Valle Crucis Abbey, near Llangollen, North Wales. When I arrived here the light was virtually side-on to the Monastery, so I was able to get a shot like this which highlights the texture of the stonework. I liked this complementary relationship between the rough texture and shape of the stonework, the natural shape and texture of the tree, and the smooth texture of the sky. After about half an hour, I left and took a trip up the nearby Horseshoe Pass, and returned to the Monastery about two hours later to take some more shots now that the sun had moved around in the sky to light up the building in a different way, enabling some different compositions.
Showing posts with label Wales. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wales. Show all posts
LIFEBELT 3 Tutorial
Lifebelt on the beach at Talacre, North Wales, U.K.
A minimalist shot. I love the austerity of these sorts of images - their bold simple lines and composition together with their use of colour. For me, because they require bold colour, these sorts of shots are best taken of sunny days, with the sun behind you to maximise colour brightness. This was taken about three o'clock on an August afternoon in Wales, when the sun was not too high. To enhance the colour I went into Photoshop and clicked on Image/Adjust/Auto Contrast, which gave it more vibrancy and sparkle, and then I increased the depth of colour further by going into Image/Adjust/Hue-Saturation and increased the saturation slider control.
In terms of composition, this shot also makes use of the rule of thirds. If you can imagine your viewfinder with two vertical lines down it at equal distances apart, dividing it into three vertical strips and then imagine two lines horizontally as well, then where these lines fall and cross each other often makes a good place to frame an item of interest. In practice I find that these points of interest tend to be between divisions of one third and a quarter. Thus the life belt, our point of interest, is roughly one third along from the right edge of the frame. Where the dune meets the beach is roughly one third in from the left hand edge of the border. Perhaps a bit of cropping in Photoshop would improve this picture more by getting the horizon to fall about one third up from the base of the frame. Also I could go into Image/Adjust/Rotate and rotate the image about one degree anti clockwise in order to make sure that the horizon was perfectly level. It is a common error with seascapes to have a sloping horizon, whereas in fact it should be perfectly level. The lower the horizon is in this picture, the more sky there will be in proportion to the land and the more spacious it will feel andding to its minimalist feel.
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