The Photography Thread

[st4]

Lac de Cheserys. Had to walk this one, sadly you cannot drive here.

_DSC1297 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

_DSC1315 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

_DSC1316 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

[st4]

Gavarnie Cloud Inversion

 

_DSC3037 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

_DSC3059 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

_DSC3087 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

_DSC3097 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

[st4]

Three from the cold snap on Skye. Loch Cill Chriosd is fast becoming my favourite Loch in Scotland to shoot. It's such a challenge to even get a still day on Skye and the reeds add another dimension. On one hand they can act as a wind breaker but on the other they can sway in the slightest wind. All these were timed so the Loch was totally ripple free and all the reeds were still. These were beautiful moments in time but I was sad the moorland wasn't redder (by the time the still day had presented itself the colours on the Moors were weaning) and the sky had more feature to it. Still, light and reflections were all present so 2 out of 3 ain't bad.  Bloody cold though - summer cannot come back soon enough and with it the lovely green grasses and reeds.

The specific composition I have done many times before a) I like it b) it is carefully chosen to hide a row of distant pylons I am too lazy to clone out - it's easier to compose them out and also the road and cottages in the distance

_DSC1536 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

_DSC1537 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

_DSC4482 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

[st4]

Two French Castles

Chateau de Montbrun

_DSC3857 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

Chateau Azay-Le-Rideu

_DSC1506 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

[st4]

Posted already

[st4]

Pena Montanesa

Bit of a peachy evening - never been here other than driving past 3 years back and was keen to explore the area further and find a good angle to shoot the side of this mountain. Turns out Canyon Anisclo is the place to do it. This aspect of the mountain reminds me of a certain one back home...

 

_DSC3172 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

 

This turned out to be my favourite composition and the one I would retake another time

 

_DSC3184 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

 

Wider take

 

_DSC3187 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

 

One dusk came in it was a proper colour fest - it was very hazy (being Spain and quite hot) so the colour fades away into the shot. One could de-haze it but I rather like the layered feeling to the shot and the depth you get.

 

_DSC3192 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

 

_DSC3193 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

[st4]

Canyon Anisclo

 

These were all deliberately composed and cropped to hide a too large to clone out mega sized bird hide further to the left.

These are from my first visit there so I took a variety of images as the light and cloud changed.

_DSC3114 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

_DSC3120 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

Not long afterward taking this the sky got a bit dull and flat

_DSC3903 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

Sunset was nice 😄

_DSC3189 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

[st4]

Some wintery scenes from Glencoe

Technically this is Autumn but it was cold enough to be winter...a square crop of one from earlier this year

_DSC3877 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

I've shown this scene as a 2:1 countless times, however I came across an old card and found one I took at a slightly longer FL which I probably did so I could make a 16:9 version but when I got home I never did. Two years later and well...it was lovely and clear and more importantly dead still but by ***** it was cold.

_DSC4017 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

Loch Tulla - one from early in 2016. I had a great morning in Glencoe and stopped off here on the way back hoping some light would come through. It didn't. It was also very cold. This hi-key processing isn't my normal way of doing things but the original is just so flat. I keep meaning to do this composition come summer or autumn - this year for sure.

_DSC7054 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

One from last winter. Again very cold but once the sun was out it wasn't so bad.

_DSC2386_Rendition 2 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

[st4]

What can beat a sunset in the mountains? Well one where it is reflected giving you two for the price of one. Here are two from Lac du Miey (the second of the Lac D'Ayous along the GR10) which perfectly mirror the awesome view of Pic D'Midi D'Ossau

_DSC4106 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

_DSC4132 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

[st4]

An assortment from my three wonderful days in Chamonix.

Aiguille de Chardonnett

_DSC2918 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

Grandes Jorasses

_DSC2911 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

Mont Blanc

_DSC2876 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

Grandes Jorasses

_DSC2835 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

Aiguille du Grepon

_DSC2997 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

[olliesgrandad]

Fountains Abbey. You need to stay there to be able to access the entire estate out of hours by car hence my car by the church 

[st4]

Currently doing a massive back up of my drives and came across this. I had originally planned to make this into a B&W and I did - not very well but it was my intention so I focused all my attention to it. I hastily processed this and actually - I think this is the one.

_DSC1758 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

I am kicking myself for not heading over there on Thursday or Friday. There was some epic sunrises and the metal would have picked it up well. Here is one from last year but the two I missed looked better.

_DSC2279 (1) by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

[st4]

It's no secret I despise this time of year and find precious little to motivate me through the winter months. I decided to reprocess some shots from the Torren Lochan from July 2017. My tastes have changed a little since then so I thought I'd give the RAW files a fresh look. This was probably the best ever evening I have had here.

_DSC0794 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

_DSC0815 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

This will be the last thread I post until 2019 so I hope you all have a great new year.

[Hadrian]

I'm quite heavily into Photography, but my favourite subject is wildlife.

I know it's very popular, but I have a strong aversion to the use of ND filters on moving water.

It's done too much, and looks cheesy.

[st4]

19 minutes ago, Hadrian said:

I'm quite heavily into Photography, but my favourite subject is wildlife.

I know it's very popular, but I have a strong aversion to the use of ND filters on moving water.

It's done too much, and looks cheesy.

When you see a waterfall though, you see it as a flow rather than lots of droplets.

_DSC3877 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

This is actually with a 2.5 stop ND and a 2.5 stop soft edged grad filter. You can go crazy with ten stops but anything between 1/8th and 2 secs gives flow but also texture. Beyond that it goes too milky. Retaining that flow brings the scene to life - if it was too defined it would look odd.

This was just with an soft edged grad for the sky - 1/6th so nice and chunky texture to the flow, but still a flow to capture the drama and feel of the falls.

_DSC3054 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

I am not a huge long exposure guy but you can use them to make the shot look, and feel dreamy.

_DSC9398 Version 2 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

Compared to this (the sea was doing nothing anyway)

_DSC1408 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

Still texture here but in reality it was dusky.

_DSC9422 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

Or this

_DSC0169 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

 

Matching the exposure for the mood of the shot is crucial. The way the water does, or doesn't move in your picture can hugely alter the mood and feeling of your picture.

If you want to read in depth about how I approach landscape photography you can nosey at this

http://www.sftphotography.co.uk/landscape-photography-top-ten-images-2018/

[ColinBarber]

1 hour ago, Hadrian said:

I'm quite heavily into Photography, but my favourite subject is wildlife.

I know it's very popular, but I have a strong aversion to the use of ND filters on moving water.

It's done too much, and looks cheesy.

It does depend how far someone goes with it. Certainly changes the mood of the picture and the sense of movement.

I was playing around here, light was poor so I didn't need a ND filter, had enough aperture range to control the shutter speed. One at 1/10 and the other at 1/125.

[st4]

A nice evening in Spain

I spent a wonderful evening in the Canyon Anisclo at the end of September. Here's a few from the shoot.

I had settled on this composition to hide a rather ugly bird hide deeper to the right and to frame the view North through the Canyon

_DSC3658 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

_DSC3682 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

Out of the corner of my eye I could see the sunlight also hit the peak of Pena Montanesa (facing due east) so I set up a second tripod to frame this shot and so I could keep the tripod in the position of the former two.

_DSC3687 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

The light got better and better

_DSC3702 (1) by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

And after it faded I returned to my other tripod and grabbed this

_DSC3712 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

[st4]

Three Panoramas from the Ossau Valley

 

_DSC3480 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

_DSC3496 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

_DSC3500 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

[st4]

Madrid

Some re-edits from visits gone by

Royal Palace

_DSC2028 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

Temple of Debod

_DSC2010 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

Puerta de Alcala

_DSC5268 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

[st4]

Carcassonne

One from the night

_DSC8140 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

One from the day

_DSC8155 - Version 2 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

[Connoisseur]

Powerful images Stephen, really enjoyable to spend time viewing them. Carcassone is a wonderful place for me, your pictures brought back memories.

 Picked up an Olympus Pen camera for a two week drive around the NC500 a few weeks ago and came back with these below, amongst others. The resolution setting was (clearly!) low, but never mind, after days reading the manual I have finally worked out how to change that setting for future reference! Am reasonably new and inexpert to this photography thing.

Michael