Angels and Demons

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Or should that be Angles and Demons? A trip to the Midlands saw me looking for something other than Stately Homes. I fancied something a bit more everyday but interesting. I happened on two places right up my street. One had the simplicity, geometry and magesty the other had the death, decay and intricate detail. That pretty much covered all the bases that tick my photographic boxes.

First of the demon that is the coal fired power station at Ratcliffe. It's a very imposing selection of cooling towers right next to the Parkway train station, the River Soar and M1 sort of in the middle of nowhere. Very odd but I liked it. You can stand back by the marina and take in the vista or pop over the platforms at the station and strain your neck. I did both. I'll make no apology for a lot of the same thing as I feel each pic hopefully has it's own merit?

I was using a mix of the Takumar 50mm f1.4, 17mm f4 Fisheye and for a real change the 28mm f3.5 which doesn't get enough use. The Polarising filter really brings the sky out. I wont be without one now.

Next up what better place to spend the hottest day of the year than in a cemetery! In particular the Church or Rock Cemetery in Nottingham. I'd never heard of it but it's a great place. Google it, fascinating stuff. I will leave the history to you. You'll notice a lot of F1.4 and black and white stuff. I felt it went with the intimacy and somberness of the place

Ominous!

I felt the graffiti added to the pathetic nature

Stairway to heaven?

Like this one (That's my hand in the top left corner adding shade!)

The paupers graves in the large pit!

I filled my boots with this one. Really enjoyed it.

Colour me purple

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Apologies for the quietness of posts I've been rather busy playing around with good old fashioned film. I'm a sure a few of you know I've got a rather nice Pentax 67ii Medium Format camera and that's what I've been using. It's big and bulky and heavy but it's a joy to use. So smooth, so bright and so noisy. That big mirror goes off with a bang. Luckily my version has the mirror lock up switch so any low speed pics are safe. I'll do a little gear piece later to talk more about this baby but in the meantime on with the show.

Before all that and just to explain the pics below are mostly experimental as I get used to what it can do hence the sometimes random subject choice. The pics below are from Fugifilm Velvia 100. It's a very nice film but the colours are a bugger to get right as it has a purple cast which takes some taming. Most of these pics were taken a while ago and it's only now I'm able to get the things on line as I've just bought a Canon Canoscan 9000f Mk2 scanner. Great bit of kit but ore of that in a special section I'll start purely for the film stuff.

Ok I'll shut up now!

Firstly a walk through the woods of the Sweet Track in Shapwick

Some flowers in the beds at Ecofriendly Bites

On Tealham Moore

Back at Decoy Hide Shapwick

I like this one. Was hoping it would come out well

A spiderweb hanging like an umbrella. I was curious if it would come out

Now we're at Stourhead NT

Just trying out the long exposure

Classic view

Possibly the most famous place in Devon!

Now this was interesting. It looks superimposed but its what came out!

DOF tester

Once I was confident I started to actually compose something

Sun was shining just at the right spot for this one

Random dog

Makes a change from trees and sky!

Hmmm if you do the White Balance for the buildings the skin tone goes a bit orange! I reduced the orange but it still looks wrong to me

Finally a lens flare tester. I like it!

So what do you reckon? It's not a cheap way of doing things which makes you really think about composing. I've been using it quit vigorously over the past few weeks and they should be back this week so expect lots more to come.