The first part of my Lake District adventure involved canoeing on Coniston Water before hiking up into the hills overlooking it. The weather wasn't its best, but the views were still amazing over this lake, the third largest in the Lake District. Some of the latter shots were made in the surrounding areas. All were taken with the Olympus EM-5 and the 12-40mm F/2.8.
Just had a busy two weeks travelling around, first visiting a friend in Eastern Europe and then hiking in the Lake District and Scotland. Plenty of photos to follow!Had a great time in Breclav with my friend and and his amazing family. Didn't take many photos but there is a beautiful church there (Parrish Church Of the Visitation Of The Virgin Mary). We walked up to the top and took in some views too. Also visited the Lednice Castle, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with some stunning grounds and a tall Minaret with over 300 steps for us to climb and enjoy the views at the top.
A few shots taken from the hill near the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. These are from a late autumn afternoon a couple of years ago when my friends Genka and Petar (last image) visited me. Funny what you find in your archives when you're looking for something else.
Yet more food photos as I practice my capture of it. Again, I have tired to focus on the food, meal or ingredients, and avoided distractions such as the paraphernalia commonly found and arranged on the table around it. The colours and textures are hopefully enticing enough.All the food was prepared (and eaten) by myself, and captured using the Olympus EM-5 and 60mm F/2.8, with exception of the last image which was in a restaurant and snapped by my phone. Lighting was natural window light. Live to eat but eat to live, enjoy your food, and take photos before tucking in.
You will gather from our wide grins how much fun we had in the cockpits of these fighter jets. Our final stop on Sunday was the Boscombe Down Aviation Collection near Salisbury, and absolutely fantastic collection of fighter jets and aircraft, managed by highly dedicated and welcoming people. Unlike other aviation museums, this is a working museum where everything here was genuine and in a process of restoration. We were only here for a short time, but while the crowd outside were watching the skydivers land, we were having an absolute blast putting on our helmets and visors and posing for pictures inside the cockpits. Like kids in a sweet shop! Natalia even tried on a flight suit. Her brother is an actual fighter pilot so I'm sure he'll be impressed. We had a choice of visiting this aviation collection or Stonehenge, and we definitely feel that we made the right choice. I would encourage everyone to visit, give your support and have as much fun as we did!Thank you to the staff at Boscombe for all their help and for a great time.
An 18th Century property, managed by the National Trust, located in the Cathedral close next to Salisbury Cathedral, and constructed for Thomas Mompesson MP. It was later occupied by the Townsend family, and Miss Barbara Townsend spent all of her 96 years there. It was also used in the film Sense and Sensibility.A modest property by the standards of some we have visited, but no less interesting or charming. Some beautiful collections of porcelain and glassware in particular, and a vibrant little garden at the rear. All the images were shot with the Olympus EM-5 and 12-40mm F/2.8.Once again, we thank the excellent guides for their generous time and information.
A busy Sunday for the group of us, which included myself, Jena and Natalia. We journeyed to Salisbury to see its famous cathedral, but also found a National Trust property close by. And later in the afternoon we had a ton of fun posing in the cockpits of fighter jets at an aviation museum. Those shots will be coming soon.The cathedral reminds me a great deal of Lincoln Cathedral in its layout and features, although it is slightly smaller. However, Salisbury Cathedral has the distinction of housing one of the four remaining copies of the Magna Carta, one of the most important documents in the history of human civilisation, outlining for the first time many of our basic rights and freedoms.Again, the cathedral was a trove of geometry, architectural lines, framing and lighting, and I have rendered many of the shots in B+W to more starkly reveal the architectural splendour. These were all taken with the Olympus EM-5 and the 12-40mm F/2.8. I hope you enjoy them.
'Attempting' being the salient word. I'm not sure if I succeeded but I had a go at rendering some of my land and seascape images in black and white using Lightroom. I tried to achieve a high contrast look to evoke more mood, using dodging and burning to draw attention to the lighting.The scenes below are from my travels to Iceland, Norway, Alaska and Bulgaria, each possessing some of the Earth's many beautiful landscapes.A variety of camera bodies and lenses used here, and both DSLR and micro four thirds formats. Hope you enjoy them.
This time Jena set the challenge. A maximum of 30 photos, using any lens we want, but using the B+W Art Filter on our EM-5s.The great thing about this high contrast filter, apart from rendering appealing SOOC JPEGs, is that it breaks everything down into its constituent shapes and form. This forces us to think more fundamentally about our compositions, so that we apply the basic principles of shape, form, light and shadow. Inevitable, this leads to (hopefully) stronger and bolder compositions, irrespective of what we might actually be shooting. Most of these are SOOC JPEGs, but in some cases, I processed the RAW file that the EM-5 saves alongside each JPEG into B+W. Jaguar were kind enough to leave us some cars to play with, leading to lots of reflection and abstraction possibilities. Incidentally, I had previously done a photo challenge in this location last year. I find these kinds of challenges to be a useful exercise, as because they force me to take my time and think about 'seeing', hopefully producing fewer but better shots.
So I went down into London today hoping to catch some light and shadow, and I stumbled upon a protest by black taxis in the centre of town. They held up traffic in a massive jam from Parliament to Trafalgar Square and down through Whitehall and the Embankment, apparently protesting the regulations being imposed by the city. I did manage to capture some shadows and silhouettes, but not before shooting some of the protest. All captured with the EM5 and Olympus 12-40mm F/2.8 or 60mm F/2.8.
Spent a lovely day giving a guided tour of London to a young lady, and after dinner we made our way to Tower Bridge to see the night time lights. There are plenty of places to see London's lights at night of course, but few of them match City Hall and Tower Bridge, and nowhere else has a warship anchored in front. I was guiding more than photographing, but as her iPhone couldn't handle the fading light I took a few long exposures. Nothing new or original here, of course, but I never tire of London's colour at night. Shot with the EM-5 and the 12-40mm F/2.8, and also a couple of shots with my phone, the Nokia N8.
After I had explored the gardens at Wimpole Estate, I made my way to the magnificent Hall, the largest property in Cambridgeshire and dating back to the 17th Century (although the site dates back as a dwelling to 1086). Once again, I enjoyed the opulent interiors, with fantastic collections of art and porcelain. The guides were, as always, very generous with their time and knowledge. A truly beautiful building with magnificent rooms, including its own chapel. All of these were taken with the EM-5 and 12-40mm F/2.8.
Sunny weather this weekend past took me to the magnificent Wimpole Estate in Cambridgeshire, a National Trust property. I will post photos from the Hall in due course, but I wanted to dedicate a post to the beautiful gardens, in particular the Walled Garden, which exhibits a stunning variety of flora and plants. Tribute must be paid to the excellent gardeners. These were all shot with either the Olympus 12-40mm F/2.8 or the 60mm F/2.8.
On our way back from Lincoln two weekends ago, we stopped off at the town of Grantham, the birthplace of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. During our fleeting visit, we stumbled into this magnificent church, dating back to the 11th century and replete with beautiful architecture and fantastic lines. Upstairs was a small library with an amazing collection of books dating as early as the 15th century. As I've stated before, I'm not remotely religious, but churches and cathedrals offer such wonderful photographic opportunities. We must thank the people we met inside for their hospitality, kindness and generous information. All images were taken with the Olympus EM-5 and the 12-40mm F/2.8.
Continuing our photo walk, Parrish and I left the skateboarders and headed to Tower Bridge and City Hall to shoot some more. The dusk light was late and unremarkable, so once again I used the B+W Art Filter on my EM-5 to make most of these images. Arguably lazy to let the camera do the editing for me, but I really like the grainy B+W rendition, the texture and the contrast really appeal to me. Thus all the B+W shots are straight out of the camera JPEGS.Furthermore, I shot all these with the Olympus 12-40mm F/2.8, and zooms can make one lazy in one's composition. However, I would argue that I still had to envisage and compose the shot, deciding where the frame edges should be before hitting the shutter. But certainly, primes would force more considered compositional choices.My friend Gene in New York, to whom I always email all my photos before posting them here, says that I have 'a way of making the familiar seem unfamiliar.' I suppose that's the challenge when you've photographed these locations as often as I have, to make them still look fresh and interesting. Anyway, thanks once again to Parrish for an excellent and enjoyable photo walk. Hope to do it again soon!
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