Layering of Light

Click image to view at 1000 pixels wide

This is one of the series of studies I took in Welford Rd Cemetery, Leicester, UK, on Halloween 2007, a cold evening with a fast-declining sun. The play of light and colour are visually very appealing; the chip has found an excellent balance between foreground and background elements, silhouetting the overhanging branches and finding their mid-tones by burning out the evening sky. The colours of the autumn trees have likewise been optimised by the exposure, as have the cool values of the stones; the luminous quality of the sunlight through the golden tree draws the eye, while the shadow-side of the stones creates a sense of depth by providing a field of tonal difference. Sharpened, contrast- and colour-balanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Australian Sky

This is another example of a serendipitous alignment. These wind-torn clouds in a hard, summer sky, framed so neatly against the flagpoles atop Parliament House in Adelaide, are seen from the Festival Plaza in February, 2009. In a few minutes the clouds would have moved and the essence of this image's aesthetic quality would have changed to something else, so photographs like this are truly captured moments in time, whose precise qualities are totally unique. Sharpened only. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Atlantic Weather

Click image to view at 1000 pixels wide

This is another study of the Irish Sea coast of Blackpool, taken in December, 2006. Hail made it difficult to get anywhere near the seafront, and I was sniping these shots between bursts in the weather. In this one I managed to hold the camera level in the wind, and composed the car and building against the long graduation of the storm front over the sea. The containers at left add a vivid splash of colour which really reveal the iron greys of the background. On days like this it is the momentary, passing lighting conditions which draw the eye, and the luminous quality of the breakers creates the defining contrast. Sharpened and balanced for publication. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Personalising the Hardware

Click image to view at 1000 pixels wide

Hardware, machines of any kind, are always interesting textural and light-effects subjects, or of interest for their own sake, but to personalise the image creates another dimension. People depicted in promotional illustration or photography compliment the product by depicting desirable lifestyle, and this is the same mechanism at work. Here the telephoto medium close-up on this D.H. 82 Tiger Mother, at the Goolwa Classic Airshow, in February 2007, has the dimension of personalisation due to capturing the passenger looking toward the camera, creating an emotional exchange in which the viewer participates in the image. Photographically it was not a difficult shot, simply a composition which sought a close angle on subject matter which was being well-documented from all perspectives. The image was sharpened and balanced, and fine rotation was used to help to square up the horizon line, correcting the tendancy to rotate the camera to the right with the shutter release. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Image by Mike.

It's All About Exopsure

Click image to view at 1000 pixels wide

Brilliant sunshine and fast shutter speeds make for amazing results in the digital age: look at the mid-tone clarity on these figures in violent motion, the truthfulness of colour registration, and the frozen sharpness of edges. These are combatants on the field of honour at the Gumeracha Medieval Fair in May, 2009, photographed on the 'sport' setting to optimise results on a moving subject. The clear sunshine made possible extremely short exposure times, maximising the stop-action effect. The frame was enhanced slightly by the usual techniques. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic/sport. Image by Mike.

"Black 5"

Click image to view at 1000 pixels wide

"Black 5" is a very famous locomotive: it used to draw Queen Victoria's train over a hundred years ago. It is preserved in immaculate condition at the National Railway Museum, York, UK, and makes for a very difficult photographic challenge. First it is a highly reflective black object, second it's stored in a museum whose internal lighting is a mix of full-frequency and fluourescent types, thirdly the object is too big to paint with flash, and lastly, the light level is even softer than at the RAF Museum at Hendon. It's dark in there, and upping the virtual speed may not have made all that much difference, going by more recent experiences with concert shoots. I held the camera steady any way I could and just kept shooting, sure something usable would be among the blur. This image was gamma-corrected to bring up mid-tones, then contrast and colour balanced to restore overall integrity, and sharpened for clarity. November, 2006. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

A Painted Forest

The play of light, shade, colour and backlight here create an image with its own validity divorced from the landscape in which it was observed. There is something of the tonal quality of the paintings of the 18th century French master Fragonard in this, in which the light in the trees is the theme and subject, and the aesthetic of the moment is very much a 'leightmotif' as characterised the art of the Rennaissance. This picture was taken as a high telephoto close-up on a group of trees at Loftier Gardens in April, 2009, and the image was sharpened and contrast- and colour-balanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

New Cars on an Old Bridge

Click image to view at 1000 pixels wide

A little-seen angle on London's Tower Bridge: I took this shot standing on a traffic island, and took my time lining up the symmetry. Even so the frame still needed a custom rotational fix to square it up, along with the usual enhancements. This was Sunday afternoon traffic in November, 2007, and London is a permanently busy town. It's another example of the old and the new, the centuries-old architectural style of the bridge counterpointed with the up-to-date designs of the cars crossing it. This same bridge has carried every era of car design since the car was invented, and shows every sign of continuing to do so into uncertain futures. Fuji FinePix, S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Unintentionally Artistic

Click image to view at 1000 pixels wide

When you're shooting on the fly you can only take advantage of what happens in front of you and see what comes out later, and sometimes the results are surprising, things the eye did not register at the time. This is an old T-28 Trojan trainer, flown by Wayne Pearce, at the Goolwa Classic Airshow, February, 2007, an aircraft I captured in many studies. The conditions were bright sunshine (exposure time is short enough to stop the prop) and a strong, buffetting wind, and by afternoon a lot of heat was reflecting from the landing strip, creating the heat haze seen here. I was tracking with the aircraft on landing, at maximum telephoto, and it seems the heat haze meant the sonic focussing beam could not find the subject. But it did find the strands of grass blowing in the foreground, generating an image that suggests I focussed deliberately on the grass to let the subject matter blur artistically. This is serendipity, I certainly couldn't have made it happen! Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic, telephoto. Colour- and contrast-balanced. Image by Mike.

Storm Over an Old Church

One of my favourite lighting situations is found usually in the later afternoon when a heavy weather front is moving through, and the low sun can strike under the clouds. This often creates a deeply stormy background sky framing a fully sunlit foreground, an ephemeral situation which a photographer can preserve for posterity. This is the old church (pre-1850) at St. Marys, south of Adelaide, photographed in August, 2007, on a rather raw afternoon. Besides the lighting conditions, the composition not only exploits the height of the bell tower, it frames the ancient Saxon architectural style against Australian gumtrees, a delightful juxtaposition. Sharpened, contrast- and colour-balanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

One Big Ship

Click image to view at 1000 pixels wide

Photographing HMS Victory is not easy. Stand back far enough to see the whole vessel and you tend to get smaller buildings in the shot as well! This was my first glimpse of the historic Georgian warship as I walked through the public access museum area of Portsmouth Naval Dockyard, in the 'Gunwharf Quays' district, on a very grey day in December 2006. The sheer size of the ship is stunning, she towers into the sky and is well over 200 feet long, a triumph of timber engineering. Exposure times were long on this day as the chip dealt with low light levels and intermittent rain, and composition was always going to be a compromise between seeing the ship unobstructed but only in close-up, or longshots that were visually cluttered. Sharpness and colour were enhanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Grandeur of the Romanesque

Click image to view at 1000 pixels wide

The ancient architects of the Mediterranean cultures could never have imagined that their styles would be seen as epitomising the respectable, dignified establishment thousands of years later, but even today the Classical and Romanesque styles automatically suggest grandeur and power. This example is on the corner of King William Street and Currie Street in Adelaide, South Australia, a 19th century building in a colony eager to establish itself swiftly as a modern and respected corner of a far-flung empire. The photograph was taken at medium telephoto to exclude all surrounding information and concentrate solely on the play of symmetry and light, the texture of the stone and glass. Sharpened and contrast- and colour-balanced. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic; April, 2009. Image by Mike.