A quartet of trees I photographed while hiking around the grounds of Chatsworth House a couple of months ago.
I like the first of the four the most as it stands out against the sky and background. The second has a miniature fungal forest to add interest, although the light is pretty contrasty. Not as contrasty as the next shot though, where I deliberately metered for the highlights to throw the shadows into darkness. The final tree caught my attention as it looked like it had an old man’s face in right-hand branch of its trunk, although it’s a little difficult to see in the photo and looks a bit like the face of someone with Proteus Syndrome (the condition that afflicted Joseph Merrick, made famous by the movie The Elephant Man).
Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Tri-X. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 for 8 minutes @ 20°
I’ve seen this building on numerous occasions when driving through the area and on this day I finally found myself well placed (and equipped) to photograph it.
It might look like it’s out on the open plains somewhere remote, but is right on the edge of Whitwell and it’s only the gentle curve of the land that allows this illusion of space.
I took a number of pictures of the building (and the tree to the right of frame – which featured in yesterday’s post) using different focal lengths and am happy with all of them. I did have another shot which is zoomed out a little further than the third shot below which I think I liked best of all, but I managed to beat the lens’ vibration compensation and introduce some camera shake. A shame.
One thing I didn’t notice until I processed the scans is that there is a solitary figure sat on the corner of the wall of the structure. You can make them out better if you click on the images and view them larger in Flickr. They were some distance away, so I wonder if they noticed they were being (unknowingly) photographed?
The first is my favourite of the pair. I like the simplicity of the lone tree, but more than that, I like the layered tones created by the fields which neatly divides the picture into thirds. I’m not sure what focal length I used for this one, but expect it was somewhere between 150mm-200mm.
I like the second image too, but I had an ulterior motive when composing the shot to see what it would look like if I utilised the Tamron’s full 300mm range. The image falls apart a little when viewed larger, although I’m not sure how much of that is weakness in the lens at 300mm, and how much is atmospheric effects from zooming in through what was quite hazy air.
One of the trees form the picture in yesterday’s post can be seen again in today’s picture, lthough it has been relegated to a supporting role in this shot. Instead, the star of the show today is the head of some dried cow parsley which was growing (or had been growing) at the edge of the country lane I was walking down.
As I already mentioned yesterday, I’m very happy with a lot of the pictures that I got from, what was in effect, a test roll.
Considering this outing was primarily to shoot a roll of film to test my semi-stand developing process, I managed to get quite a lot of pictures I really like. Including this one.
This is the type of scene that I would miss without a telephoto lens. It was a bright, sunny day, but as well as whisps of high-altitude cloud, there was a haze in the air which meant the landscape became layered as it fell to the distance. This is a relatively mundane scene, but the layering provided by the mist makes it into something much more interesting, and the farm is placed so it doesn’t become too obscured, I think.
I did wonder about cropping out a lot of the sky and going for a more panoramic frame, but in the end decided against it – I quite like the way the distant wind turbine protrudes into the emptiness.
Yesterday I wrote about how I was upgrading my site and that I’d migrated all the posts, media, comments, and subscribers. That all went well, except for one thing…
My plan had been to upgrade my existing free WordPress site to the paid-for Personal tier, mostly to remove ads that visitors see, and also to take advantage of some of the additional features a paid site provides.
What I actually somehow managed to do was create a whole new site! While almost everything moved across ok, I soon realised that all my stats etc. were gone and I effectively had a brand new site, albeit fully populated with thousands of posts. I debated whether to just leave it like that – stats are not my primary reason for the site, far from it, and they’re not exactly earth-shattering in any case. But it niggled me somewhat that, even though all my previous content was there, it somehow felt like I was starting again at day one.
So, to cut a long story short, I cancelled the purchase of the new Personal site, re-directed all my subscribers back to the original free site, got a refund, and then did the upgrade properly. Now my pre-existing free site is correctly migrated onto the Personal plan level and all my stats are exactly as they should be. Next time I do something like this I’ll take more time to RTFM before clicking the button. 🙂
Hopefully, as a benefit, you should now be able to read this, plus any new and previous posts free from the scourge of adverts, and I can have a poke around the extra stuff I’m paying for to see if any of it is of use.
Following yesterday’s sunset, it feel’s appropriate to go with a sunrise for the launch of my new (although really mostly just the same old) blog.
I spotted these trees backlit by the autumn sunshine after dropping my son of at work. I don’t tend to take my camera out when doing this, but on this occasion I had a few frames of film still waiting to be shot so had it with me on the off-chance.
Something good that happened today…
Nothing particularly good happened. Nothing particularly bad happened. It’s been an average day.
I sometimes (often!) struggle to find something to write in this slot on the blog, especially if my mood is low – the things I use are often trivial – but in reality I have so much to be thankful for and, while I’m often unhappy about all manner of things, I am grateful for what I have. It’s good for me to recognise this.
Nikon F80, Tamron 28-300mm F/3.5-6.3 Di VC PZD & Kodak Ultramax. Lab developed, home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Three pictures of bits of fence on the Trans-Pennine Trail that I shot during a walk at the end of October. The weather wasn’t the best and I don’t tend to shoot (expensive!) colour film on days such as this, but it had been loaded in the camera a while before so I decided to make use of it anyway.
Something good that happened today…
After a run of pretty dismal, dull, grey weather – including yesterday where it also rained as well as being murky – today was a little brighter. Not exactly sunny, but there was a little structure in the clouds and occasional splashes of brightness where the sun found a way through the cloud. This provided an opportunity to go out and make some photographs. I didn’t have any great project in mind, and if I’m honest, my mind wasn’t really in the right place for it, but I got myself dressed an headed out anyway. In the end I shot 20 frames of the roll of Ilford HP5+. I’ll be interested to see how they turn out after I’ve finished the roll and developed it, but I had promising feelings about a lot of them. We shall see.
Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Portra 400. Lab developed, home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Another picture taken in close proximity to those posted over the last couple of days.
This is a bit of a “tripod holes” scene, and you can probably fine a large number of alternative (and probably better) photographs of the same location. It sits beside one of the main paths leading through Padley Gorge so, unless you take the path on the other side of the gorge, you can’t really avoid it.
Still, I’m quite happy with how it turned out. I’ve cropped in a little to remove some additional brightness where the grey and overcast sky was visible through the branches at the top of the scene.
Chamonix 045n-1, Schneider-Kreuznach Super-Angulon 5.6/90 & Kodak Ektar. Lab developed. Home scanned and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Steel City Snapper photography 