Endless Instant

Supermoon over Tynemouth Priory

Sun, 13 May 2012 11:37 +0000

You probably know that last weekend, the moon was at its closest to the earth for the year. Evidently, photographers all over the world went out to capture the event. This is my effort. Here it is seen rising over the ruins of Tynemouth Priory in Tynemouth, North East England.
I shot this on the Friday, one day before its closest flyby, as this meant it was rising during civil twilight. I'd hoped this would balance the moon and the ambient light a little - I didn't want a pitch black background with a round ball on it! Unfortunately, by the time I found this view, the light had dropped to the point that the contrast range was too high for a digital sensor. This is one of those lighting situations that demonstrates quite how remarkable our visual apparatus is: my eye had no problem resolving all the detail in the scene. So, there's a little Photoshop work in this to rescue some of the cloud detail in the moon. As ever, the main source image is visible under the film strip.

The Hit

Mon, 07 May 2012 14:06 +0000

Another shot from the photography evening at Beamish (see this post for info). Titled in recognition of the fact that anyone who has ever been a committed smoker knows the pleasure of this moment.
This version is a combination of 2 shots taken 1 second apart. In the first the flame from the match created a lovely glow around his fingers and face and, in the second, the focus had shifted slightly placing his hand in the plane of focus (try focusing a 50mm at f1.8 in fading light!). A bit of Photoshop work gave me the best of both frames. Under the filmstrip is the second of the two shots.

Who me?

Wed, 02 May 2012 10:58 +0000

Another shot from the photography evening at Beamish (see this post for info). I spotted this wee fella taking a break. I envisaged this composition but with the boy looking away and taking a bite from the apple he was eating. But he spotted me. Feeling bad about interrupting his break and him feeling like he had to pose, I told him to ignore me. He said OK. And then continued to stare at me. So I took this photo and moved on.

Portrait Within A Portrait

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 15:18 +0000

Another shot from the photography evening at Beamish (see this post for info). I had taken a few pictures of this bloke before I noticed I was shooting two portraits in one. A slight shift of the focus ring and I had my favourite shot of the sequence.

Little Miss Coy

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 19:04 +0000

I haven't had time to shoot or post anything of late, mostly because I've started a new job which has been keeping me occupied. It's going well so I figure it's OK if the blog suffers for a little while as I settle in.
Up here in the North East of England we are fortunate to have on our doorstep a fantastic living museum called Beamish. On Saturday just past they held a photography evening when, for a tenner (£10), 200 photographers were given exclusive access to the place with all the tripods and kit and accessories they felt was necessary to 'get the shot'. 200 photographers may sound like a lot but the place is big (map here) and, though there were a few subjects that got pretty crowded, it was easy to find interesting camera fodder that nobody else was looking at. Which was nice as I have a severe aversion to pointing my camera in the same direction as other photographers.
But, eventually I got bored of the self-imposed solitary confinement and decided to shoot what most of the other photographers were shooting - folk in period costume posing next to, in or on period vehicles. I've never felt comfortable shooting people but I decided it was an unmissable opportunity to shoot the folk in their wonderful attire. I'm glad I stepped out of my comfort zone as I think the portraits are some of my favourite shots of the day.
This is one of my favourites of those and I'll post a few more over the next week or so.

Winter Light

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 08:04 +0000

No time to get out with the DSLR at the moment so I figured I'd post some favourite iPhone doodlings from the past few months. I find it interesting that my iPhone shots are quite distinct in style to my DSLR shots. They're far more spontaneous, usually visceral responses to things I encounter. Perhaps because of this, reviewing them in Lightroom is also quite a different experience to reviewing the RAW files from the DSLR - they often remind me more of events rather than places or things.

This one was taken on New Year's Day this year. It was a classically wintery winter's evening :)

An afternoon walk along the river's edge

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 23:25 +0000

Going through some shots form 2010, I found this. The title is what I was doing. It was a good day.

Global Rainbow

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 11:30 +0000

For the past five nights we've been fortunate enough to have Yvette Mattern's Global Rainbow illuminating the skys over North Tyneside (ymattern.wordpress.com). It was hard to miss as we walked or drove around the area and it was somewhat eery having the continuous presence above us at night. When I first visited I have to confess to being a little underwhelmed. But, as I moved around North Tyneside and discovered how much it's appearance changed depending on the angle it was seen from, I became quite enthralled. The other thing I found quite intriguing was that it completely confounded my sense of direction and distance, and my perception of the layout of the area I live in! I have an internal, perceptual map of the area based on my experience of walking or driving around but, having this massive, perfectly straight line in the sky covering the entire region and providing a distinct landmark showed how completely inaccurate my internal map is - that is, geographically at least. I found myself imagining a place where I figured the view of the display would be impressive, only to find that it wasn't even visible from that location and, conversely, found really good views in locations where I figured it wouldn't be visible. It's hard to explain!

If it is displayed anywhere near you, go and see it and take the time to drive or walk around extensively. It's well worth it and is an experience that I don't imagine will repeated very often.

As for photography, I have never seen so may photographers out and about at the same time. It seems that there has been a photographer lurking in every corner and shadow in North Tyneside for the past five nights. That has been quite eery in itself! This also led to another insight into the inner workings of my mind - it seems that the more photographers there are around me, the less inspired I am to make my own photographs. I'm not sure what that says about me.

Anyway, I did have in mind that I'd like to make a picture including Spanish City - a prominent local landmark and treasure - as the lasers projected directly over the top of the building. On the second night of the display it was quite foggy and I figured this might have an interesting effect on the light. I wanted to avoid the effect of dark night sky with the typical orange glow of street lights so went out at my favourite time to shoot, civil twilight or 'the blue hour'. This is what I managed to find - the lasers point directly at Spanish City. I don't think it's going to win any awards as a photograph but I think it's a reasonable realisation of what I had in mind.

The Global Warming Filter

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 22:33 +0000

So I managed to revisit the sea arch with my tripod and wide angle lens this evening. Whilst I quite like the slightly more 'natural' version of this image, I thought I'd have a bit of fun with a Hollywood inspired, otherworldly treatment. I wasn't sure about posting it because it's so different to my usual style but figured it was interesting anyway.
I usually post the original image under the posted image but this time I've posted the more realistic version for comparison. Roll over the film strip to see it.

Seagull Roost

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 12:12 +0000

Just beyond the rocky point between Cullercoats Bay and Longsands beach is a rocky outcrop where all the seagulls like to relax and socialise after a long day of squawking and fighting for scraps of food.