Valle Crucis Monastery 2

Valle Crucus Abbey 2, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Valle Crucis Monastery, near Llangollen in North Wales. This is the Latin name for 'Vale of the Cross' and the Monastery, founded in 1200/1201 by Madoc ap Gruffydd for the Cistercian order, is considered to be the best preserved of the North Wales monasteries. It is situated near the base of the Horseshoe Pass. This shot was taken in black and white mode using a combination of red and polarising filters. I liked the way the sunlight caught the building against the dark hills in the background. If I were to do anything more to this shot, it would be to remove the car on the extreme left using pixel cloning.

Lone tree - Photoshop auto contrast turorial

Lone tree, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Lone tree near Rode Heath, South Cheshire, England. This was taken with a red filter to enhance contrast. Sometimes the images come out a little flat - lacking in contrast. With almost every picture I do I go into Photoshop/Image/Image adjust/AutoContrast. Doing that with this image certainly brought out the vitality and contrast of the tonal range. It does not always make the image look better, but it can soon be undone in Edit/StepBackward.

Dead tree - Landscape as self-portrait of the photographer

Dead tree, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Dead tree near Rode Heath, South Cheshire, England. What does that mean? ‘A landscape as a self-portrait of the photographer’. I indicated earlier that you could save yourself hundreds of pounds or dollars by realizing that photography is not about how expensive you camera is, but rather is about a way of seeing the world: it is about perception and perspective. Ultimately, the photographer is selecting a particular aspect of reality, viewing it from a particular vantage point, framing it with the viewfinder at a particular time and in doing so is saying to others ‘Out of lots of shapes, vantage points and colours in reality, this one is worth looking at’. In making that decision to photograph this and not that, the photographer brings their own personality and perspective to the jumble of reality that is out there: they impose on reality their own perspective of it, their own ideals and preferences concerning it: they order it, frame it, look at it and arrange it in a certain way. I have already said elsewhere that I often take on a minimalist approach to my images and this says a lot about me. I hate clutter, busyness and closed in spaces preferring a sense of space, with things clearly defined and seen. I have a dislike for randomness or untidiness, preferring structure and formality: I like things ordered, structured, in harmony and balance. I do not particularly enjoy meeting people: I do not understand them very well, or trust them, so in my images, people are often reduced to impersonal formal elements in a composition. I do not take many portraits. It is in this kind of way that the photograph begins to reveal the character of the person who takes it.

This is why there may be a dilemma for the photographer who wants to earn money from his work. Lucky indeed is the person who can make a living from photographing what they like. Instead, they have to take on commissions, do portraits or weddings or work in photo-journalism or in advertising and design. As soon as I start thinking about making money from my images, I begin to think about what other people would like, what they would buy and so on, or I am doing a job for someone else, doing things they way they want them. I have to compromise my artistic integrity, even who I am, so that I have to see things the way other people want me to see them. For me, my photography is not about that. I want complete creative freedom in what I do, so that I take what I want, when I want, how I want, and if others like it, then that is a bonus. My photography is a totally selfish act; an expression of personal creative integrity, it is not about being told what to do and how to do it, it is not a job or a business, but a creative outlet and an expression of myself.

Old tree

Old tree, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Tree and fence near Rode Heath, South Cheshire, England. Once again a red filter was used for this shot.

Branches

Branches, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Tree branches. Another shot using black and white mode and a red filter to enhance contrast.

Sand dune grass

sand dune grass, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Sand dune grass at Formby Point, England. This shot is about texture as well as shape. Notice that the main tuft of grass is positioned one third in from the right. Its top is one third from the top and the main horizon in one third from the bottom. A red filter was used for this shot with the camera on black and white mode. This helps to give the grass that 'wispy' feel against a darker sky.

Sand dune posts

sand dune posts, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Sand dune posts at Formby Point. This shot was taken in black and white mode using a red filter to increase contrast. Composition-Wise, the line of posts lead the eye in from the right to the larger posts an the area just to the left of them which is the main element of the picture. The grassy hill at the back leads the eye back towards the posts again.

Little Moreton Hall bw 1 - Polarising Filter tutorial

Little Moreton Hall bw 1, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Little Moreton Hall, South Cheshire, England. I took a number of shots of this hall both in colour and black and white. This shot was taken using a combination of red and polarising filters in black and white mode. I liked the way the sun was being reflected in the upper windows. The red filter serves to darken the sky and increase contrast creating a more dramatic effect. The polarising filter also darkens the sky by cutting out light travelling in a certain direction. The filter has to be rotated in front of the camera and at a certain angle, the sky darkens. However, the camera has to be pretty much at right angles to the sun for this to take effect, so the polarising filter is only useful for side lit subjects. however, the polarising filter works for both colour and black and white images. This filter can also be used to reduce the effects of haze.

Little Moreton Hall bw 2

Little Moreton Hall bw 2, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Little Moreton Hall, South Cheshire, England. Like its sister shot, this image too was taken in black and white mode using a combination of red and polarising filters to increase contrast and darken the sky.

Dune tree

Dune tree, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Tree in the dunes at Formby Point, England. Definitely a competition entry for me. A combination of red and polaroid filters was used for this shot taken in black and white mode. I love the stong shape and texture of the tree against a minimalist plain background. The bit of tree trunk or stone lying on the ground in the distance on the right acts as a counterpoint to the tree, (and was there, honest, I did not place it there). Even the vapour trail of the plane in the sky adds to the shot.

Stonewall 1

Stonewall 1, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Stone wall and fence post in the Peak District. A fairly typical black and white texture study. A red filter was used to increase contrast.

Signpost

Signpost, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Signpost at the Goyt Valley, near Buxton, Derbyshire. This image was taken in black and white mode using a combination of red and polarising filters. A low viewpoint was used to eliminate the distracting background from behind the signpost.

WALKERS

WALKERS, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Walkers on moorland near the Cat and Fiddle Inn, near Derbyshire, England. This was a spontaneous shot taking shortly after the picture of the posts a few images below. The moorland here is bleak: there are no trees or bushes, just a path along which these two people happened to be walking. I put the camera virtually on the ground for a very low viewpoint which made the walkers stand out against the horizon. I also used a primary red filter to increase the contrast, giving the shot more drama. In fact there is something slightly menacing about this shot: the people remain anonymous and vague in a very bleak landscape which is made even more bleak by the lack of colour.

MOORLAND POSTS Black and white tutorial

POSTS, originally uploaded by foto-art.

Posts on Peak District moorland, near the Cat and Fiddle Inn, near Buxton, Derbyshire.

Well we had our first fine weather here in England last week: sharp crisp, frosty days with clear blue skies and bright sunshine, so it was my first real chance to get out this year and do a little photography. My first trip out was to the Peak District National Park near to the spa town of Buxton, walking near the Cat and Fiddle Inn which I understand is the highest pub in England. Of course, at this time of the year, there are no leaves on the trees: it will be a couple of months before spring arrives here, so the landscapes are still a little bare and bleak. last year I took a few sand dune photos and decided that I should really have taken some in black and white. Of course, you can convert colour images into black and white ones on photoshop, and that is explained in another post under the label 'colour to black and white'. However, you don't get quite the same result as taking the image in black and white on your camera. So for this image, I set the camera mode to black and white instead of colour. The advantage of this was that I could use contrast filters to make the image more dramatic. For this image I used a primary red filter (Wratten 25). This tends to darken the sky, making it more dramatic, and creates more contrast in the vegetation leading to a more dramatic picture. My new Ricoh camera has a 28mm equivalent wide angle lens, and this too gives a sense of space and drama, enabling me to get close to the fence posts and a low down vantage point, so that the posts stand out more dramatically against the sky, giving a stronger composition. notice again the rule of thirds, with the posts and horizon situated at approximately one third divisions in the frame.