Saturday 31st January 2012

Last photo of the year! This is the view from my hotel room balcony. I liked the descending strip of cloud and the various colours of the lights across the town and in the air. The church from yesterday can be seen in the centre of the left half of the photo. Click to enlarge.

18mm, 20s, f/10, ISO 200

Friday 30th December 2011

While travelling between our hotel in Schlitters and the resort at Kaltenbach on the train, we noticed that every town had a church of very similar design. Up close, they were more individual, this one (in Schlitters) sporting a full height mural. This web page gives some more information, saying it's "the parish church of Schlitters, dedicated to St. Martinus. Constructed in 1740 AD in Baroque style, the interior primarily strikes due to wall and ceiling paintings by Josef Anton Mayr". I like this photo because of the angles, and because I got all the settings and composition as I wanted it first go, just the one snap. Which is a good thing too, as it was snowing on the lens!

18mm, 30s, f/13, ISO 200

Our reason for being in the town was to enjoy some local fireworks. Apparently Austrians quite often celebrate the New Year locally on the 30th before their big celebration on the 31st, and the fireworks were pretty spectacular.

18mm, 10s, f/22, ISO 100

Saturday 17th December 2011

The Picture House pub in Stafford, a really lovely building with really colourful stained glass.

35mm, 1/8s, f/4.5, ISO 400

Thursday 15th December 2011

1980s wallpaper and 1890s flooring, in the derelict Oakhurst House, Ambergate.

18mm, 1/40s, f/4.5, ISO 400

Wednesday 14th December 2011

Not an amazing photo, but the layers of the University Hospital of North Staffordshire reminded me oddly of the sprawling city of New Crobuzon in China Miéville's steampunk novel Perdido Street Station.

100mm, 5s, f/8, ISO 200

Sunday 11th December 2011

Stained glass in Penkhull.

119mm, 1/4s, f/5.6, ISO 400

Sunday 4th December 2011

Saggy roof tiles housing the workshops and steam engine at the Etruria Canal Museum.

85mm, 1/13s, f/8, ISO 400

Friday 18th November 2011

The impressive Falcon Manor hotel in Settle, Yorkshire Dales.

20mm, 13s, f/8, ISO 200

Wednesday 16th November 2011

This is Saint Werburgh's Parish Church on High Lane, Burslem. It was built in 1953 to replace a smaller church in Hamil Road as the congregation was growing larger. I've been meaning to try this photo for a while. I noticed the statue of Jesus but it's fairly hidden away to the side and under a tree. I had an idea that if I took a photo of the church at night and illuminated the statue more than the natural light illuminated the church, it would create a nicely balanced scene. I think it mostly worked.

18mm, 25s, f/11, ISO 200

Monday 14th November 2011

Window graffiti in Hanley. I was just walking through the city centre, and thought 'oh that would make a good photo', so, as I often do, I just stopped in the middle of the street, got out my camera, and took a photo.

23mm, 1/15s, f/8, ISO 200

This was an editing error but I think it's fantastically brain melding. I've done it before but wasn't sure how, not I understand how I did it (although it still doesn't make total sense!) and also it had the lucky feature of being centred around an un-moving door.

Thursday 10th November 2011

I made it back up to the colliery tonight (see yesterday), but with a friend so that I wouldn't get scared off by any hissing noises (there was still much hissing, but I realised it was probably owls). This photo represents various things I've been working on, one being the colliery (see previous photos here and here), and one being a silhouette of a person (which I keep trying down a cave, and failing on). This is one shot, no HDR, just with a bit of 'dodging' in photoshop. I think it looks a little un-real, which I really like about it.

20mm, 30s, f/10, ISO 400

Wednesday 9th November 2011

Tonight I thought I'd try a photo I've been want to take for a while, and walk up to the colliery. Trouble is I got spooked by some hissing noises before I got to my photo spot, and retreated. Instead I went for a different photo that was long overdue - Burslem town hall. This is a very impressive building built between 1854 and 1857. It was superseded as town hall in 1911 by a different building behind it. The novelist Arnold Bennett often mentioned it and referred to the gold angel on top.

18mm, 15s, f/10, ISO 200

Tuesday 8th November 2011

The next estate up from mine. Stoke-on-Trent is fairly hilly so wherever you go you're not far from a 3-dimensional view. I like how the houses appear stacked on top of each other when you zoom in to something far away.

270mm, 4s, f/6.3, ISO 400

Thursday 3rd November 2011

I am told this is the old 'Home & Colonial' store in Stoke. I don't know what it is now, or why it is lit up at night, but it's quite a nice feature.

155mm, 8s, f/8, ISO 200

Tuesday 25th October 2011

This is the town I work in, Tunstall, taken from the town I first lived in when I moved to Stoke-on-Trent, Burslem. This is a view that I theoretically see pretty often but while passing down this street your eye can see so much more and usually focusses on the road. When driving today I noticed how many of the nice buildings I could see in the distance so pulled over to see if my 270mm lens could get close enough in. It did, and the parts I wanted to capture pleasingly filled the whole frame, giving a different perspective to the one I usually see. Instead of trying to get round the street lights and the foreground houses, they actually made a more rounded image.

169mm, 1/100s, f/8, ISO 100

Thursday 20th October 2011

The composition isn't right on this photo, but it was a lovely building and the picture I had in mind didn't work, so this is what I was left with.

46mm, 1/80s, f/8, ISO 200

Wednesday 19th October 2011

This is Victoria Hall in Stoke, venue for various performances and concerts. It is VERY colourfully lit, with the lights on a scrolling cycle of various modes. This was the most garish and I was pleased I managed to capture it before it changed despite the 6 second exposure. This isn't really a hard photo to take, but I think it was worth capturing!

20mm, 6s, f/8, ISO 200

Wednesday 12th October 2011

An abstract view, playing with reflections and focus, no photoshop trickery except the usual enhancements.

219mm, 1/100s, f/6.3, ISO 400

Tuesday 11th October 2011

This is The Crescent in Buxton, originally a Georgian spa developed in the 18th Century by the Duke of Devonshire using his mining profits and modelled on ones in Bath. It has been empty several years but is being restored with the help of lottery funding.

18mm, 15s, f/11, ISO 400

Tuesday 27th September 2011

Day two of the Indian Summer, and although there isn't a great deal of imagination in this photo I quite often see light hitting houses and windows and miss the capture, and I actually really like this.

12.7mm, 1/200s, f/5. (auto)