Gold and Grey

Sometimes the image comes together with the right lighting angle and the right time of day, to make the most of a simple subject. This was taken through a train window (note the faint reflection of a vertical surface at the top of the frame) in November, 2007, on my second UK trip, in the Esk Valley, Yorkshire, as I was relocating from Whitby to Sunderland for the NEICN conference at the university. The hour was not late but the sun angle at that time of year certainly is, creating an evening feel, though there would be several hours of daylight remaining. The sun angle created a “golden hour” effect early in the day, and with the light falling on the autumn hillside the grey clouds beyond make for the perfect contrast. There seems little way to plan for such scenes when on the move—the opportunistic photographer just grabs them when they happen. Minor adjustments to colour, contrast and sharpness in Irfanview; Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

 

Afternoon Light on Whitby Harbour

Nothing complex about this frame, just a plain view across the harbour of a seaside town in Yorkshire. What makes it interesting is the detail—of water, of craft, of the background houses, and the low sun behind the POV. That’s a scaled down replica of Cook’s Endeavour, historically tied to Whitby, where the young James Cook worked in the mid-1700s. The focus was good, I held the shot straight (no rotational correction was needed), and managed to catch the essence of the place, as it felt, on that evening—7^th of November, 2010. Minor adjustments to colour, contrast and sharpness in Irfanview; Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

 

Soft-Light Perfection

I don’t often claim perfection, and if it happens it’s probably by accident, but here is a frame where it all came together. Just a simple country view—a farm in the valleys on the railway between Middlesbrough and Whitby, photographed through the carriage window. But all the elements are right—no dirt on the window, no reflections of interior lights, the POV is square-on to the scene (no fine rotation required), and the composition fell into place, the farm framed neatly in the view. The sun came out—the weather was grey and damp but for a while there was sunshine. And even then, the sun angle was low, so the light had a soft, almost transparent quality that makes everything seem different to the hard light of Australia. This was November 14^th, 2006, on my first England trip, and I was about to see my home town for the first time in 35 years—getting off at the very station the family left from in 1971. Talk about circles in completion—it was something that just had to be. But the November light in England, closing in on winter and the snow, is low and soft, and I can hardly describe it—you have to see it, feel it, to understand. Minor adjustments to colour, contrast and sharpness in Irfanview; Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

Holiday Snap

Fishing boats in Whitby Harbour, Yorkshire, England. Such a simple shot, but one so easy to mess up for so many reasons. Note, the vertical pole is parallel to the side of the frame—this is not adjusted, I managed to get the camera actually level for once! There are no passers-by wandering in front of the lens, there’s no ubiquitous garbage can, no bird dipping suddenly into the shot, no sun glaring off a window somewhere. It all came together, probably by accident, but I remember taking my time, being patient, and waiting for the elements to gel. It’s a bit deceptive too, the river is so calm, generating those nice ripply reflections, and the blue sky looks warm, but this was the November of 2007 (during my second UK trip, when I did some field research at a cemetery in Leicester toward my PhD) and the Christmas decorations were already up. Out beyond the breakwaters there was surf running—I got pictures from the west cliff of white waves coming in, the same afternoon. Nearly twenty years ago—but like yesterday in my memories. Minor adjustments to colour, contrast and sharpness in Irfanview; Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

Vertiginous View

This is another frame from the set I took at York Minster, England, in November, 2011, on my fourth UK trip (I mistakenly quoted it as my third in a previous post). This was once the tallest building in Europe, some 800 years ago. Everything I said before applies, but this frame, with the skew-off in framing, creates a more vertiginous aspect. The sun came out—that’s the big thing, because so many of my UK trip photos are dominated by grey skies and racing clouds, which, though spectacular in their own right, can get a bit monotonous. Here is proof that blue skies do occur in the British Isles—just now and then! Fuji S5600. Image by Mike.

Dark Land, Dark Sky

 

There’s no way to really describe some places, you have to be there and experience them. This is Whitby, in Yorkshire, one of my favourite spots, photographed in November, 2011. I was on the east cliff, up by the church and old abbey, and the weather was doing some interesting things—great banks of cloud coming over from the west, so the late afternoon sunlight shafted through, making ‘Godrays’ as they call them. But the way the chip handled the conditions created this set of images, almost gone away to black and white, and the relationship between the sharp, in-focus areas and the general murk is amazing. No wonder Stoker set Dracula in this beautiful, creepy, Gothic place! The view across the River Esk toward the moors is amazing on the clearest days; in weather like this it’s downright haunted. One might say this is a flawed picture because of the contrast and lack of definition, but it’s an honest reproduction of what was there on the day, and it stirs the soul to look into such a moment. Minor adjustments to colour, contrast and gamma values; Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

Magic Hour in Yorkshire

I took this frame in the late afternoon/early evening of a day in November, 2007, from the window of a moving train on the Esk Valley line between Middlesbrough and Whitby. After many grey skies and soft exposures on my 2007 UK trip, the sun finally—momentarily—came out, and I shot as much as I could, The train windows were not the cleanest, and the internal lights reflected in the glass, so I was constantly trying to find an angle to both catch the scene and exclude reflections. This one has an almost painting-like feel: the softness of even the direct light as “golden hour” progresses—note the length of the tree shadow—and the inherent autumn sombreness combining to create an emotionally evocative image. I left Whitby the next morning, going up the coast to Sunderland, and the light and feel of the next batch of shots is completely different. “Magic hour” indeed! (Just a little contrast work, and one click sharp.) Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

Sun Quadrant

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Shooting into the sun quadrant is always an adventure, as the characteristics of your lens will interact with the lighting angle and any other local conditions to create flash and glare, often intrusive factors but sometimes aesthetically pleasing on their own merits. The prismatic artifacts in the dark area are particularly interesting. This shot was taken at the base of the east breakwater in Whitby, North Yorkshire, UK, in November, 2006, looking toward the west side of the harbour, something of a reflex shot to catch the passers-by in the midst of the glare, and basically see what happened. Sharpened only. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

19th Century Landscape

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This image is an excellent contrast to my last photo from the Esk Valley Railway. That time the lighting, the cleanliness of the window and the angle on the subject were wagering against the shot, but this time everything was going for it: a clean window, lighting favouring the subject matter, and a lower telephoto factor providing for less inherent grain. This is a classic old farmhouse in the Esk Valley of Yorkshire, between Middlesbrough and Whitby, snapped on a sunny afternoon in November, 2007, from the passing train. But for the visible motion on the foreground tree, you would almost think you were standing on the far side of the valley from the clarity. The frame was sharpened and colour- and contrast-balanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Image by Mike.

Bridge on the Esk

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This is an intensively reworked shot. The original was taken, with plenty of telephoto dialed up, in November, 2006, through a train window (note the marks), looking under the road bridge just inland of Whitby, alongside the River Esk in North Yorkshire. This perspective, framing the historic buildings on the East Cliff, is hard to obtain from anywhere else but the moving train. The image was squared up using fine rotation, then extraneous top and bottom areas were cropped. The softening effect of the window (due to shooting obliquely through it, rather than square-on) was ameliorated by sharpening around 15%, then the contrast and colour were adjusted. The final result is not up to the standard of shooting without that dirty window in front of the lens, but the unusual composition goes a long way to forgiving the shortcomings. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Hotels by the Sea

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This is a 'holiday snap' style photograph, where composition is the goal. These hotels are on the clifftop above the old town at Robin Hood's Bay, on the coast of Yorkshire, UK, photographed in November, 2007. Fine rotation was used to offset the wide-angle distortion effect which curved the buildings in at the top. The exposure balance between the shadow side of the buildings and the slight burn-out of the sea background is most pleasing, creating a great sense of depth. Sharpened and colour- and contrast-balanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

The Cold North Sea

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Clear weather brings an almost warm feel to this image, when the fact is it was chill on this day in November, 2007, and the wind was almost too strong to stand against, thus the huge waves pounding onto the Yorkshire coast. I took this shot from the base of the west breakwater at the mouth of the River Esk, in Whitby, looking northwest along the coast toward Sandsend, and used high telephoto to frame the sea against the headland. The foreground and a little sky were cropped to focus attention on the thematic areas of the frame, and colour, sharpness and contrast were adjusted. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Caedmon's Cross

This beautiful Celtic cross with deeply-incised graphical detail on all faces of the shaft, stands in graveyard of St Mary's Church, on the East Cliff of Whitby, Yorkshire, UK. It commemorates Caedmon, the great bard of the Dark Ages, remembered for the beauty of the spoken word as an artform. A trail up the cliffs to the site of the old abbey on the east side of the River Esk is known as "Caedmon's Trod," a 'trod' being a local term for a path (e.g., the 'Sailor's Trod' ran across the moors between port towns on the coast). This simple portrait-format shot was taken in November, 2007, on a cold and breezy afternoon, looking north-west along the Yorkshire coast, and the view awakens thoughts of this place before modern development, when such stone carving was the epitome of its artform. Sharpened, colour-enhanced and contrast-adjusted. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Three-Master On Show

Only one original Georgian warship remains in the world, HMS Victory, safely drydocked at Portsmouth Naval Dockyard, but period vessels have been built for contemporary reasons. This is The Grand Turk, built for the 1990s TV series based on C. S. Forester's immortal Captain Hornblower novels, a fully-featured and entirely functional sailing vessel in the style of the Napoleonic period. The ship is kept in good condition and is a standing exhibit and tourist attraction moored at Whitby, Yorkshire, UK. Mock swordfights enhance the period flavour, and the vessel is open to the public all year round. I took this photograph in November 2007, one of a long series in many different lighting and weather conditions over two visits, but this is one of very few in which I was able to appreciably frame the whole ship. Like Victory, she is both large and in close proximity to buildings and other structures, so an unobscured vantage is difficult to find, except from the other side of the river. The framing was simple enough and the chip handled everything else, the challenge was composition. Sharpness and colour were enhanced for publication. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Evening in an Old Town

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The texture in this photograph is quite amazing, the variety, from the metal of vehicles to the swirls of an unsettled sky, the direct sun highlights on the upper parts of hundred-year old buildings and the overall long-frequency light in the wide shadow areas. I took this shot in November 2006, on Oxbridge Lane, looking into Yarm Road, Stockton-on-Tees, Yorkshire, UK. Yarm is the anglicised, lingually-drifted hand-down of Iarum, the name of a Roman river port just a few miles away, which is a comment on the antiquity of this part of the world. This photograph was taken on a blustery afternoon, around 3.30pm, with not much over an hour's daylight remaining. Colour, contrast and sharpness were enhanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Landscape by Constable

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I've always said the quality of the light in England is unique (it's certainly different from Australia, probably something to do with latitude), and the available subject matter has a very characteristic feel as well. The famous paintings of Constable, those brooding skies over scenes of rural life, were his synthesis, not his invention, because England actually looks like that. I took this shot in the Esk Valley, Yorkshire, in November 2006, from the window of the morning train on its way from Whitby to Middlesborough, and the texture, colour gradients and composition really seemed to gel. There is always an element of reflex shooting when on the move, but the train was slow enough and the subject matter far enough away to have extra seconds for a pleasing frame-up, with plenty of zoom. Note the time by the clock tower is 8.55 -- the train left Whitby three minutes earlier. I'm not sure which village this is (Ruswarp, on reflection). The lushness of the temperate woods and the landscape-marker of the church, an artificial structure rising out of nature, made as wonderful a visual icon photographically as they did as painted art in the 19th century. The verticals were squared up with a fractional fine rotation, then the softening effect of shooting through the train window was cleaned up with contrast and sharpness, and colour was slightly re-saturated. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Image by Mike.

The Captain Cook Memorial

As a citizen of Australia for many years it was something of a pilgrimage to visit the statue commemorating Captain James Cook, who charted the east coast of Australia in the 1770s in preparation for British settlement here. Though not born in Whitby, he spent his early years there and the shop where he worked still exists. I took this photograph in November 2006, a simple frame and shoot, though the alignment is deceptive: it stands close to the edge of the West Cliff and the ground slopes under the footing of the monument, so one's middle ear tries to follow the ground line which would skew the vertical. I managed to get it close enough that the eye is happy with the orientation. I could have corrected it with the custom rotation tool but I have noticed a subtle softening in some images that resharpening will not completely correct, so I avoid it if not absolutely necessary. Colour and sharpness were enhanced slightly. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

The Trees of Winter

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The skeletal trees of winter always mean the deciduous forests of the north, no matter where in the world such trees may have been transplanted. A momentary blue sky through flying clouds outlined these groping, gothic boughs on a winter's afternoon in December 2006, as I walked through Ropner Park, in Stockton, Yorkshire, UK. This is a 19th century park which has recently been restored to its early form, and it's quite amazing how much has been done with comparitively little land. A lake, a playing field, gardens, forest, a bandstand, a tea room, all very scenic -- and here, with a touch of seasonal melancholy as the leaves were falling and showers went through. The photograph was simply a frame-and-shoot, and was enhanced with tweaks to colour, contrast and sharpness. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

High and Dry for the Winter

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These yachts have been taken out of the water to over-winter, among many others at the marina just inland of the Harbour office near the railway station in Whitby, UK. I took this shot as evening was gathering in late November, 2006, and the low sun striking under clouds made long shadows and warm colours. The composition was aesthetically pleasing, though boats are both elegantly streamlined and oddly-shaped to fit the frame. Does one concentrate on the hulls and ignore the masts, or fit the whole thing into the frame against some appropriate background? The sunlight on the buildings on the far side of the river made just such a background and the two yachts balanced each other in the frame. The usual round of minor enhancements were made for publication. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Sheen on Metal

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This, I believe, is what a Jaguar looks like these days, since the revitalisation of the classic British brand. I passed this aerodynamic beauty on the seafront in Scarborough, UK, in November, 2007, just before climbing the cliff trail to the castle, and couldn't resist the elegant lines and the fascinating things the afternoon sun did with reflections from metal and paintwork. Look at the tonal variance between the sun highlights on the flank and the reflections of the sky in the hood: that's subtle, the kind of things it takes a student of reflection dynamics to understand and reproduce correctly in artwork (I'm thinking Syd Mead's classic work for Ford and US Steel). Enhancements include 5% sharpening and colour saturation, but contrast was not adjusted as the image contains true black and true white, and the highlights are already burned out. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.