We went to Ibiza earlier this month and this is the weather that we found. For one whole week it rained! We had fun nonetheless and it didn’t rain constantly on each day, but our overall impression of Ibiza in June was one of rain and damp and chilly winds.
A sunny(ish) day at Nostell, in colour 20 March 2011
If I were to define my style, I would say that I use a lot of natural, neutral tones in my photography. Look back through the posts on this blog, and you’ll see a lot of browns, greys, creams, russets. I’ve never really explored the use of colour. The saturation slider in Aperture always comes down a notch.
Lately, this is starting to change. It’s not a conscious decision. I’ve taken a lot of sets of photos of young families recently, and I’ve found the children wearing deep, bright colours. In the dull, even light of late winter, these colours really seem to be jumping out at me, and I am enjoying embracing them rather than muting them.
We went to Nostell Priory yesterday (I’ve been before – see the muted colours of the photo I took then) in the early spring sunshine. I had my 50mm, f1.8, prime lens with me, and took some snaps of the family in the sun. I caught this one of Charlotte while she ws just messing around, being herself.
I love the pinkness of her coat. I adore the paleness of her skin and the twinkle in her dark brown eyes. I like most of all the green and blue bokeh behind her. It’s a lovely contrast to the pinkness of her coat, and I feel gives the picture a balance of colour; both drawing your attention to Charlotte whilst at the same time connecting it all together as a single image.
I have worked on this picture in Aperture more than I normally would have done. I have used a more definite S-curve to give a deeper contrast. I have darkened the luminosity of the greens and blues while at the same time increasing their saturation. I have added a full-image polarising effect, and I have enhanced her eyes a little.
The original, straight-out-of-camera, image is much more like my usual style, but today I felt like doing something a little different. I love this picture, but that’s not to say that tomorrow I’ll think it way over the top. There’s every possibility that I’ll cringe when I look at it in a week’s time but for now, and in celebration of the approaching spring, I love the colours in this image!
Mandarin Duck on Yeadon Tarn 20 February 2011
Ted and I met my friend Richard and his daughter Nadia for an early morning walk around Yeadon Tarn this morning to give our wives a decent and well deserved lie in. It was a very grey day, and it was freezing cold, but we managed a few laps of the lake. As we were walking, we spotted this beautiful duck in amongst the more common mallards, moorhens, geese, and seagulls.
We didn’t know what it was, but it was very colourful and elegant. We’ve since learnt that it is a mandarin duck, and that they are quite rare in the UK, having all descended from birds imported from Asia and subsequently released or escaped. There is more on the BBC Nature’s page about the Mandarin Duck.
A cold night time walk around Haworth 20 January 2011
I met my friend Greg last night for our usually-monthly “camera club” outing. We drove over to Haworth and spent a couple of hours wandering around with our cameras. When we drove past the fire station, there was a drill going on, with firemen in bright yellow, full biohazard suits. When we got back with the cameras, they were gone. We’d probably have been arrested for photographing them anyway.
We spent some time in the park. I took some pictures of the abandoned play equipment in the frosty darkness, but wasn’t happy with any of the results. I spent a good few minutes on my back on the frosty ground though getting this shot of a basketball basket against the starry sky.
We ended the walk in the churchyard, which was brightly lit to show the church off to its full potential. I love the image at the top of this post. It is eerie and atmospheric. I shot it over 30 seconds with a tiny aperture of f/18 to enhance the starburst effect of the lights. I was going to opt for a 16:9 aspect ratio, but I liked the contrast in the tree branches too much to crop them away. I am pleased with the 4:3 one chosen.
Post-processing, I have applied a fairly drastic S curve to give it a contrasty look (too much, perhaps?). I have also used a colour monochrome adjustment using a pale beige at 73% opacity to bring the colours close to monochrome whilst keeping it true to the strange, cold feeling of being there.
A 1200-mile pub tour 8 January 2011
Between Christmas and New Year, my friend Matt and I set off on a “grand adventure” that usually involves beer, and usually involves travel. We had a very grand plan ready for this year: a 1200-mile pub and ale tour of Britain that would take in pubs in Leeds, London, Inverness, York, and Edinburgh. Travel would be by train (including the overnight sleeper service, the Caledonian Sleeper). The route was similar to day 6 and day 7 of the round Britain tour that I did with my dad in May. Booking in advance, this set us back £137 each.
Matt lives in Düsseldorf and the severe winter weather meant that he couldn’t get over for the adventure. So this year, I was joined by Richard.
We set off from Leeds before 11.00, so there was not much scope for a drink in Leeds as most of the pubs were shut. We therefore settled for the station’s Wetherspoon pub, where we drank Santa Pants from Elland Brewery (we opted for Leeds Pale first, but it was the end of the barrel and tasted foul). The Santa Pants however was far too sweet and was indeed a little pants.
We used the Good Beer Guide on the journey to London to plan a seven mile walking route between Kings Cross and Euston that would take us up Grays Inn Road, through Clerkenwell, down Fleet Street, across to Waterloo and back up Tottenham Court Road to the newly-opened Euston Tap.
We found the first five pubs, The Gunmakers (Clerkenwell), Old Mitre (Hatton Garden), Hand and Shears (Smithfield), Castle (Fleet Street) and Devereux (Temple) completely shut up. In fact, these parts of the city were completely deserted. I know it was a Bank Holiday, but we were really surprised to see parts of the capital city resembling scenes from 12 Days Later (without the zombies).
We eventually arrived at the Black Friar (Blackfriars) for a welcome pint of Sharp’s Doom Bar. The pub was a vision in carved wood and dark, cosy atmosphere.
We moved on via a rubbish non-pub whose name I forget, past Somerset House where an outdoor skating rink was buzzing with life:
We arrived at the Harp (Covent Garden), a tiny, full, buzzing city pub full of life. Dark Star Hophead is one of my favourite pints. It used to be a regular at the Junction, the best pub in Baildon, so it was a taste of home!
The Cross Keys, also in the Covent Garden area, is full to the rafters of stuff. It was another full pub, but we got a seat to rest on while drinking our wonderful Brodies IPA and gazing around at the thousands of bric-a-brac items that cover every available space in the pub.
We walked onwards to Soho next, past the art deco looking Foyle’s bookshop:
We enjoyed a pint of Yorkshire’s finest, Tim Taylor’s Landlord, in the Dog and Duck. There was a great atmosphere here, with friendly staff and customers.
We started our walk back to Euston via the Hope in Fitzrovia near the BT tower. The Flowers IPA was OK, but the pub lacked the busy atmosphere of the previous ones.
It was a challenge finding the Euston Tap, a pub that I really wanted to see, but when we eventually did find it, the tiny building was closed. This was a down point to the end of the day.
At Euston, we boarded the 21.15 ScotRail Caledonian Sleeper bound for Inverness. We had a berth aboard, which was the tiniest room I’ve ever seen. There was just enough room for the two bunks and the sink. There was no room to pass each other without one of us getting onto the bed. There was, of course, plenty of room for drinking the bottled ales we’d just bought in M&S on the station:
We awoke at about 7.00 the following morning. We were travelling through the total darkness of the early morning Cairngorms. The attendant brought us our morning coffee at 8.00 and told us we were running an hour late. This was a good thing, as it enabled us to catch the sunrise from the train and see some of the beautiful landscape we were travelling through:
We eventually got to Inverness at about 9.30. We’d originally planned to stay four hours and grab a pint in one of the pubs there. We walked around the city and along the banks of the river Ness, crossing the river a few times on the many bridges, gazing off to the distant hazy hills:
After walking around for three or so miles, we decided to head back to Edinburgh a couple of hours earlier than planned, so were on the train again in time for lunch. The glasses came out and we had a few bottles of ale that Richard had bought back in Leeds. We played cards and gazed out at the countryside of the Cairngorms. We passed bright plains:
The next minute, it was swollen rivers and distant mountains:
And the next, everything was white as the world became enveloped in snow and fog, just the occasional detail standing out of the whiteness:
We arrived in Edinburgh with four hours at our disposal. We went straight up the steps to the small, cosy, friendly pub, the Halfway House. The Harviestoun Bitter and Twisted is another favourite of mine and it tasted incredible in this lovely pub.
We took a stroll around the damp but buzzing streets of Edinburgh towards Grassmarket and the one-roomed, large, Bow Bar on West Bow. We opted for pints of Deuchars IPA, one of the best ales money can buy. Richard loved it as ever, but I thought it didn’t taste its best on this occasion. I took some photos of the interior, my favourite being this one of a man totally absorbed in the book he was reading:
The whole of the city centre seemed to be taken up by a colourful, noisy, exciting fun fair. We took about an hour just meandering around, taking in the atmosphere and snapping loads of images of the rides:
We eventually arrived at the Café Royal, a heaving, large Victorian pub with central island bar. The Guildford Arms, next door, was just as busy. We got accosted by a very drunk man calling himself Billy Seagull who talked with us for ten minutes, each ‘S’ pronounced with enough spit flying into the air to keep our pints topped up for free.
The ride back to Shipley was uneventful. We were too tired to grab a sneaky half in the 30 minutes we had at York while changing trains, so our five-city, 1200 mile pub crawl ended up only being a three-city one. But it was certainly a Grand Adventure!