In densely populated areas long exposures taken at night can suffer from light pollution - giving the images a yellow/orange tint - but looking out to sea at night you get different tones completely.
This image was taken at dusk on an overcast day, looking out to sea from Mevagissey Harbour. I’m not entirely sure what the light is on the horizon - it could have been a buoy bobbing about in the waves - but I think it was a boat as other fishing boats seemed to returning at the time.
Technical details : 60s, f/8.0, ISO100
Posted in long exposures.
Tagged with abstract, blue, dusk, long exposure, mevagissey, night.
I’ve always loved this location, and have visited here with many friends over the years. There is nothing utterly fantastic about it but it’s a nice place to be with friends on a warm summer afternoon (or in this instance, totally alone on a warm summer evening)
There was once a small car park and a picnic area here but it has fallen into disrepair since the gate was permanently locked due to vandalism. The car park is now overgrown, in fact I was standing where it used to be when I took this shot, and I suspect dog walkers are now the only visitors rather than picnicking families.
Posted in b&w, landscape.
Tagged with alvecote, b&w, monochrome, priory, ruin.
One of my first experiments with monochrome HDR photography and still one of my favourite images. This shot was taken about 30 minutes to an hour before sunset on a sunny but bitterly cold and windy winter afternoon out with Dan in Bradgate Park, Leicestershire. The angle of the sun lit up the grass, and the shadows added depth in front of the tree - I’ve been back to this location since but I’ve never found the light as favourable.
Three shots were used, each two stops apart (-2EV,0EV,+2EV). Processing was done with HDRSoft’s Photomatix Pro, with the black and white image then being split toned to give it an antique look.
It’s taken me a while to get round to it, but this image is finally available as a print on RedBubble and imagekind
Posted in hdr, trees.
Tagged with antique, bradgate park, engraving, hdr, landscape, leicestershire, painting, photomatix, print, tree, winter.
The light just after the sun has gone down can make for some really remarkable shots - Ok, sunset shots can be a bit cliched, but searching around (or waiting) for a bit of foreground interest can make all the difference.
If you are lucky and have a steady hand (or a lens with optical stabilising) you can get good shots at a low ISO without having to bother with a tripod (although using a tripod is recommended for sharper images). This shot was hand held as that is just how I prefer to take photos - I like to feel like I’m involved, rather than controlling a piece of machinery 
I like this location as the expanse of water makes for a great reflection on a still day but despite the colours being pretty it really needed something extra. Fortunately after about 5 minutes a swan started to come towards the shore.
Technical details:- Cokin P121 ND4 Grad, ISO200, 1/15s, f/16.0, 20 mm
Posted in sunsets.
Tagged with cokin, colour, leicestershire, reflection, sunset, swithland, water.
Another old image that I was never entirely happy with. This was taken on chilly morning excursion out at Beacon Hill with Dan and was one of the few shots I got - the rest being spoilt by the lens misting up all the time.
Whilst I liked the original image at the time I thought the contrast could have been better.
For this newer version I went back to the original shots (3 exposures, each 2 stops apart) and reprocessed them in Photomatix. This resulting image was then desaturated and had contrast adjustments.
A trial version of HDRsoft’s Photomatix is available at http://www.hdrsoft.com/download.html. Should you decide to buy a copy of Photomatix, feel free to use my discount code, “AndyStafford15″ which will give you 15% off.
Posted in b&w, hdr, landscape.
Tagged with b&w, barbed wire, beacon hill, frost, hdr, leicestershire, photomatix, trees, winter.
This was taken earlier in the year, when the school was closed for a few days due to snow. We all went out to build a snowman and found a small disused bridge over the Great Central Railway that we’d not noticed before. It was covered in graffiti and the colours looked quite striking against the snow, but it wasn’t that interesting on its own so became the backdrop for a rare family photo.
I overexposed this shot by two stops for two reasons:-
- Shots that feature snow generally need to be overexposed anyway, otherwise the snow comes out looking grey rather than white
- I wanted to lose the snow-laden grey sky which would have made the top half of the shot look muddy
This didn’t work entirely as planned because I did get a small amount of vignetting in the top corners of the shot, but I corrected this by placing the photo on top of a white background layer in GIMP and then erasing the offending bits from the photo to reveal the white background beneath.
Posted in people.
Tagged with bridge, colour, graffiti, snow.
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