An occasional Photo Blog
Having received two copies of Black + White photography magazine a week or so before Christmas, I am obviously eager to experiment with monochrome. It’s interesting how B & W images are still so very popular, but somehow they do hold a certain fascination.
Today was not too pleasant weather wise. Rain and an energetic wind seemed to cramp my photo style enormously – perhaps I really should buy myself a weatherproof Pentax 😉 Anyway, to cut a long story short, the day was rounded off by a trip to the pub. A short train ride into town, and then, amidst the pub’s Christmas decorations, a model train chuffed past overhead…. wonderful 🙂
Feeling slightly over nourished today, I decided to take a brisk walk. Nothing particularly special in that really, but compared with yesterday the countryside seemed quite deserted. It’s quite amazing what a difference a cloud or two make, but ideal for shooting skies with a bit of character.
In an attempt to give today’s posting a Yuletide feeling I decided to include these logs which. together with the ‘Dramatic Sky’ were converted to Black & White from a colour image. The colour Landscape was included to give a splash of colour to this Second Day of Christmas posting.
A Very Happy Christmas to all my readers, and a very warm welcome to my very latest project ‘Twelve days of Christmas’ Quite an original title hehehe 😉
Thinking that most people have been inundated with images of candles, Christmas trees and all things festive recently, I thought I’d just publish a few completely normal everyday scenes. But don’t worry, I’ll probably post a tree in a day or to two.
With Christmas approaching fast, I thought a bit of flock watching would be a very seasonal thing to do. Later on in the day I visited the town’s Christmas Market where people gather to buy all manner of Christmas stuff, eat traditional local delicacies and slurp hot spiced wine.
Around 7:30 this Saturday morning and the snow almost cleared. I decided to take a short break and grab a couple of wintry shots with my mobile phone before starting the day properly with a bowl of hot porridge. The phone is certainly not on equal terms with a ‘real’ camera, but considering the prevailing lighting conditions, hand held by a hungry photographer, I’m quite satisfied with the results.
Earlier this week I was lucky enough to enjoy a guided tour of some of Zurich’s most historical bits. Not being at all prepared for the outing, my camera was sitting comfortably in the warm at home and so there would be no pictures. However, having climbed the tower of St. Peter’s Church I realised I couldn’t let the opportunity go and was soon clicking away on my mobile phone.
The church and tower are of considerable interest, as churches and towers often are. The Tower doesn’t actually belong to the church, it belongs to the city of Zurich and was the home of the fire watchman for hundreds of years… his bedroom is pictured below, as is his hand driven siren, and the views from his windows high above the clock afford what must be some of the best views of the city. The clock itself has the largest dial in Europe.
During the lunch hour on warm sunny days, this little garden is dotted with office workers tucking in to their sandwiches and hoping to get a little colour in their faces.
At just after eight on a late November morning it is quite deserted, but no less attractive.
The sparse dabs of colour seemed almost intrusive in an otherwise gray scene, so I decided to remove them altogether, creating a B&W image in keeping with the morning mood.
The exposure information has been intentionally omitted because, having lightened and darkened with gimp, it would be of no use to anyone anyway.
It seems ages since I last posted anything on this blog, so I decided to take the camera with me on this mornings stroll. At the top of the road all sorts of fascinating machines are preparing to do battle with our water mains.
After last weeks snowy weekend it was very pleasant to have a warm and pleasant Saturday today. I was busily doing a lot of not much in the garden, and enjoying sweeping up a leaf or two here and there.
