Tag: doncaster

Home Town

April has been an absolute cracker of a month weather wise, and yesterday was no exception. With some free time on my hands I decided to take a bike ride and took along one of my Ricoh GRIII (the none X HDF version).

The GRIII twins.
Yes, I have two GRIIIs, what’s the problem?

I didn’t have a destination in mind, or any kind of photography goal. The only thing I wanted to do was have a steady bike ride, and if I saw something worth photographing at least I was prepared. 30 minutes after leaving the house I found myself in Doncaster City Centre (I’ll never get used to Doncaster being a City).

Doncaster has a bad reputation, and in some cases it’s warranted. It has the same issues a lot of town centres in the UK have since the internet killed shopping as a past time. But, there is a new Civic Centre, which is all new and shiny and worth a visit.

It doesn’t seem to fit the rest of Doncaster, and maybe that’s a good thing. The buildings are shiny and glossy and people seem to find it a nice place to sit and enjoy the sun.

As it was the middle of a very sunny day Decided to shoot with the B&W Negative +Red Filter from Ritchie’s Ricoh Recipes. You can find it here; https://ricohrecipes.com/the-bw-collection/
I love the almost negative look it gives, especially with the blue sky. It’s almost black. The sun creates a lovely contrast and it works really well in bright light. I left the HDF filter on to add a bit of glow.

This is my favourite image from the day. I love the tree. It looks like it’s reaching for the woman, and she adds a sense of scale.

Here’s the rest of the images from the day.

I was recently asked why most of my images were in black and white. I struggle to see details because of my sight loss, but I can see contrast. Black and white helps me see my subjects.

I enjoyed my trip into town. I’ve never thought of it as a photographic destination. Maybe I’ll go back and see what else it has to offer.

Unconventional Photography: Discovering Beauty in Familiar Landscapes

Whenever I watch my favourite Youtube Photographers (Thomas Heaton, James Popsys, Emily Lowry etc) they’re often off on some grand adventure to some amazing location to photograph something spectacular. That’s not really an option for the majority of photography enthusiasts. I’d bet most of us live somewhere boring? Other than the odd trip to the more scenic parts of the UK, I am usually stuck here in the flattest part of Yorkshire. No mountains, or hills, no cliffs, canyons, no beach, just miles and miles of flat farm fields, the odd tree, ditches and canals. But, despite all that I still love going out with my camera. And, I think anyone interested in photography should go out and photograph where they live and not just the cool places.

I bet there are millions of photos of Bamburgh Castle at dawn, or the Old Man of Store on Skye, but how many photos are there of these cows, in this field, with those pylons in Doncaster are there?

How many photos have been taken of the river Don with this gate and the houses in the background?

Some boring train gates that have never been photographed before (probably), because why would you?

Am I seriously suggesting that these locations are as good as the Lake District, or the Isle of Harris? Well, no. But, they are important because these are the places we really live and work. They’re where we spend our lives, and they’re our reality. They should be photographed just as much as the ‘cool’ places because they are our real history. What’s more, they’re challenging to photograph and make something interesting from, which makes it fun. I think most people could take a great photo using their iPhone at sunrise on a great beach, or a great mountain.

Going local gives us a chance to experiment and grow. I find it lets me slow down because I’m not in a rush to get to the destination. Try different lenses, and filters. Mess around with shutter speed and apertures. Go out at different times of day, not just golden hour. The photos I’ve added to this post were all taken at the brightest part of the afternoon, so I messed about with them in Lightroom until I was happy with how they looked. It’s a great way to learn.

I challenge people to try and take a great photo of something that’s ‘normal’ and every day to them, where they live. Go for a walk, or get on your bike and see what you can find. I bet you’ll enjoy the process.

Dry At Last

We’ve finally had a couple of dry days, which is a much needed relief from the rain. Just in time too as I get my eyes injected later today. The rain has seemed relentless and what started out as an encouraging year has been a wash out so far. We’re hoping to go our to the coast later in the week when my eyes have cleared again, and we’re going home to Northumberland in a couple of weeks, which I’m really excited about.

In the mean time – a couple from todays dog walk. These were all taken on my Lumix GM5 with the Leica 15mm.

Finally…

September. The start of my favourite months of the year when there are mornings like this, and I don’t have to be out of the house earlier than 6am to see them.

I absolutely love this image. The only editing I did was to crop it (I’m going through a widescreen phase). These fields are 250 meters from home. I pass them most days, and rarely do they look like this.

Who doesn’t love cows? It’s amazing how mist and light can completely change how a place looks. It’s actual magic.

Since our trip to Northumberland I’ve really enjoyed having man made elements in my images. I love the way the telephone mast and lines frame the tress here.

My favourite image from today. The light. The mist. Magic.

Out and About with my GM1

Recently I’ve felt like I’ve over complicated the activity of photography. Too much gear, too many options. I’ve spent more time thinking about what to take out than actually being out, and I think I put myself off taking photos.

So, I really enjoyed going out around back lanes of my village with just my GM1, and one lens (Panny 12-32) and getting back to just taking photos.

The photos’ aren’t anything spectacular (although I really like the one on the right), but I enjoyed the process. Again, the GM1 does a great job, and it’s so nice to use.

Goodbye G100

As I wrote in my last blog, I’ve felt overwhelmed with too much gear. My walk around with the GM1 convinced me that I didn’t need so many cameras, so when I got back I decided to sell my G100, my older GM1, a 25mm lens, and my 7Artisans fisheye (I couldn’t get they hang of that one). It’s money in the bank for when there’s something I actually need. It was quite cathartic, and I feel like a weight lifted. One camera for serious work, and one that I can take anywhere, and less stress deciding on what will be going with me.

Cold and Dry!

It finally feels like Winter is back properly. Frosty, cold, dry – and no sign of rain for the next week! So, the weekend is looking good.

In the mean time, I took a couple of photos on our dog walk last night. Nothing exciting and I won’t even add them to my portfolio page, but it’s just nice to take some photos at last!

Out in the Cold

I finally got to take my new G9 this week. I had to wait longer than I’d like after having steroid injections in my eyes, but it paid off as winter has finally arrived.

An afternoon where the temperature didn’t get above -4oC meant the frost was around all day, and a clear sky meant I could see if the G9 stabilisation was as good as I hoped. It didn’t disappoint, as I didn’t need to get my tripod out until sunset (except to try the high resolution mode). I am loving the G9. What a great camera Panasonic have made, except for the flipping shutter button. Why did they make it so sensitive? If nothing else it’s forced me to finally get used to back button focusing.

Things I’ve learned this week

Bracketing – I need to do less of this and just focus on one photo.
Peak Design Tripod – I need to use this more. It weighs more than my other tripods, but it works better and the ball head can’t be beaten.
Going to the same place repeatedly- is worth it. I’m still finding new compositions and obviously places change with seasons.
The value of backing up – my Mac Mini died this week. Thankfully everything was backed up onto an external drive, Creative Cloud and iCloud. New one us coming on Monday!

Winter has been good for photography so far. It’s important to go out prepared though. Always take tea!

I didn’t have to go far for this one. Just the landing window, my little G100, a 45-150 lens, and a Gorillapod. Really pleased with this one.

This version is a low res j-peg, but the original is a massive 140mg high res from my G9. Taken from about 500m away at 300mm. Not a great composition, but an amazing exam of what the camera can do.

Panthers, Deer and Geese.

The one benefit of not sleeping is it’s really easy to get up and get out of the house before sunrise. So, this morning (Saturday) I found myself at Hatfield Moors at 7am, a full forty five minutes before sun rise. Thankfully I have a very good head torch that turns night into day, and the early morning sky was starting to turn into a plan blue.

I had the fright of my life walking through the woodland as a fairly large deer burst from the bushes to my left and cleared the pathway in a single bound before disappearing into the woodland. That will wake anyone up quicker than the strongest espresso. Once I’d got my breath back and realised I wasn’t about to be eaten by a panther (this is the kind of stuff that goes through my head walking through the woods in the dark – don’t read crap online) I made my way to my first point I wanted to photograph.

I’ve been trying to get a decent photo of this location for ages now, and this is my favourite so far, although I still think there’s a better photo there with the right sky or perhaps a bit of mist. I’ll keep trying. I stood at this point for about 15 minutes waiting for the light. During that time there were thousands (!) of geese flying in hundreds of flocks of V formations. I’ve never seen anything like it, and it was worth going early just to see it. Unfortunately, it was too dark to get a photo.

My next plan was to get onto the moors. I wanted to get the marsh land with the sunrise. I had the photo in mind, but again – the light and cloud had different ideas to me. I did get this nice photo of some fungus.

I also go this shot, but it’s very noisy after being edited. If I get back there next weekend I’ll bracket the same photo and see if that works better. I might run this through Luminar and see if that does a better job than Lightroom.

So, only one photo I really like – out of 60-odd taken. There were a lot more that made it to editing, but felt grey sky and flat landscape make a challenging location for photography. I also ran out of time as my wife was picking me up. But, that’s ok. I enjoyed my time out of the house and that’s the point really.