Round Bales - Colour vs Mono

Last weekend, with the harvest in full swing and the sky looking interesting, I found a couple of fields of bales to take some shots.  I played around with composition and exposure length, intending to turn all the images into monos.  As it turned out, I can decide if I prefer them in mono or colour.  So here are both versions of each shot.

 

150 Secs In The City

Hat tip to my friend Vic for coming up with the title to this post.  He visited me last weekend for our annual pilgrimage to the Great British Beer Festival.  The next day we went back into London to take some photos.  Vic hadn't seen that much of Town over the years, other that the route to Olympia and back, so I took him on a photographers grand tour.  We started in Shoreditch, walked through the City, crossed the river and finished on the South Bank.  The light was good with plenty of moving cloud, so we spent quite some time in the City, shooting 10-stop images at jaunty angles.  Despite our big cameras and bigger tripods, we were, surprisingly, not bothered by security guards with Napoleon complexes shouting about potential terrorist threats and building copyright.  Maybe it is the increased tourist attention that the headline buildings are drawing.  Or, the ubiquity of 'togs with 10-stop glass.  We weren't the only people sporting Mr Lee's finest  that day - although the two guys with OM-D's and gorilla-pods were a little more discreet.  Whatever the reason, it seems that the City's peaked cap and earpiece set have become a little more relaxed.  If only the same could be said of Canary Wharfe.

Rothern Bridge

A last trio from Devon, before I move on to other things.  Rothern Bridge lies just outside my home town of Torrington.  A Grade 2 listed structure, it dates from the 14th century and was the original River Torridge crossing for the road from Bideford and Winkleigh.  Long since replaced by the Rolle Bridge next to it, it's now a very quiet spot on the river.  As a child I spent many hours fishing there with my cousin, never catching anything.

Instow and Appledore

Instow and Appledore sit across the Torridge estuary from each other.  I visited each on successive days.  At Instow it was a virtually cloudless day, so I concentrated on Lensbaby shots of boats as the tide receded and a few detail shots of their anchor chains.  The next day at Appledore there was more cloud, giving an opportunity for some long exposures.

Summer in Westward Ho!

I was down in Devon last week for a family visit.  The weather was glorious, but sadly I wasn't able to pick and choose when I got out with the camera.  I was limited to afternoons, photographically not the best time.  I started, typically enough, with a visit to my closest beach at Westward Ho!  Regular readers will know that I am there every Boxing day for a post Christmas constitutional and a few shots.  I am so used to seeing the town in its winter hibernation mode - with Morrissey's 'Everyday is like Sunday' running through my head - that it felt a little odd seeing it in its summer pomp.  Frankly, all the extra people just got in my way.  I tried a few Lensbaby shots.  But mainly concentrated on the kite surfers playing amongst the waves.

 

Lensbaby Practice

For my birthday, back in May, I was given a Lensbaby.  I have been playing with it since then with limited success.  For those of you who haven't seen one, a Lensbaby is a fully manual creative lens that has a single 'sweet spot' of sharp focus, with the remainder of the field of view being out of focus.  By bending the lens, the 'sweet spot' can be moved to any point within the field of view.  There are a number of different versions.  I have the Composer, which allows the depth of filed to be altered by use of a series of different sized drop-in rings.  Whilst I like the effects this lens can achieve, I am finding that it comes with a steep learning curve.  Focussing is tricky, especially when you start moving the 'sweet spot' off centre.  It is very easy to move it too far and find that you have missed the focal point you wanted.  Currently, I am deleting far more images that I am keeping.

 

Le Tour hits Cambridge

Monday saw Stage 3 of this year's Tour de France starting in Cambridge.  I heeded the advice on the Cambridge council website and made my way in by bus fairly early.  Not quite as early as I had planned though, so I was expecting road chaos and crowds already lining the course.  However, whether because of all those warnings of travel doom; or because it was the start of the working week; or because people had chosen spots outside Cambridge; but the town was not as busy as I was expecting.  At 8.30, I was able to stake a great spot right on the kerb, near the Round Church, on the outside of the bend that the cyclists would have to take from Bridge Street around into Trinity Street.  It was then just a matter of waiting.

I passed the time having a pleasant chat with another photographer who was stood next to me and 'sniping' individuals in the crowd  with a long lens.  Behind us the numbers started to build, and by 9.30am had filled both sides of the street.

The long Tour procession started at 10.15 with a vanguard of race sponsors touting their wares.  I  found these too big and brash against Cambridge's narrow streets to get any interesting shots.  Some time later came the lead vehicles of the race teams, together with police and Gendarme motorcycles.  From reading the blogs of other CCC members, Dave Brailsford spotting seems to have been a past-time.  For my part, all I managed was one arm sticking out of his Team Sky Jaguar.

At about 12.15 the cyclists finally made their appearance.  Despite the fact that they were parading and not racing, they still passed quickly in a riot of multi-coloured lycra.  In little more than a minute they were gone, to be followed by their support vehicles.   By 12.30 it was all over.  I took a few last shots amongst the dispersing crowd and headed for lunch and a pint.