Category Archives: close-up
Triangles
I thought I would go for something a little more abstract today, so here’s a section of the glass rooftop which covers the Great Court at the British Museum. It really is a fascinating piece of architecture to look at so if you’re ever in London do pop in and take a look for yourself.
This image is part of a much larger scene but I couldn’t really get inspired by the bigger picture while processing. I decided to crop right in on just the ceiling glass and was happy with the results.
Hose
I was a little lazy over the festive period, but on Monday I decided to head out to Regent’s Park for a few hours with Ray and take a few shots. I was travelling light, with just the camera and the 24-70 glass on me. The BlackRapid strap that I’ve had so many issues with in the past works excellently with this heavier, longer lens – I only have issues when using the 10-20 or 50 prime as the back of the camera sits against my thigh with those lenses.
I didn’t want to carry anything additional, so mostly stuck to single exposures with a few handheld brackets along the way. I would like to do more shots that are non-HDR and this, surprisingly, is one of them.
I liked the way the hose was just sat there, and it was unfortunately behind a fenced off area which I couldn’t be bothered to go into which means it does have a little bit of the distracting metal to the left. On a more energetic trip I may have moved the metal out of the way a little so I could get a clean shot.
Not too much was done in post process, I sharpened it up and ran the Urban Sickness filter over it in PhotoTools and that’s pretty much it. I was surprised how much the end image looks likes it is HDR, but can promise you it isn’t.
Do You See The Light?
Another shot taken on Monday night’s photowalk…this is one external section of St Paul’s Cathedral showing a window on the right hand side of the building.
I’ve spent so long taking photos of the whole of St Paul’s in the past that it’s nice to actually get up a little closer to it and spot things that I’ve been missing in the past. I can’t say I’ve ever noticed the intricate carvings previously.
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.
Red Alert
At the top of a high building you will often find a red light or two – these ones have energy saving lightbulbs in them, which is nice. You see them on the top of cranes as well.
They are there to warn low flying planes that there is something in the flight path should they be in this area…of course we just use them as a photo opportunity.
This image is something I rarely do…an almost straight out of camera shot.
I had taken brackets as always, but tonemapping it just brought out way too much detail…for once this was something I didn’t want. The normal bracket was almost perfect as it was, but the lightbulbs were a little blown out, so I masked in a little bit from the -2 bracket to bring back the orange tint.
Moo Cow
I just had to try and get a shot of a highland cow with a fisheye when in Scotland, and am pleased to have ended that mission successfully.
There were surprisingly fewer highland cows than I had anticipated, so we were lucky to find a field full of them one day when going between a couple of destinations. We pulled over and approached the field where they were grazing.
Unfortunately the cows were very skittish and simply ran away from us – not something you want when you are trying to get one using an 8mm fisheye and need to be inches away from them to get a decent shot.
Luckily I had come prepared, as the day before I picked up a bag of carrots thinking they may come in handy for just this kind of situation. I threw one of the carrots towards this cow and he quickly got a whiff of the deliciousness. Stepping towards it he sniffed it a few more times, and then greedily ate it. No other cows had noticed, but I now had his complete attention.
I threw a second carrot a little closer to the fence and he trundled forward and quickly gobbled it up. By this time he was just a few feet away and so, with slow movements, I stuck the camera through the fence and he approached a little further trying to smell it and see if it was another tasty treat.
Eventually I managed to get a shot off that I was happy enough with, and ticked this one off my checklist.
Have a great weekend all.
Portrait of a Serial Killer
As promised yesterday, here’s a closer look at the serial killer character.
It’s hard when wearing a halloween mask to make it look like it’s anything but a mask, and I would love to be able to afford a proper silicone mask for these purposes but that’s not exactly feasible, and would require a lot more preparation than just slipping it on at an urbex location.
In this instance, therefore, I had to make do with photoshop and covering the areas of obvious skin as much as possible to make it look like the character was fully scarred and not obviously some guy in a toy mask.
Here’s a shot of the face before I processed it:
I know I could improve in many areas of photoshop, but I felt this one didn’t turn out too badly and it blends into the mask quite well. The problem will be doing this on a continual basis for this character, though as I imagine most shots will be using the mask to simply cover the face rather than to show details of the guy, it shouldn’t be too often that it needs to be done.
Push The Button
In a vast room full of equipment, a solitary ‘Emergency Stop’ button was to be found on the wall.
I wonder if pushing this button would simply have stopped every machine in this room, which covers half of a massive floor of the mill, or if it shuts down something more – perhaps the whole floor itself. It’s too late to know now, as nothing was running, and a push did nothing.
Whenever I come across these types of things on an urbex trip I’ll often go ahead and push the button. I don’t expect anything to happen when I do, and would be pretty shocked if ever it did, but I like to just do it to make sure.
I would be terrible in a room that has a solitary button stating ‘do not push’ as my curious nature would likely get the better of me.
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.
Flywheel
Here’s one from my archives. It’s a close-up shot of a Flywheel from the James Simpson, or Waddon, engine currently on location at the Kew Bridge Steam Museum. I visited it on suggestion of a friend and it was a pretty interesting place, with four of the major pumps being started up the day we were there for an extra treat.
I think that this is also the first shot posted on this blog which isn’t HDR, is handheld, and is pretty much straight out of the camera with a little cropping and a bit of sharpness added.
For context, you can view an image of the engine – this close up is of the main flywheel you see in this image – it’s pretty darn big! I was stood in front of the flywheel (so at the right hand side of the linked image) – I really have no idea though where the black background came from as that’s completely natural. I used a 50mm 1.8, and have no recollection of anything dark being in the background – it worked out very well for this shot though.
