Framedlight

As promised the photos from the previous blog have been digitally converted to monochrome using Silver Efex Pro 2. In most of them I have been pretty heavy with the grain. Which do you prefer? The last picture is the one pinhole photograph I took. My umbrella was blown inside out by the wind and a strut snapped while I was taking it!.

At the beginning of the month I spent a weekend with Alan in the Dark Peak area of Derbyshire. We stayed on a campsite very close to a footpath that led up to Kinder. Here are some pictures I took while there, converted to black and white and made a little, as I heard the term yesterday, wishy washy.

I can never resist a good tree and here are three taken locally and in Hatfield Forest which has a number of really ancient trees. For good measure I am throwing in a gate and bramble picture. The Hatfield Forest picture was taken using my new lens - the 16-35mm f4G Nikon zoom. It has Nikon's second generation vibration reduction system and I managed to hand hold down to 1/20th second and maintain sharpness (not always, it depends on how patient and steady I am!) I think this will be really useful on the NikonD800. Ancient tree in Hatfield Forest

I decided that I would try to make some pictures from Bishop's Stortford Thursday market. Bishop's Stortford must have one of the most boring suburban high streets. I used the Fuji XE-1 as it has a much smaller profile than my DSLR. I wanted to let some people know I was photographing them, mainly so I would overcome the fear of doing this. The photos were converted to black and white using Silver Efex2. I was surprised how dated the hight street looked in black and white. It gave a 70's retro feel to the place, even though taken in 2013.

I have been trying to effect a few black and white 'urban' pictures to offset the landscape stuff. I have just posted 6 of these on to my website. I do really enjoy making these pictures as they can pack in so much emotion. Even more than the more gentle landscapes. Perhaps it is because of the heritage we now associate with street photography.