Decisions

Well,

I had Finally made my mind up.......

My Photo Book was going to consist of some of my Landscape work....

I had decided to stick with and improve my Landscape photography..... I had just upgraded to my new 105mm Circular polariser and was looking forward to trying it out with my Lee filter holder.

It would also allow me to continue improving my long exposure work.

Both these images were taken using the Hitech Pro 10 Stopper, which I love.

Below are the contact sheets for the pier (entitled Tranquility).

I tried several compositions for the shot, as you can see from the contact sheets, but finally settled on DSC_1263.

I felt this was the best viewing angle and with a change of temperature in the Adobe Raw program (to remove the colour cast from the filter) the image was complete.

Compositionally, I think the shot works well, I also like the simplicity of the shot.

It can be improved however, by choosing a different time of day, maybe a sunrise, or more cloud in the sky would provide more detail.


I am not naive enough to think that these shots or indeed any other photographs I have taken can't be improved on, so more practice would only be a good thing.


Another image that I felt would go well in my Landscape project was one of my images entitled "The Fairy Pools" (below)

 

This one again, was using a big stopper filter, so it fitted with what I wanted to do and of course, in my opinion it was the best image I had out of the collection I had taken.

 

 



Image DSC_0349 was definitely the best, it had great colour and I felt the there was a limited amount of burn out in the water fall. I did say limited, I was 100% happy with it, but it was quite good.

There was also some foreground interest with the rocks in the stream as well, so this added to the composition.

I did feel however, that it could still be further improved.

I decided to change from a portrait style format to a square format, tightening in on the waterfall and having the rock closer in the foreground. The result I think improved the image no end, it could still be improved further by having less blown out highlights in the water fall, but never the less, I think by changing the format it improved the image no end.


I ventured out last weekend to the Brecon Beacons (no polariser yet, not arrived), to get more shots "in the bag", as last Saturday (11th Jan) was the only nice day of the weekend.

First stop was Talybont Reservoir...

 

Unfortunately, it seams that early morning at this time of year, doesn't present the reservoir in the best light and all I had was some highlights on the top of the hill in the distance.

I did manage to get a lovely reflection in the water in the foreground, but  nothing to write home about.....

I then moved on up the valley and stopped off at a waterfall, the sun was very bright now and shining directly onto the water.

"10 Stopper" I thought, only way to shoot this in this bright light.

It was my only chance to get an image, not really the ideal conditions for photography.... The sky was blue, hardly a cloud, not ideal......

We photographers are a hard bunch to please......  Raining or dull day, we complain the light is flat, Blue Skies and no cloud, too bright.

This image was taken at f13 for 30 seconds at a focal length of 24mm.

It didn't turn out too bad; I think the composition works as the water flows through the image quite well. However it is a bit blown out where the actual falls are.... too much loss of detail for my liking another visit with better lighting is planned.

I then move onward and upward to the Upper Neuadd Reservoir. Never been there before, so with Pen y Fan, Corn Du and the Cribyn as backdrop, I proceeded to try and get a compositionally pleasing image of the water with some foreground detail.

With all the rain we have had, apparently the reservoir was extremely full, so getting an image that was compositionally pleasing with foreground detail was going to be a challenge.

Not only that, the sky was bright blue and no cloud detail.

I decided to move my point of view, and try a different composition, there was a cloud on the move, just the one, and I thought at least it would give me some detail in the sky with some shadow.

With a couple more images taken, it was time to move on, I had been out for quite some time and the afternoon had arrived.....

The final shot of the day was taken at Pontsticle reservoir.

Pontsticle Reservoir has a sink hole which has been photographed many times by many people, but not me... So I decided to have a go.

Being surrounded by a wall, compositionally, you are restricted to only a couple of angles. Again, lighting was not ideal as the sky was bright blue and there was a harsh light.

The moon was out though and there was a train puffing away in the background so at least there was other detail to consider.

Time to head home. I had some images on the camera, it was the first day out "togging" for some time so I was quite happy.

At least I had made a start, the images may not make the final Photo Book but I was off and running.

Looking forward to the next course evening, at least I had some images to present and discuss my plans for the photo Book with Dave the tutor.

"Happy Days"