers around who seemed to be taking plain old straight on shots, and not enough inspiration in the room itself to come at it from a unique angle and make it different.
‘Hmm…angle’ I thought to myself. ‘Why not try this one at a bit of an angle?’
So I angled the camera on the ball head and it immediately came to life for me so I was finally happy enough with the composition.
Back at the PC I really liked the angle still, but the colours were doing nothing for me at all so I opted to try the black and white which I will often attempt on an image now when it’s not feeling quite right. As soon as I did this it leapt out at me even more and I now really started liking the look of it.
A little added blur to separate it further from the room itself and I was finally happy with the result.
It took me a little time to think of a suitable title, with stuff like ‘Hanging Around’ and ‘Dry Cleaning’ passing through my mind. Eventually I settled on ‘Hung Out To Dry’ and I’m happy with this as it could represent the fact the coat has indeed been left hanging out in order to dry, but also the idiomatic meaning of being abandoned in a time of trouble, which fits the location quite well I thought.
Out of interest, here is the image I rejected and the original colouring of the one I processed.
Staircase
One of the things I would like to do more this year is to process images in black and white. I’m a little clueless when it comes to many things in post processing, and I’m also not at that point where I see something in the field and think ‘that would look great in black and white’.
I’m hopeful that the more I try and process in black and white the more I will see things when out and about where the shadows and lines and textures make me realise that it would be a good shot for this style.
The shot above is of one of the main staircases at an old girls school/manor house. It was only when I sat down to process it that I thought I would try it in B&W to see how it looks; if an image isn’t working with me for some reason I’ve started to try and think of things which would help bring it life by asking myself various questions. i.e. would it look good in black and white? would it look better if you cropped to just one section? would it look great without the use of HDR? etc.
This is one of those that wasn’t really working for me, but I felt after changing to black and white it started to feel as if it was something I could use.
For interest, here is the original, normal EV, version as well as my original tone mapped version fresh out of Photomatix:
