Captain FJ Walker

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Canon M6, 100 mm, ISO 100, 1/4 sec @ f/8

On the Liverpool waterfront at Pier Head is a statue of a quite remarkable man, Captain Frederic John Walker DB DSO *** Royal Navy (1896 – 1944).  Walker was responsible for sinking more German U-Boats during the Battle of the Atlantic in World War II than anyone else, and had this statue unveiled in 1998 by HRH The Duke of Edinburgh. The statue is in memory of Walker, the men of his 36th Escort and 2nd Support Groups and all those who fought in the Battle of the Atlantic 1939-45.

I have taken a few pictures of this statue but I wanted to try something different, inspired by the words and attitude of Paul Sanders during a talk he gave at Digital Splash last week. I decided to try massively overexposing on a bright day. Instead of the correctly metered 1/50 s, I chose to use 1/4 s, completely blowing the sky out and rendering the statue in a way I think looks similar to a pencil drawing, the close crop enhancing Walker’s determined look.

Other than desaturation and sharpening the picture shown is as taken.

Patterns of Pompeii

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Canon M6, 22 mm. ISO 400 & 800, various speeds @ f/4 & f/8

Consider this – it is quite possible that in a little under 2000 years’ time your current home or place of work will be part of a world famous heritage site, subject to the annual footfall of millions of tourists all fascinated by your ancient way of life. What would those tourists find? It is hard to imagine how the effects of long term decay or massive destruction might alter the buildings we see around us now. Factors would include the materials used during construction, the type of destruction suffered, environmental factors such as enduring weather patterns, etc…

For approximately 11,000 citizens of the Roman town of Pompeii in Italy, life came to an abrupt end in August of AD 79 courtesy of Mount Vesuvius. Over just a few days the whole town along with several others in the region, were obliterated by a massive volcanic eruption that buried the town with up to 6 m of volcanic ash. The impact of this total devastation was to create a remarkably well-preserved time capsule that was left undisturbed for some 1500 years.

I visited Pompeii in September 2017. Challenges of photographing there include…Continue reading→

Port of Liverpool Building

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Canon 5D, 25 mm, ISO 100, 240 secs @ f/11

The Port of Liverpool Building or the former offices of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board is one of the ‘Three Graces’ on the Liverpool waterfront along with the Royal Liver Building and the Cunard Building. Although neither the most famous nor the biggest of the three, to my mind it’s the best looking of the three buildings, with the only problem being the number of people wandering in front. Fortunately a suitable exposure time can help remove those who walk in and out of the shot. Note how still those sitting on the benches on either side of the image must have been during the 4 minute exposure…

Along with the now regular warm toning, the inevitably converging verticals caused by the wide angle were corrected using Adobe Lightroom. I would have preferred the symmetry of the clouds to be aligned with that of the building but hey ho – there’s nothing less predictable than the good old British weather!

Lunchtime Stroll

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Canon 5D, 28 mm, ISO 100, 480 sec @ f/11

I took a stroll along the waterfront in Liverpool at lunchtime today. It was a fantastically bright day with a slight haze that produced a flat uninspiring light. I specifically wanted such conditions as I was intending to make use of my latest toy – a LEE Filters 15-stop Super Stopper.

I was hoping to get a shot of the Beatles statue with the Liver Building in the background, but I think even the Super Stopper would struggle to make the persistent tourists disappear such is their volume. Additionally the sky was rather grey with very little interest so the filter’s effect would be wasted.

So instead I wandered round and found Canning Dock looking particularly serene. A 0.6 ND grad filter gave a shutter speed of 1/60 sec that converted to an 8 minute exposure with the Super Stopper.

Of course the one downside of shooting long exposures at lunch time is that by the time you’ve found a suitable spot, the available time means one or two shots only before it’s time to head back to the office!

An Unfair Advantage?

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Canon 5D, 40 mm, ISO 200, 3.2 sec @ f/5.6

For the first time in a while I managed to get out with the camera and spend an hour or so wandering round. I came across some playing fields and spent some time exploring. Next to the playing fields is a a cemetery and completely in line with the penalty spot and the centre of the goal is a large stone cross, perhaps offering divine intervention and an unfair advantage for any believer about to take a penalty…

I’ve had a couple of ideas for a project to start working on and there are irons in fires so hopefully something will happen, or even ‘kick off’ to use relevant terminology but I’ll just have to wait and see…

As an aside this image is actually my first attempt at HDR, generated from 5 images and merged within Adobe Lightroom. I’m not normally a fan of the overly synthetic look that HDR delivers but it seems to be OK here. The final image was then adjusted using the LW Warm Tone template from LensWork Online. I absolutely love this tone and spent ages trying to match it until I discovered it was available to download!