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.