I used to make a point of closeup nature photos, simplifying the complexity of plant structure down to a few lines, in dull light. For the first time in ages, I spent most of yesterday afternoon with just the old Helios 58mm lens attached, walking around, seeing what could be seen.
Didn’t expect ladybirds to feature at this time of year.
An exercise in uniformity: over the course of three days, I took the camera out for an hour’s walk, using the same settings (28mm f/3.5, auto-ISO, centre-zone auto-focussing) and took snaps – free-form composition, quickly grabbed, around the streets and countryside surrounding Auchterarder and in woodland outside Cambusbarron, Stirling. Every image was processed using the same settings in RawTherapee (with slight changes to exposure) and the same black+white sepia-toning.
From each day I chose the best 19 and averaged them with enfuse, slightly tweaked the contrast. Presented together they give an impression of abstract canvas texture with the merest hints of structure.
I’m not entirely sure why, but I got it into my head to make a series of photos without reason or purpose so I spent a couple of lunchtimes walking around Auchterarder just snapping scenes. Very different to my usual contemplative landscape style – this is reactionary, street photography, with a consistent presentation style (sepia-toned monochrome). All images were shot on a Pentax 15-30mm f/2.8 lens at 30mm nearly wide-open at f/3.5 as well using a daylight whitebalance.
Funnily enough, reducing the variables by insisting on one focal-length and aperture and allowing automatic exposure left me free to think about composition – in such relatively alien territory, wave the lens around and see what looks good.
Around town:
I took the new-found constraints into the surrounding countryside:
Country 2:
All images processed using RawTherapee; uncropped, but exposures normalized and the consistency of toning arising from an orange pre-filtered black and white conversion with sepia toning to finish.
A friend of mine has regularly suggested that someone seems to dot road-signs saying “Take Photo Here” around the landscape. The view of the Forth Road Bridge from South Queensferry is one location where such a sign would not be out of place, but still, heading home from Edinburgh late one afternoon, it had to be done.
A classic shot – a long exposure black and white image of the Forth Railway Bridge from South Queensferry
Taken during a lunchtime stroll down to Portpatrick: a moderate haar from the sea, obscuring the village in the distance.
