Durham Ice Rink R.I.P.

From the 1980's the Ice Rink in Durham, UK was hub of Ice Hockey action and a gathering place for the youth of the time. Since the rinks' closure in 1996 and the Durham Wasps movement from Durham to Newcastle to become the now 'Vipers', it was used as a health club and bowling alley. It has sat Idle since 2009 whilst plans were under way to negotiate it's future. The demolition is to make way for a new office development. It will house the National Savings employees who current reside directly across the river in Millburngate House. There is an old water mill on the site which will be renewed to provide 70% of the new offices, electricity. According to local archives the mill dates back to 1951 and was a flour mill. Farewell to a local landmark and may fond memories continue for many people in the region!

Wynyard Woods

These woodlands are in a small villiage near Stockton on Tees at Thorpe Thewles. The old railway station has been restored and is now a Cafe and Gift shop. The railway lines run in both directions and give a pleaseant walk through the woodlands that surround. There is also a Planetaruim, small observatory, pic-nic areas and a huge playground for children. There are some interesting features as you can see below. 

Spooky Cabin, which has long been deserted

The last 3 shots above are from an artwork entitled 'Cosmic Kitchen'. The utensils all have a function that relate to astronomy. The Colander has a map of the Milky Way on it, the Large spoon aligns itself to the North Star and the measuring spoon is a sundial. If you look closely you can see the shot was taken at approximately 3:30.

Hardwick Park

Hardwick Park is situated in County Durham, near Sedgefield, UK. It was originally opened in the 1800's and recently restored to it's former glory with investment from the local council and funding from other sources. It was the first time I had visited (even though I have lived within 20 miles of it all my life!) and I'll be definately going back, hopefully when the weather is a little better!! the shots below are again a mixture of black and white, single exposure colour and HDR.

Depth Of Field (DOF) explored

A set of shots taken using an aperture of F1.8 to create a shallow DOF. I have used various focus points to demonstrate how DOF can be used to draw attention to specific objects/areas. As always comments/Questions are more than welcome.

Quite a difficult shot to expose here given that I wanted the focus on the bridge through the doorway, without underexposing the foreground.



The focus on the very bottom of the frame here seems to create a 'miniture' effect. Often this is also achieved using a tilt-shift lens or by applying blurring to various areas post-processing.




The foreground here has a heavy bokeh (out of focus) this leads the eye straight to the Chair and then onto the textures of the trees.



I took 2 shots from here. The second one I focussed on the third step (upper 3rd of the frame) but I much preferred the level of detail obtained from the one in the bottom 3rd. 



The focus here was on the second step from the bottom but even though an aperture of F1.8 was used the other steps still look pretty much in focus. That is due to them all being relatively the same distance away from where I was standing. Positioning yourself is what often makes the difference with DOF, often, as much or more so than a wide aperture does.



Cemetery Sunrise

It was probably the first warm Sunrise we've had so far this year, so stopped off to take a few shots in a location I've passed a few times and thought it would provide some good opportunities. The shots below are all HDR, some of which have been converted to monochrome. this time I wanted to get a lot of detail and a wide range of tones so 7 shots were used. I bracketed in 1/3 increments and went from -2.0 to +2.0 ev.It was windy, so there was a bit of movement on some of the larger branches. Enjoy!

Floral (tutorial)

Over the years I've taken umpteen studies of flowers. Here I'm demonstating some basic techniques which can be used to enhance your work and hopefully give you some pleasing results.

Where you are not cropping in very tightly to the subject, think about the background..

Here I used the black glass to show the rest of the boquet but still isolate the main flower, it also added some nice contrast. It pays to try a few different angles to ensure the background is not too distracting.



Cropping in tightly can show texture and colour

In the shot above, I cropped in to fill the frame (hence no distracting background). Try to avoid getting the centre of the flower in the centre of the shot, again, try different angles. I have opted to have the centre of the flower in the top left third which is more pleasing. I also used strong flash to get some rich colour, but be careful of the overly strong contrast this can cause.



Desaturation of surroundings

Another way to remove distracting backgrounds and to give a 'pop' of colour is to apply what is sometimes referred to as 'selective colouring'. This can be achieved in many ways. In Photoshop or Gimp you would need to go into layers (there are many tutorials about this on-line); in Lightroom, it's dealt with fairly simply, either by an adjustment brush, or saturation sliders.



Hi-key shots can look fairly 'arty' if you can be patient enough to get the lighting just right

Here, I took a few shots manually, adjusting the aperture and shutter speed after each one until I was happy with the outcome. If you're going to attempt this you'll need to go into 'manual' mode or if you're using a point and shoot camera, deactivate the flash. Take an initial shot and review the results. Again, depending on what sort of camera you're using it's probably going to sense that the scene is very brightly lit and the exposure will come out with a very dark foreground and nicely exposed sky. To remedy this, point the centre of the camera to a darker area and press the shutter half way down, this will lock the exposure, now move the camera back to the scene you want to shoot and press the shutter the rest of the way down. Hey-presto (or maybe not, like I said it takes practice!)

Try different things and see what works

In the shot above, the plan was to create an image that could be used as a wall print. I've broken the general 'rule of thirds' by placing the subject dead-centre. However, I have made this image different to others by desaturating one side of the flower to add and interesting effect, I also added some blurring to the desaturated side.

Soft tones have a calming effect

Almost a macro shot concentrating on the stamen of the Lilly. Soft shadows giving some texture and a tight crop to fill the frame completes the shot.

Macro shots can show the everyday to be special

By using a very close up pov this Dandilion (what we usually refer to as a weed) has been transformed into an image with a soft texture and bold background. If you have a macro setting on your camera get creative, you'll be surprised with the results.

I hope you found this useful. I'd be interested to know if you've gained some good results from the advice. Please feel free to get in touch via commenting or email. I'd be happy to collate an entry on the blog with your images and names!