The machine at the local quarry

2011-03-07T04:11:00.000-08:00

Quarry visit

I wasn't able to travel too far yesterday but I had previously asked the owner of a local quarry if I could do some photos at the site. Seemed like a good time to visit, the site should be empty as no work is done over the weekend.

This was a chance to try my hand at hdr (High dynamic range). I haven’t done much hdr work as generally I find it looks a bit cartoon-like. But, with machinery in mind I thought the hdr look might well suit the subject.
I had recently joined a photography site, HDR spotting, which is aimed at the hdr enthusiast, so this seemed a good chance to get some images to upload to the site.

For hdr the technique is to take multiple exposures of the image, each exposure one or two stops apart taking in the shadows and the highlights. These exposures are then processed using software that then blends the images together to produce an image with all the shadows and highlights exposed correctly, oversimplified yes, but that’s the general idea.

The quarry was totally deserted which suited me fine, what I did find was a number of big mobile screeners and diggers which was just what I was hoping for. The only downside was the diggers had their shovels facing down, it would have been better to have the shovels facing up for a more appealing image, but I’d have to accept that.

The first machine to have my attention was a big Chieftain gravel screener. Composition would be a problem as it was far too wide to take the shot side on, I settled for an oblique angle from the front side. This allowed the whole machine to be in frame and gave the machine a bit of a sci-fi look.

I took several photos of the machines around the site and eventually they will be processed in Photomatix pro or possibly Oloneo photo engine a new bit of hdr software still in the beta stage but looks promising.

Highland photography can be frustrating

2011-03-06T10:52:00.000-08:00

Photography in the Scottish Highlands can be both frustrating and rewarding. Let me explain, Scotland’s weather can be defined as freezing cold, chilly, windy, calm, warm or even hot, because at times it will have all of these conditions, sometimes in the same day.

Take last weekend, where we live, about 35 miles north of Inverness in the Highlands, the weather at 6 am was sunny but not too bright with a few clouds, perfect for landscape photography. We decided that it was worth a trip to Glencoe, an attractive mountainous area south west of Inverness. We got our kit together and travelled the 100 miles to Glencoe.

What did we find, miserable misty, damp overcast and cold and windy conditions, not good for photography. We spent a couple of hours trying to find something to make the trip worthwhile.

One loch in particular Lochan na h’Achlaise is a location that photographers visit in their thousands each year. When we arrived there was a fairly strong wind blowing which caused ripples on the water and the sky was grey and the scene was not what I was expecting. Drastic measures were called for, The Lee 10 stop nd filter-The Big Stopper. I wanted the water smoothed out and reflections from a lone tree on a small island to be a feature of the shot. The big stopper gave me an exposure of two minutes which flattened the water and allowed some reflections to show.

Not one to do hundreds of images when I go out I came back with less than a dozen shots , but the next time I go there the weather could be perfect so you just have to keep at it and take the bad days and just hope the next time is a good one.

http://www.philrestanphotography.co.uk/

Highland Photography

The machine at the local quarry

Highland photography can be frustrating