Not as if...

This Way Please

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 16:24 +0000

All humanity, please proceed up the escalator. This was taken at the Eurostar terminal, St. Pancras.

Fishermen

Wed, 06 Apr 2005 22:10 +0000

Thanks for all your comments on the previous shot. It received more comments than any other photo on 'not as if...' so far. I could speculate why that is, but it probably doesn't pay to get too hung up on these things. Anyway, for those who think I attend weird occult ceremonies or Klan meetings, it was actually a piece of performance art involving fire and sound at a local arts centre.

Today's shot is back on the beach at Aldeburgh. These guys must love their fishing. It was blowing a gale but they were happy sat in their matching tents. How sweet.

Cordite

Sat, 02 Apr 2005 22:21 +0000

Fire wouldn't usually be my first choice for a b&w subject, but I think it works with this shot.

Drilling for Oil

Fri, 01 Apr 2005 10:24 +0000

A change from the recent floral shots...

This is the Schlumberger Cambridge Research Centre, an amazing building providing office and laboratory space for developing oil rigs. Its roof is made out of Teflon-coated glass-fiber membrane suspended from a steel superstructure - the same technology used for the Millenium Dome. To get an idea of the scale, check out the little guy sat in his office on the far left.

A technical aside...I took this shot in RAW mode with my Nikon D70 about two months ago. Now, I usually shoot JPEGs so it's been sitting on my hard disk ever since gathering dust while I have been playing around with various RAW converter tools. Nothing I have found has really made me want to switch to RAW shooting - the main problem for me is that I only have Photoshop 7.0, which has limited 16 bit editing capability, and I can't really justify going out and buying huge CF cards. Articles like this one by Ken Rockwell have also put me off. Are the benefits of RAW shooting worth the extra workflow steps?

However, I recently came across a free RAW converter called RAW Shooter Essentials from Pixmantec that may make me change my mind. It's fast, has some great workflow features like batch processing, and also has a 'fill light' feature that enabled me to recover shadow detail in today's shot.

I probably won't switch to RAW shooting completely, but for studio-type shots where I'm essentially tethered to the computer, I might consider it.

Abstract

Wed, 30 Mar 2005 18:41 +0000

This is actually a picture of some purple tulips and yellow daffodils. I was drawn to the colour combination but the flowers were past their best and starting to wilt. I took about 20 shots, moving the camera in different ways to blur the image. I selected this one because it immediately jumped out as the most interesting. I think the general shapes are still suggestive of green stems and flowers without being too pictorial. The sharp diagonal contour across the middle of the picture adds a bit of interest, too.

Freesia

Tue, 29 Mar 2005 18:09 +0000

This is a fairly straight studio shot of a freesia stem. I like the way that you can see the progression from bud to fully-opened flower. It's almost like time-lapse photography.

Fractured

Sat, 26 Mar 2005 21:53 +0000

This reminds me of one of those sliding puzzles where you have to un-jumble a picture by moving the pieces. The reflection is of St Mary's church in Cambridge.

Sempervivum #2

Thu, 24 Mar 2005 15:17 +0000

Another Sempervivum (or house leek) from the botanical gardens. I think I prefer this one on reflection. It has more depth I think and the gravel adds a different texture.

Sempervivum

Wed, 23 Mar 2005 23:08 +0000

This is another shot from the hot house at the botanical gardens in Cambridge. I've cranked up the saturation so it looks a bit unnatural, but I think it adds to the interest of the shot.

Ceiling Fan #2

Tue, 22 Mar 2005 20:52 +0000

It's interesting how a good idea never goes out of fashion. Compare this ceiling from the porter's lodge of Corpus Christi college with this one.

For anyone that visits regularly, I'm sorry that I haven't been updating recently. I've been overwhelmed by work and haven't really had the energy to take pictures. Hopefully, things have settled down a bit now.