This is a church I’ve photographed on a few occasions. While Cuckney hasn’t been a particular destination, it’s a place that I drive through occasionally and the church stands out. It’s a Grade I listed building dating to the 12th Century, although it has been restored a number of times since then. I think it has a pleasingly angular shape. It is also largely unobscured by anything blocking it’s view – many churches tending to be stood amongst trees that can make photographing the entire structure more difficult.
I drove past this place on my way home aftert a day out and turned the car around to stop and get a picture. It would have been good to get closer, but there was a sign warning about trespassing which I didn’t feel like disobeying.
After yesterday’s post where I spoke about missing the focus slightly on a 4×5 large format photo, despite not rushing, here is a picture where I did exxactly the same thing, although this time I was rushing.
When I say rushing, that’s relative. You can’t really rush a picture with a field camera in the same way you can with 35mm or medium format (or, I guess, large format press cameras to an extent). There is still a lot of setting up to do before you get to the nitty gritty of finessing the focus etc.
At the time I took this picture there was no-one in the frame and my intent was to photograph the building, with the canoes and the front of tha canal boat. However, I was concious that there was a sizeable group of young people along with an instructor who was prepping them for going in the canoes. As I was setting up the shot, I heard him say something along the lines of “Right, follow me.” and the group headed towards my field of view.
I didn’t really want a big crowd of kids in the shot, so took this picture quickly when just two people were in the frame (one obscured by the other) and, because I was rushing, I didn’t check focus properly. The centre of the frame (horizontally) is fine, but the sharpness drop steadily towards the top of the building. Again, had this been reversed so that the lower part of the frame was softer, it wouldn’t have mattered because that’s just water and distorted reflections.
To make matters worse, the group of people then proceeded to walk right through the frame, exiting to the right, meaning I could have waited and got a better shot anyway!
I’ve photographed the straddle wharf at Victoria Quays on many occasions, but this is the first on 4×5 large format.
I still need to learn more patience with the format as, although this is a picture I’m happy with, there’s still a little softness in the upper part of the image where the front-standard must have had a slight bit of tilt in play. It only affects the roofs of the buildings and the upper branches of the tree, and everything through the middle of the scene is sharp from edge to edge. It would have been preferable had the tilt been reversed and the softeness had affected the water, where it would have had little noticeable effect. The soft focus is only really noticeable at magnification and I doubt you can see it in the smaller res version published here.
I didn’t rush this picture (I have one that I did to show in the next day or so though, so don’t worry, you’re not missing out!), but I also didn’t spend enough time fine tuning the focus. I think I might consider buying a more powerful loupe – the 4x magnification model I have is very good, but perhaps a 6x would better ensure I don’t miss the detail?
A mere stones throw from one another, here are Cemetery Road Baptist Church and Lansdowne Chapel.
I’ve noticed that, in certain shots – and particularly when pointing the camera upwards – the blue skies in my pictures take on a deepr, almost petrol-blue tonality. While the sky does tend to be a deeper blue when you look towards the vertical, I’m not sure that explains this change in tonality that I sometimes get. I could probably fiddle with the colours during the edit, but I quite like the richness of it.
Canon Sure Shot Supreme & Kodak Gold. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
I was going to title todays post “hiding in the bushes” but that just sounded creepy. Framed by Foliage sounds much nicer.
I guess the theme today – if four pictures can be said to constitute a “theme” – is my tendency to choose to frame subjects with vegetation, whether it be shrubs, flowers, trees, or all three. I notice that I do this a lot. I don’t know if it’s unusual or if everyone uses this particular device. Whatever the case, it’s one I use often.
The foliage in these images is rarely the subject, even if it sometimes takes up a lot of the frame, but it is still integral to the picture. All four pictures shown today would still work thout the framing, but they would be markedly different.
Canon Sure Shot Supreme & Kodak Gold. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Anyway, whatever the plural (and I expect there isn’t a collective noun), here are three photographs of underpasses. They’re all fairly close to one another – in fact, the latter two photos are in the same structure.
They felt like a good trio of pictures to publish together.
This whole roll of film had a sense of suspense about it. I took my Canon Sure Shot Supreme on an outing a couple of months back and decided to carry it in its case using the built-in belt strap. This was very convenient right up to the point where the strap came unglued and the camera fell onto a concrete floor (still inside the case, thankfully). The camera’s plastic shell became slightly misaligned and had to be popped back into shape, an a few little chips of plastic broke of around the shutter button. I was concerned about light leaks (so I filled the chip holes with a bit of black silicone), and also some sort of major damage to the mechanism or electronics. However, when I finished shooting to roll a few weeks later and got the negatives back they were all perfectly fine. So I still have a working Supreme, albeit now with a few battle scars.
Canon Sure Shot Supreme & Kodak Gold. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
There is something that attracts me to photographing post boxes. It’s not hard to figure out – it’s the vivid red that does it. I photograph them in black and white sometimes too, but colour really works best.
This one dates back to the reign of King George, so would have been erected sometime between 1936 and 1952, when he died and new boxes tok on the ER markings denoting Queen Elizabeth II.
It also has a sticker on it advertising a march and rally seeking justice for the events that took place at the Battle of Orgreave during the miner’s strike in June 1984.
Canon Sure Shot Supreme & Kodak Gold. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
