'evening, Constable

Not really a trip out to this week, more of a quick dash. Early on Saturday evening I noticed the sky was rather dramatic, with a mixture of white clouds, darker rain clouds and still some areas of blue sky. So I quickly made the 15 minute drive to Curbar Edge to see if I could get some dramatically lit landscapes. With it being near to the longest day I knew I had a good hour or so in which to work, before the sun got too low. I have plenty of sunsets taken in this area so I was looking for late evening shots rather than sunsets.

By the time I got there the ratio of clouds to blue sky had increased, but there were still patches of blue sky, and the promise that there might be some strong sunbeams appearing between gaps in the clouds. Because of the increase in clouds the land itself was quite dark in relation to the sky. Exposing correctly for the sky, would almost certainly cause the land to be underexposed.

There are several techniques for dealing with this situation. About the only option for slide film photographers, is to use a graduated neutral density filter. This is dark at the top and gradually gets lighter and then clear at the bottom. This is used to make the sky darker so that that relatively low latitude of the slide film can encompass both the sky and the land. Colour negative film photographers have another string to their bow: they can use the extended latitude of the film. A straight print from the negative will either be correct for the sky or the land, but not both. But by dodging and burning during the printing stage the best result for both sky and land can be arrived at.

For the digital photographer, in addition to the graduated neutral density filter, there are three other ways to beat the problem.

The first way is to use a good solid tripod and make at least two, and preferably more, exposures of the same scene, each exposed differently. One could be exposed to show all the detail in the sky correctly (resulting in very dark land), one could be exposed to show detail in the shadow areas on the land (resulting in a blown out sky) and the third could be an in between exposure that is correct for the midtones in both sky and land. Then within a photo editing package various techniques are available to merge the three separate exposures together so that the correct exposure for each area of the scene is used.

If no tripod is available another technique can be used. A single compromise exposure can be made with a raw file. The raw file can then be developed three times using the fact that raw file developers can, in effect, give a slightly underexposed image, a slightly overexposed image and an in between image. The three resultant exposures can then be merged, as in the previous technique.

And finally, the way I usually do it: I take a single raw exposure making sure that the histogram of the file is 'exposed to the right', but without too much clipping of the highlights. Some clipping of white clouds is in fact essential, because, although I am shooting a raw file, the histogram I see on the camera screen after exposure is not in fact the histogram of the raw file, but the histogram of a jpeg thumbnail file which the camera produces and embeds with the raw file for review puposes. Now when I develop the raw file on my pc, I set the raw developer to 'recover' the clipped highlights, whilst at the same time not clipping the shadows. This will usually give me a fairly flat result with a well exposed sky and a fairly dark land. This file is then passed into my photo editor, as a 16 bit file, where final processing is performed. This final processing mimicks the 'dodging and burning' which would be used by the colour negative photographer during the printing stage. I use this technique because, as an ex wet darkroom person I understand dodging and burning and I want my digital 'dry darkroom' processing to be as similar as possible to my previous experience. The actual way I achieve the dodging and burning, is to use selection tools, with various amounts of feathering, to select specific areas, and then use the levels tool on the selection to get the optimum exposure level for that area.

A picture is worth a thousand words so here is a jpeg produced from my raw file before I have done the dodging and burning:



And now the result of a lot of dodging and burning:



Notice how I have also made the sky a bit more dramatic, by selecting it and applying levels to 'stretch' the histogram so that some mid grey areas have been darkened.

This technique can be overdone to the extent that some results can look more like paintings than photos. I try to avoid that, but maybe the above example is approaching that level. I do however like fairly dramatic skies and think that on this particular evening I got one or two lanscapes with skies that are reminiscent of those in Constable paintings:

A mixed bag

I thought I would have a change from flowers this week. Checking through many leaflets on things to do and places to go, which I picked up from the Chesterfield Tourist Information Centre, I came upon one for an Otter and Owl sanctuary between Castleton and Chapel. And for once it wasn't half term or full term school holidays, so hopefully it wouldn't be too busy.

Arriving shortly after opening time my hopes for a quiet time were fulfilled. Just me and a few other retired old codgers, and one family group with under school age youngsters.

As soon as I went through the entrance gate I was taken by the pattern of sunlight on grass and tree trunks which presented itself. I thought it might make a good monochrome shot, but after playing around with that idea I decided it looked better in colour:-



Continuing down the path to the sanctuary I came across the added bonus of a herd of small deer. Having already put my telephoto zoom on the camera, in anticipation of the otters and owls, I was ready armed to get a few shots of them as they ran away from me:-



I began to think this was my lucky day: no hordes of schoolkids, a bright blue sky, and several decent shots and I hadn't even reached the Otters and Owls yet! But you can probably guess what's coming...

When I eventually got down to the sanctuary I found that the otter enclosures were all heavily surrounded by high trees, the early summer foliage of which largely kept the light out. So shooting conditions were decidedly dim. Also the ponds in each enclosure were extremely shallow and muddy brown which would not make for natural looking otter photos. And where were the otters anyway? Most of them must have been asleep in their little huts because there were only a few on display in the open air. Anyway, after much walking around and patient waiting I did find one pair of otters who decided it was time for a swim. Their pond did have a bit more water in it than the others, and there was a small patch of sunlight on part of the water. Immediately it sprang into my mind that if I could get one of the otters to swim through this patch of sunlight it would not only solve the problem of the dim conditions, it would give me the perfect title for what would be an award winning photograph: 'Ring of Bright Water'. I could even win the BBC Country File calendar competition!

So I waited, and waited.. and waited. Neither of those pesky otters wanted to go through that patch of sunlight. Maybe they were worried about skin cancer or something. So the closest I could get to the award wining shot was this:-



And the owl situation was even worse: a few forlorn looking creatures invariably perched in the darkest corners of their dimly lit cages. I took one or two hopeful shots but I knew that there would be nothing worth keeping.

It was now two o'clock and on returning to the entrance to the sanctuary I decided to have a spot of lunch. Or rather a spot of clotted cream tea. Well, rather a large clotted cream tea actually. On returning to the car I decided that a good walk was required to work off the cream tea, so I scoured the map for inspiration.

The bright blue sky was still around, and unusually for the Peak District, which seems to attract haze like cow pats attract flies, the visibility was excellent. So a high viewpoint with far reaching vistas was called for. Where else but Winhill? So I drove over to Yorkshire Bridge and began the steep climb straight up the tightly packed contours. No zig-zagging cheating on this walk, its straight up the steep side of the hill. After ten minutes I realised I'd left my bottle of water in the car. After twenty minutes I must have worked off every single fat laden calory of the clotted cream tea. And after forty five minutes I finally arrived at the summit.

The climb had certainly been worth it and I forgot about the inevitable fact that the climb down would be just as difficult and enjoyed the wide ranging views of the Peak District:-

New beginnings

Unfortunately I've broken my rule and missed a few weeks of this blog. I have been taking plenty of photos however, including the wedding of a friend's son, so Blog writing time has been at a premium.

So I'm back again with a new beginning, in more ways than one.

Many years ago my first film SLR was the diminutive Pentax MX. It was Pentax's answer to the Olympus OM1. I didn't like the ergonomics of the OM1, which had a shutter ring around the lens mount so forcing the aperture ring further out down the lens barrel. This gave rise to two disadvantages: the aperture ring was in a different position depending on the size of each lens, and the set aperture could not be viewed in the viewfinder, as it could be on the Pentax, via a small window in the prism covering. The Pentax also showed the set shutter speed in the viewfinder so, to me, was the better designed of the two.

What both cameras shared was small size and weight, especially compared to the Canon and Nikon offerings at the time. To me size and weight matter for two reasons: I am more likely to carry and use a camera if it and a few lenses don't require weight training sessions to carry about with ease; and smaller cameras and lenses are less obtrusive and attract less attention when trying to shoot candids. Indeed I would be a rangefinder man if it were not for the fact that rangefinders are useless for macros and telephotos, which are essential for nature and wildlife photography.

But gradually, with the addition of autofocus and motordrives and battery requirements film SLRs started getting bigger. Then when Digital SLRs came out even bigger batteries were needed so it was even harder to design small DSLRs. But if anyone was going to do it it was Olympus who opted for a slightly smaller sensor. This size advantage did not initially appear as they started the E series with a professional grade body (E1) and professional grade lenses. All these, whilst smaller than other manufacturer equivalent offerings, were still fairly bulky for my requirements. Gradually they have started filling the system out with smaller cameras and lenses. Immediately Olympus announced the new E420 a few months ago, coupled with a 25mm pancake lens, I knew it was the camera for me.

So I bought one, and it really is small and light. So I now have another rule, apart from doing this blog once a week, and that is to carry the camera with me all the time. That should open up some opportunities that would be missed otherwise. Watch this (blog) space!

After a couple of days getting familiar with the new camera I decided to put my my 50mm macro lens on it and go out into my garden to see what was around. Unfortunately the buddleias are not in flower yet so there were no butterflies around and I had to be content with getting in close to a few flowers.

This water lily is the first to bloom in the pond this year. To get a close in shot I had to hold the camera out in one hand and used the 'point and shoot' technique of Live View on the rear LCD:-



This small rockery flower looks quite insignificant in real life but when you get in close it really glows and seems to float above the foliage:-



My favourite of the session is this chive flower, which sits on top of the straight chive stem and just seems to explode into life:-

To cut or not to cut

Sue's brother Chris and his wife Sue came down from Scotland to stay with us last weekend. They wanted to get out and visit one of the Derbyshire Stately Houses. They had been to Haddon recently, and Chatsworth was a no-go area because of the Horse Trials (not sure what they were alleged to have done) so out of the big three that left Hardwick Hall.

This is another National Trust property so I had the pleasure of getting in for free (as a member of the NT), whilst the others had to cough up nearly £10 pounds each. Most people will know the saying "Hardwick Hall - more glass than wall", and one has to admit that it's not far off the mark:



As with Calke Abbey photography is not allowed inside the hall, which in spite of all the glass is very gloomy inside, so we will have to be content with shots of the gardens. We arrived before the hall was open so spent a good hour walking round the gardens, which are well worth a visit on their own. From the rear of the house the formal gardens open out into open countryside and I was taken by the contrast between the formal hedges and the trees beyond in this shot:



The gardens are divided by high formal edges into many separate areas such as an orchard, herb garden, vegtables, border plants etc. In one of the walkways between these areas I spotted this white bench in a quiet corner which appealed to me:



As you can see the bench sits on a typical English lawn: well manicured apart from a few daisies which must have shot up overnight because the lawn shows every sign of being recently cut. It made me think of when we moved into our current house five summers ago: the house had been previously occupied by a single man who worked away during the week and didn't have much time for gardening. When we moved in the lawn in the back garden was completely overgrown. When we had eventually unpacked everything and began to settle in I had to set out a complete morning in which to cut the lawn back to a normal length. I was a bit reluctant to do this because actually I quite liked the overall effect of long grasses going to seed mixed with a myriad of wild flowers (aka weeds) such as daisies, buttercups, dandelions, clover etc, etc. But convention won out over radicalism and the lawn duly received its short back and sides.

I was quite pleasantly surprised therefore on leaving the area with the bench to go into the herb garden. There at the back of the garden an area had been set aside to 'go wild', and here it is in all its glory:



Hopefully when we eventually find our little country cottage it will have a garden large enough to set an area aside to go wild in a similar fashion. I will be quite happy to share the maintenance of my garden with Mother Nature.

...and Blooms

Well, it was slow coming. but the cold and wet April has finally given way to a warm and dry start to May. Over a period of a few days the countryside has been transformed by the fresh greens of new foliage and carpets of wild flowers.

The fine weather has given many opportunities to get out with my camera, too many in fact to document in this blog. So I will have to be selective and choose only one expedition to talk about. This is a trip to Lea Gardens, famous for its collection of many varieties of rhododendrons planted on a mid Derbyshire hillside. Here, any time between April and June you can enjoy walking along paths with tightly packed bushes of hung with abundant large luxuriant flowers.

If you go in early May,as I did, you will find a mixture of flowers that are past their best, many more in full bloom and some still in bud which will be blooming in June.

I like to get in very close to the blooms with my macro lens. The blooms are so large and have such long pistils and stamens that it is impossible to get everything in focus at close quarters. So I make a virtue out of necessity and use a large aperture to reduce depth of field to a minimum. When it works this can give a dream like effect with stamens apparently emerging from a colouful mist:



Even from a further distance it is difficult to keep everything in focus. In the next shot the fronts of the petals and the stamens are in focus but the centre of the bloom, from which the stamens emerge is just a white cloud:



Finally, one with everything in focus, because it is still in bud, and which reminds me of a raspberry ice cream sundae:

Spring Blooms

Well almost. The last few days of April have been just as cool and wet as the earlier part. I've been keeping an eye out for wild flowers during my daily bike ride through the park. There are plenty of cowslips to be seen, but very little else. A friend says cowslips like wet weather, so that probably accounts for it.

Just out of interest I looked back at last year's photos and found that before the end of April I had been out on several wild flower safaris. But last year April was exceedingly dry and relatively warm. After April, however, the weather deteriorated into the wettest summer we have had for years, and my wild flower safaris came to a full stop.

So I decided that this year's wild flower photography had to start this week. Last Spring also coincided with the purchase of my E330, which had hit rock bottom prices due to the introduction of newer models. Although the newer models have Live View facilties, which had been pioneered in the E330, they lacked a folding out LCD screen, which makes low level close up photography so much more convenient. I put the camera on a very small and light tripod, which can place the camera almost at ground level, and pull out the folding LCD so that I can look at it from above. I still have to kneel down to compose and focus, but at least I don't have to lie down on damp grass!

Because the E330 was a new tool this time last year, I had not yet honed my skills on it. Over the last year I have gradually found out what works best for flowers, and what works best for butterflies and insects. So I'm looking forward to getting a lot of good shots this year.

When I first started photographing wild flowers seriously, about five years ago, I tended to do a lot of 'record' shots to help me familiarise myself with all the varieties. Quite often I would not know what a flower was until I got back home and compared my shots against several wild flower recognition books I have. It's surprising how difficult it can be to identify flowers this way, and I would take shots of leaves and stalks etc to further aid identification.

Now that I am more familiar with the different varieties I am more interested in taking more 'artistic' photographs, using narrow depth of field to isolate single blooms, and creating nice blurry out of focus backgrounds. Putting the camera on a tripod theoretically means that you don't have to worry about the shutter speed so can concentrate on selecting exactly the right aperture to give the right depth of focus. The 'right' aperture might give a fairly slow shutter speed, which does not matter as far as camera shake is concerned, because the camera is on a tripod. But the subject, although anchored to the ground, is very susceptible to the slightest breeze making it jump all around the place. So I spend a lot of time after composing and focusing, just waiting for that brief second when the subject is completely still. Of course, I could use flash, which provides sufficent light to provide a high shutter speed. But in general I find flash gives an unsatisfactory result, giving almost black backgrounds and blown out specular highlights on petals.

I started in Holmebrook Valley Park, then moved up to Linacre Woods and then drove over to Tideswell Dale. Holmebrook Valley Park yielded up this shot of a cowslip:



Also in the park I found a few clumps of Greater Stitchwort, most were in bad condition, but one small clump had a few pristine blooms:



Moving up to Linacre Woods therewere quite a few bluebells out, but it will be another week or so before the ground is completely carpeted with them.



There were also plenty of wood anenomes, most of them pure white, but I prefer the ones which are tinged with purple:



Tideswell Dale proved rather disappointing. There were a few more butterbur flowers around than I saw a few weeks ago but other species were few and far between. A distinct lack of butterflies as well. I did spot one orangetip but it was the only one and did not stop to have its photograph taken. But a few Red Campions were just emerging:



And finally, lest I forget, a Forget-me-not:

Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Many times, driving north on the M1, I have passed the signs for the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and made a mental note that I must go there sometime. Well this week I finally did go there. And was pleasantly surprised that entrance was free (but with a car park charge of £4 for all day parking).

Having researched its website the previous evening, I knew it would take a lot of time covering the many acres of park and exhibits, so I arrived at 11:00 and expected to stay until late afternoon. There is an excellent restaurant there, so an all day visit can be split into two sessions by a pleasant lunch.

The weather was slightly overcast in the morning but considerably brighter in the afternoon. Interestingly I found the overcast conditions more conducive to photographing outdoor sculptures: backgrounds are less obtrusive and there are fewer specular highlights on metallic exhibits. Back in episode one of this blog I said my aim was to get out with my camera at least once a week 'come rain or shine'. Well I'm quickly learning what many photographers have known all along: sunny, contrasty conditions can ruin photographs, whereas less clement weather can add drama and mystique. I have now made a mental note that the park will be an excellent place to visit in winter, in foggy, misty and snowy conditions and will best be avoided in the height of summer.

Photographing other people's works of art could be considered plagiaristic, especially if the art is already two dimensional and graphical. But a monument or sculpture can be viewed from many angles and can elicit different emotional responses from the viewer. So selecting a single view and attempting to render one's own emotional response into a two dimensional graphic is, in my view, a sort of art in itself. For instance, the following record shot shows a very large sculpture depictng three angry men apparently confronting each other:



I wanted to capture the anger and aggression expressed by the sculpture and decided that I had to focus in on the heads. But I couldn't find a way to put all three heads into a single shot successfully. So I settled for excluding the third head by positioning it 'edge' on and between the other two heads. In this position it provides a barrier between the other two heads, further strengthening the antagonism between them:



The size and construction of this sculpture allowed me to take many different shots of it. The following one completely abstracts the sculture and uses part of it as a frame for a nearby tree creating a totally different work of art to the original, having no anger or aggression, merely recording patterns created in turn by man and nature:



The majority of exhibits did not represent the human form and were therefore much harder to 'interpret'. Some were intricate, and could be admired because of the skill required to conceive and fabricate them. But many others were comparitively simple geometric constructions, which might be admired for a neat bit of welding, but, to me, were lacking in anything approaching a decipherable message or meaning. For example, the following cone attached to a cheese wedge shape did not speak volumes to me, so I decided to photograph it at an unusual angle.



I think I like the result, but it is no more meaningful than the original, just a pattern of shapes and planes. Someone I know said a few weeks ago that a photograph (or any work of art) should make a statement or ask a question. But what about things which are just nice to look at? Are they art? I don't know the answer to that, but I do know that I will be returning to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park again.