I posted a number of shots from this morning a while ago but as this image is currently in the Leicester Peoples Photographic Gallery Anniversary Open Exhibition I thought I’d upload it separately.
Prints, posters, cards available from photo4me or Redbubble. Other prints/prices available on request.
Available for licensing on Getty
I love it when it snows, not just because I’m a big kid who enjoys throwing snowballs at his kids, but also because it can totally transform a scene. Lighting is more even thanks to the brighter foreground, structures (both natural and man-made) become isolated and it’s possible to wring some nice pastel shades out of the camera with the correct exposure.
Normally when it know its going to snow I’ll set the alarm and get up and out early but that wasn’t possible on the day that these were taken – ‘er indoors already had plans to go out – so the plan was for me to spend the day entertaining the kids whilst she went walking in the Peak District. Fortunately for me the kids were also excited by the prospect of playing in the snow so they were up at dawn and I managed to steer them in the direction of the park, having seen it covered in snow the year before and thinking that it might be worth a few shots.
We were the first people to arrive so there was not the slightest footprint in the snow and fortunately for me the kids were so engrossed in throwing snowballs at each other that they forgot to a) thrown any at me and b) deliberately try to spoil my shots.
Selected images available for licensing on Alamy or Getty
A print from this series can be purchased at photo4me or Redbubble . Other prints/prices available on request.
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.
Purchase print at RedBubble
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.
Purchase print at RedBubble
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.
I’ve must admit I’ve been neglecting this blog a little lately – mainly because I’ve been too busy just enjoying taking photographs. On the plus side though, I’ve built up a nice backlog of photos to work through :)
It’s been reasonably snowy here for the past week or so, and having just picked up a second-hand Canon 5D Mk 1 I’ve been making the most of this by getting up early and going to our local park. The image above is of a well photographed landmark in the park showing the final scene from Shakespeare’s play of King Lear. I’ve always put off taking any photos of this, and indeed this is hardly the most adventurous composition but there was something about the light and colour that made me stop here this morning.
The snow lying on the figures had also added extra depth to them, which seems more emphasised by the narrow depth of field.
The vignetting in this shot is caused by using the Canon 50mm 1.8 lens on the full frame 5D camera at a wide aperture setting – it goes away after about f/4. I could have corrected it but I think it adds something to shot.
Technical info : 1/100s, f/2.8, 50 mm, ISO 1600
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 1 to 2 stops) for two reasons:-
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.