Whether it is the ebb or the flow of the tide, the sea has a gentle gradient to cover in this part of South West Scotland. That does not always mean the waves are gentle but on this occasion the roughest it got can be seen in the third image of the sequence below.
The appearance of the weather in that image is exaggerated by the heavy grain effect I gave it. I like the effect but it tells a lie about the conditions, making them appear less favourable than they wereContinue reading
Aha! Those objects I couldn’t clearly identify earlier in the week on our walk across Cardiff Bay barrage, are buffers for ships using the docks.
Although I find these scenes interesting and those buffers fascinating, I wondered what they might be like in black and white. It is perhaps best to say b&w rather than monochrome because I deepened the darker areas, strengthened the contrast, added some grain and left no hint of colour in any spectrum.
For some reason I had the impulse to process this image in sepia tone. Adding a bit of grain, it is given an aged look (as sepia does), as if it were a shot of Swansea Bay from Mumbles taken a century ago. Of course there are a number of tell tale signs that this could not be the case. The most obvious is perhaps the wind turbine.
The image can also be seen on Leanne Cole’s Photography blog and Monochrome Madness 46.
I like this photo largely for its composition and the perspective of the buildings, both real and apparent. I say real and apparent because the buildings themselves are in fact taller than each other going from foreground to background – it’s not just the effect of perspective. I must make a point of taking a photo from the opposite end of the beach and see how they appear in perspective when the most distant building is the tallest!
The photos I have been posting this week were all taken on my iPhone. I seem to be doing this more often now but whether my iphonography is improving is another matter. It is a very convenient way to record observations (and sounds when I don’t have my kit with me) but in order to get effective images with the phone, you have to look at things differently. Angle of shot is probably the most important point . . . but that could be said for DSLR photography as well, I guess!
The photo below would have been grainy anyway, given the time of day and the fading light but there is a tendency for the iPhone camera to over expose when the light is dim. The image you see below is the result of post processing. Unlike a DSLR camera, you have pretty limited options in these circumstances when it comes to telling the camera what to do.
Update – Thanks to Emil Pakarklis and his iPhone Photography School, I have discovered the PureShot app which allows much more flexibility in shooting from the phone.
The buildings are on Swansea seafront – all apartment buildings, the closest being Meridian Tower. The lights in the background are those of the Swansea / Cork Ferry.
The strong winds in the UK last week brought with it the opportunity to do a bit of photography. Swansea Bay didn’t get the forecast storm as badly as other places but the winds were still high.
There was a mixture of light with the sun shining through the clouds from time to time and the next moment the atmosphere was murky to say the least. I have a number of shots to post from this event and I am starting today with two that illustrate the darkness of the weather.
The wind was wild and it was almost impossible to keep myself steady let alone the camera. I could have straightened the first image easily and did so to begin with. Then I realised that the angle of the shot helped to emphasise the wild conditions.
The second shot has been manipulated. There was very little colour in the scene anyway and I felt that giving it a sepia tinge helped this aspect of the atmosphere. To further help the photo feel more like my experience of the location, I also blurred the foreground and added grain.
Lastly, don’t forget to check out this week’s featured StillWalks video at the bottom of this post – “Moss Wood Walk” from Neath, South Wales. It will be there all week.
You can use the new Donate button below to help StillWalks. Pay how much you want and receive a high quality download of this week’s featured StillWalks video – “Moss Wood Walk” which is from Gnoll Park in Neath, South wales. Click the image below to watch the video.
Starting with a close up, this first photograph is a very close crop of the second shot. I particularly liked the grain effect of the exposure with a very high ISO. It seemed to suit the atmosphere of the dark place in those ancient woods by Cwm Green on the Gower Peninsula.
Most of my photography in these woods needed a high ISO as much of this environment was quite dark. Whilst I have both a monopod and a tripod, when carrying the field recorder and mic as well as kit bag and two cameras, it is just not practical to take a tripod as well and on this occasion I had not included the monopod.
However, as I say above, I think the graininess of some of the shots I took are very appropriate for the subject matter and I would be happy, as with this first shot, to emphasise it.
You can use the new Donate button below to help StillWalks. Pay how much you want and receive a high quality download of this week’s featured StillWalks video – “Woodland Walk” which is from Penllergaer Woods near Swansea, South wales. Click the image below to watch the video.