Tag Archives: black
Great Wall
In China there is a wall, and it is long. I spent some of my time in China walking it.
All of it.
Okay, when I say ‘all’ I mean ‘all I would care to do’. I spent about 3 hours up there, with a bit of sun, and a large backpack. It was pretty tiring to be honest.
Now, I know it must have taken a long time, and it is a stunning piece of work when you think about just how long it is. However I have to wonder why there isn’t consistency in the way it’s built. Part of it features ramp, part of it feature small steps, part of it features really big steps. I don’t know why they just couldn’t use small steps the whole way.
Still, I’m really pleased that I decided to make the trip out there to see it, and would certainly advise that if you’re opting to go for the easy to get to touristy spots, then you go on a weekday and do so very early in the morning.
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.
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.
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.
Glimmer of Hope
Here’s another shot from the derelict girls school that I visited a couple of weeks ago; it’s really an old manor house with floors that are falling through and is in a bit of a state. To date I think it’s had the least stable floors of any location I’ve had the pleasure of visiting.
When I looked into this room the first thing that grabbed my attention was the black and white chequered floor. I hate to reference Harry Potter again but it did remind me of the scene towards the end of the first book where the trio had to get through the battle chess board and I imagined this scene to be the aftermath of that with parts of the broken chess pieces lying around.
Apart from the floor the room was pretty standard and nothing too special. As I was processing this shot I felt the window wasn’t quite enough as it was. If it had been a little more in view then I could have worked with it as a focal point but it wasn’t quite at the right angle for me to use it. Instead I opted to create a few light rays coming in through the window. I’m new to light rays, and feel the original source of light, the window itself, wasn’t quite enough to give me the beams that I wanted – however I’m reasonably happy with the effect it has given as a result.
Perhaps as I improve I will look back on this and think the rays are horrible, but then that’s natural when you look back at your work and find your skill set has improved.
I would love to know your thoughts on whether you feel the light rays are realistic or not, and of course any tips you may have on how to improve in this area. Thanks.
