Two views of Old John, in Bradgate Park, taken less than a month apart in December 2009.
There are so many dreadful images of this building, and it is such an uninspired choice of location perhaps because it is so often photographed, but I still see it as a bit of a challenge.
This is my favourite of my shots that feature Old John - I prefer the building to be in the distance, that way its slightly easier to hide how uneven the structure is - even then I have to spend a long time trying to work out if my shot is level.
The heavy cloud cover here (and use of the Cokin ND4 soft grad) allowed me to get a nicely balanced exposure, retaining a lot of the rich late autumn colour.
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No photographers collection should be without at least one picture of Old John in the snow 
This was snapped on the way back to the car after an early morning start. I’d never really noticed this path before, but the light sprinkling of snow picked it out perfectly.
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Posted in landscape.
Tagged with bradgate park, canon 450d, leicestershire, old john, sigma 17-70mm, snow.
A small amount of snow just before Christmas gave me the ideal excuse to get up nice and early on a Sunday morning to go to Bradgate Park. When I arrived, long before sunrise, there were only two sets of prints leading into the park from the Old John car park - someone taking their dog for a walk.
The sunrise itself was rather uneventful - a cloudless sky, a bit of a glow and then the sun appearing - not really my favourite. Perhaps I could have made more out of it if I’d prepared (or had more imagination) but it was pleasant enough just to be there in the fresh snow.
While the light was still good I headed to one of the places I’ve been meaning to visit at daybreak for sometime and got the shot above. This is just as it was taken - no filters, no post processing, just good old fashioned sunlight.
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Posted in landscape, sunrises, trees.
Tagged with bradgate park, old john, snow, tree, winter.
The weather has been a bit variable to say the least over the past few days - but then I’ve been too busy to take any photos anyway so it’s not bothered me that much. The sun was out for a while this afternoon so I took a late lunch and headed to Bradgate Park as the late afternoon light is really nice on the bracken.
Old John wasn’t my intended subject for today - as you can imagine this local landmark is much photographed - I had planned on walking straight past but the light was too nice to ignore so I took a couple of shots handheld and carried on my way. I managed one other shot before it started raining again
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Posted in landscape.
Tagged with bracken, bradgate park, folly, golden light, leicestershire, old john.
By Andy
November 24, 2009
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.
A signed, limited edition 42cm x 42cm print of this image is available at highonlight
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Posted in hdr, trees.
Tagged with antique, bradgate park, engraving, hdr, landscape, leicestershire, painting, photomatix, print, tree, winter.
Bradgate Park is a particularly rich environment for a photographer - although obviously for this reason it is also incredibly popular with local photographers.
This shot was taken on an overcast spring afternoon, and whilst I would have liked a nice blue sky with a few clouds in, sometimes a dull sky can look more dramatic. Often when I take a photograph I know exactly how, or if, I’m going to process the shot later - in this instance though I was just out taking a few shots because I had a bit of spare time and was getting some more experience in using the camera manually.
In the end I tried a few different compositions and processed them each differently and this one proved to be my favourite of the lot.
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Posted in landscape, textures, trees.
Tagged with bradgate park, canon 450d, canon ef-s 18-55mm, landscape, old john, painting, print, texture.
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