Tag Archives: sun
Walk to Freedom
Well, a very happy Independence Day to those who are stateside. I hope you have a great day full of food and freedom and fireworks and other things that may or may not begin with the letter F.
No points for guessing where this image was taken, but it was on a day that was super hot; blue sky with the sun blazing down on me all day. Instead of trying to fight the sun while I worked my way around this monument I decided here to try and capture it within the frame. I dropped down a few stops to shoot directly into it with -4/-2-/0 brackets and this is the result.
I of course took more than one image of this iconic statue, but I guess the next one will have to wait until next year 
Bonnie, Bonnie Banks
As many of you may guess, this image is from Loch Lomond in Scotland. If you didn’t guess this from the title then that perhaps means you’re not familiar with Runrig, or the song that the Scotsman voted as ‘Scotland’s Greatest Song‘ in 2008. Here it is on YouTube if you really feel like subjecting yourself to it.
I’ve mentioned before how wonderful, and uncharacteristic, the weather was during my trip to Scotland earlier this year – and as we drove up the Eastern side of Loch Lomond we just had to pull over at one point to make our way down to the rocks and sample the views that were on offer.
This one I share with you
Hide & Seek
Today we’re heading back to Cornwall and a spot near Lizard Point lighthouse where we took in a mediocre sunrise. I had climbed down a series of slippery rocks to try and get out to a flat formation that had some interesting rocks around it, and found myself here with the sun about to peek out from behind the rocks ahead of me.
In my mind I had the rough textures of the stone as my foreground, the clouds as a bit of added interest and the sun meeting the sky and rock in a beautiful starburst. That starburst didn’t work out too well for me in the final shot, which is unfortunate, but I still quite like it anyway.
Thanks also to everyone for the warm reception that yesterday’s image Caught in the Act received – I appreciate the tweets and love that you showed it – thanks.
Branch Out
Driving around Cornwall in the early morning we came across a valley that was covered in fog, and which this image does not fully capture. I love scenes where you’re looking down on a landscape and can see the morning mist settled like a blanket over the low points. It didn’t last too long, and within a matter of minutes the ever growing sun had burnt it off, but it was a lovely scene when there.
I’ve had super busy days at work this week, and today will be no different before I head out of London tonight where I’ll stay in a hotel in order to get a real early start tomorrow morning for a photography session. There will be an automatic post in place as usual.
Sunset at Lizard Point
Lizard Point is the most Southerly point of mainland Great Britain. It stinks!
If you’ve ever owned a goldfish and left the water for a bit too long before changing it you will know what I mean as it’s that kind of smell. We walked down to the beach when trying to scout a suitable location for a sunset photo and part of it was walking over stagnant seaweed. At one point I wanted to try and see what was in a cave area and only got so far over the rotting weeds before the stench, and the fact I was sinking into it, was overwhelming and I had to turn back. It really was disgusting, and the smell did not contain itself to beach level – you can smell it to some degree from up on the cliffs also.
Luckily there wasn’t an amazing vantage point from the beach so we did return up to the cliffs where the stench subsided a little. It was only after the sun had gone down, rather disappointingly for a sunset, and we were on our way back to check out the lighthouse that I turned to find some decent colour in the sky, and so I quickly snapped this shot.
Sunrise Shore
I started the week with a sunset, and am ending it with a sunrise – there’s something wrong about the order of that, but that’s the way I roll.
This shot was another from Cornwall, and I hope I have the time to process a few more from this location over the weekend. It was taken at Portscatho harbour which was a 20 minute or so walk from the campsite. It wasn’t the best sunrise but it provided some nice light towards the end of it, and then we carried on walking up the coastline to get a few more shots to start the morning off.
I hope everyone has a great weekend…it’s the first one I’m going to have that doesn’t require a stupid’o'clock start so I intend to take it nice and easy. See you on Monday.
Burn
For those into topography, and with knowledge of where I have traveled to this year, you will possibly guess that this particular spot is in lovely Scotland.
This particular burn looks deceptively shallow from this shot – but it isn’t. Sure, it’s not too deep, but I did wander in there to try and get a few shots looking upstream and the water pretty much came up to my knees in places, and was full of both very sharp, pointy stones and a slime which made it very slippery indeed. I had to use my tripod/camera to ensure I didn’t end up flat on my back – and every step I took left me praying that I didn’t fall over and take the camera in there with me.
As this goes live I may actually be stood in another stream…or up a hill…or in an abandoned factory of some sort. Who knows, as I’m in Cornwall.
Well…I’m probably actually in the pub waiting for the rain to pass to be honest.
Sunny Scotland
I can’t believe that my trip to Scotland was a month ago already!
As I may have mentioned; we were extremely lucky with the weather on our drive around this beautiful country. For a location that has a reputation of being thoroughly miserable we had sun pretty much all the time we were there; extremely lucky when I wanted to spend my time taking photos.
The only downside to this, if indeed there is one, is that I always envisage the mountains to be shrouded in mist and menacing cloud formations and not lovely blue skies. Blue sky is nice…but sometimes you want a little more for your images.
To provide a sense of scale…the rock in the foreground of this image was around waist height. The rocks in the background were much, much higher
I’ve been pretty poor at geotagging my images from this 1400 mile trip, so I have no idea where in Scotland this actually is. If you recognise the big rock in the foreground please send location to me in a comment, email, postcard or back of a dead animal to the usual addresses. Thanks.
Sun Flower
Back to Scotland for the start of this week, and to a small place called Wick. We were on our final castle ruin of the day before heading on a couple of hours drive back to where once was my home, and to a an actual house with home cooked food and running hot water which, after many days sleeping in a tent, it was a welcome thing to be driving towards.
The Old Wick castle wasn’t anything spectacular, and though I have a few images of the place I’m not sure any are worth processing…perhaps sometime in the future if I revisit them. I was determined to get something from this spot, and by this point a picture of a dead mole was looking to be the only interesting thing.
Working our way across the narrow hill towards the ruins I had seen a few of these flowers and thought they would be nice if I was able to get a shot with something behind them. My initial thought was to have the castle ruins, but none were positioned quite well enough for me. However, on the way back to the car the setting sun falling over the horizon proved to be suitable. Just behind these flowers, and in between me and the large rock formation in the background is a very long drop to the sea. I’m at one end of a horseshoe really, with the rocks in this shot being the other end, and the open section immediately ahead and to the right.
I used the 8mm fisheye and got down close to the flowers. The wind was pretty strong so getting 3 exposures of the flowers was impossible. Therefore, during processing I only used three exposures for the background mountain and sun, and a single exposure for the flowers.
You may notice that I’ve redone the header of the site slightly. I’ve introduced new images to each of the sections and added a couple of links to my 500px and Google+ accounts. I like the fact I can change the site a little just by changing the images and editing just a little of the code, and without having to redo the whole thing. If you’re on either of those sites please go ahead and connect with me…and if you’ve already done so and I haven’t added you back I’ve likely missed the notification so please send me a tweet or something to nudge me. A far less likely scenario is that I don’t like your work…but that’s unlikely as 95% of the stuff I see from people visiting me is pretty darn good.
Park Bench
Today’s image is from back at Kew Gardens.
As I took this shot there was nothing really special about the scene itself, but I enjoyed the composition of the bench and the fact it was underneath a tree. I knew at the time I took the shot that it would have to be the processing treatment that makes the shot work.
A Black and White shot was my first thought, but it looked a little too lifeless in doing that, and so I opted to bring in a little colour and try to make the bench look like it had been kissed by the morning sun. I find the resulting image to be quite peaceful and relaxing and the bench itself to be quite inviting – certainly somewhere that I would like to sit and contemplate for a while.
Sunny St Paul’s
I met up with Jim Nix recently for a photowalk down the Thames, and this is one of the shots from that night.
We didn’t wander too far, starting at One New Change for the view across to the building above, crossed over the Millennium Bridge to the south side of the river, and then walked up the Westminster Bridge to see what kind of sunset it was. It still took us around 4 hours before we ended up in the pub having a few refreshing pints of Sherlock Ale to finish the night off.
One thing I enjoy most about meeting people for a photowalk, especially if they are not from London, is that they tend to see things that I will simply walk past or take for granted. It was great to see Jim’s enthusiasm and his fresh eye on a walk that I know very well and often take for granted.
Sunkissed Steps
Going into the weekend I thought I would have plenty of time to prepare a few images for the blog this week – but that didn’t really happen. Friday was so long ago I can’t actually remember what happened; Saturday I spent the day watching a few HDR tutorials and cleaning the flat before dinner with a friend and a trip to a rooftop with Mark.
Sunday was similar to Saturday really, and I found myself sat at the PC last night with no images prepared and no real motivation to process as I was flipping through my files.
I stumbled upon a folder from this year which was from my urbex weekend away to the north of England and Wales. Our first location was an old foundry, I have no idea where, that wasn’t anything special – the best part of it was skulking around in the shadows when a few guys in hi-vis jackets and torches came in to show someone around.
I’m not sure how much from this location will be usable, but quite liked this set of yellow stairs and how the light was hitting them. Regular readers will know I enjoy stairs so I found this one an ‘easy hit’ on an evening where nothing much was going to get done.
Saying that I quite like how they came out.
St Katherine’s Dock
The weather in London was lovely on Saturday so I headed out for a walk to soak up the sun and get a little exercise.
I’m not sure why I headed all the way down the Thames to Tower Bridge, but when there I thought I should certainly head across to St Katherine’s Docks to see how the boats were looking in the afternoon sunshine. Though carrying my camera gear around with me I wasn’t really in a photo taking frame of mind, so a few quick shots of the docks were all I actually took this day – and these were done handheld as the jobsworth on site started giving me the lecture about private property and no tripods allowed and the usual mumbo jumbo that I didn’t have the energy to argue with.
This shot was taken directly into the sun and, as you will see from the original exposure below (the ‘normal’ shot in a 3 set bracket) didn’t really capture the golden light which was on offer by the glorious sun. As such I ran the shot through PhotoTools and applied the Tijuana effect, along with a few other subtle adjustments, to get the warm glowing effect you see in the shot above.
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.
The Beacon
Here’s another shot from the Beachy Head lighthouse series, and the third which I’ve published to date.
Considering the lighthouse was only really viewable from one side, due to the ocean on the other, I’m finding that I was able to take quite a few unique shots at this location, especially as the trip was split over two days and were taken firstly from the foot of the lighthouse itself, and then from the cliff edge on day two.
The way the images are processed also helps to make the images different of course, and for this one I opted to get rid of most of the colour, which wasn’t a great range anyway, and draw the eye to the red and white stripes of the lighthouse itself. I think the addition of a little vignette also makes it a more moody landscape.
This was one of the last shots I took on the Saturday morning; it wasn’t the best sunrise we could have had, but at this point we could see that the sun really was trying to penetrate the clouds and break through for the day. The fog had pretty much lifted fully by this point.
My hangover was setting in a little bit more at this point, and the lack of breakfast wasn’t helping (I had left my cold sausages and hard boiled egg in the car) so I was not relishing the prospect of walking back over the rocks for an hour to get to the part of the cliff we could climb up to get home.
As mentioned previously though; I’m really glad to have made the trip to the base of the lighthouse as it did certainly offer a more unique view than people would normally get from this location…and that’s what I think photography is all about.
Like this? You may also like:
Beachy Head
The Lighthouse
