Author Archives: Tim

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It’s On!

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In a moment of madness (or sheer stupidity) I have managed to sign myself up for an Ultra marathon next year – the 2024 Chiltern 50 Ultra Challenge that starts and ends at Henley on Thames with an evelation of 920 m. The good news is that it’s over a year away so I should at least be able to put in some serious training! To that end I have signed up with Runna and enrolled on their 50 K training plan. The plan covers a 16-week period so I will be able to supplement it or even complete a couple of iterations.

So why a 50 K? Well aside from being a serious challenge it’s mainly because I think that the slower pace of a longer event like this would suit me better than a marathon or a half. Also there’s absolutely no shame in walking large parts of the distance! I think too that having a large event booked far in advance it will give me the impetus to enroll in other events along the way,

Dublin Customs House at Night

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Canon 5D 26 mm, ISO 200, 5 sec @ f/16

This is a photo from the archives, taken way back in May 2008 whilst I was working in Dublin. According to the EXIF data this was taken at around 23:00 and I remember the thinking the reflection of the lights in the River Liffey may have made nice image.

Unfortunately I was wrong and this sat until very recently unloved and untouched in my Lightroom catalog. The lighting was vey warm and I just didn’t like the way it looked as it distracted from the architecture.

I decided to try converting to monochrome using the ever reliable Lenswork Warm Tone, then dodged and burned in a couple of locations. Finally, a tight crop to accentuate the width of the building and the job’s a good ‘un!

Close Encounters

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Canon M6 25 mm, ISO 100, 5 sec @ f/16

A recently built roundabout near me has red street lighting installed, apparently for the benefit of bats. I thought this would make a decent photo when the conditions were right and today was the day! Heavy fog throughout the day persisted into the evening and I decided to try my luck. I was pleased to see a red glow in the distance as I made my way there and the challenge then became three-fold:

  • First, to find a position where the effect of the fog was pronounced enough,
  • Next to determine the distance at which other details and colours were neither too prominent nor missing; I think the blue sign in the middle of the image tells us that this is not simply a monochrome conversion.
  • Finally, the exposure time determined the level of blooming on the lights and I found 5 seconds to be the optimal time.

In terms of post processing, the image is simply cropped and the contrast increased slightly.

I have called this ‘Close Encounters’ as the arrangement of the light and the their direction reminds me of the spaceship in Steven Spielberg‘s 1977 film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

 

A Calming Presence

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Canon 5D, 25 mm, ISO 200, 150 sec @ f/11

Well it’s been a long time since my last post and it’s been for a number of reasons that I won’t bore myself let alone anyone else with! This is a morning shot of New Brighton Lighthouse – taken at around mid-morning so the sun was already pretty high and falling directly onto the lighthouse.

I had been thinking about the purpose of the lighthouse and how mariners would view it as a welcome sight, being guided and reassured by its calming presence. Of course there are no rocks to be dashed up at the mouth of the Mersey but there are shallows and sandbars all the same. To help enhance the feeling of calmness I chose a long exposure to smooth the clouds and water, and applied the good old Lenswork Warm Tone preset in Lightroom. I pushed the shadows slightly to reduce contrast and added a gentle vignette. Whilst the lighthouse is the main subject, I really like the presence of the huge cranes in the background; their brooding presence highlighting the solitary nature of the lighthouse…

I tried a new crop ratio with this image too and I have to say I like it.

Woodland Workshop

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Canon M6, 70 mm, ISO 100, 1/160 s @ f/2.8

Recently I was lucky enough to have a 1:1 session with an extremely talented photographer friend of mine, Paul Mitchell FRPS. Paul has been running his excellent Woodland Photography workshops for a few years now and needless to say they are well worth attending if you fancy picking up some tips and tricks from a real Pro.

I chose Savernake Forest as the location and met Paul nice an early on a damp grey November morning. “Perfect conditions!”, said Paul cheerily as we trudged off into the gloomy, muddy undergrowth…

Sure enough the soft light really helped to the extent it was really annoying during those short moments when the sun came out and played havoc with the exposure. One of the things I came away from the day with was the need to get into the moment. To just wait and look. Get into the zone before trying to take any photos. It was a lesson I had to keep reminding myself throughout the day.

I was surprised that for the majority of my shots I used my 70-200 mm zoom and no polariser at all. What witchcraft are these landscapes without wide-angle and a polariser? I did struggle somewhat due to the croppsed sensor but it was nice using my zoom lens as I don’t use it that often due to its weight and size. I even got to christen my new Manfrotto X-PRO tripod head, which coped admirably until Paul suggested I simply loosen the collar on the lens to rotate the camera. D’oh!

One of my objectives for the day was to learn some fieldcraft and I feel like I did. Like passing a driving test I now feel I have enough of a skillset to go out and try to truly learn.I just need to find some nearby woods to visit… Cheers Paul for a great day.