PLACES - A Familiar Place that is Significant or Important to You

If you look at some of the work of artist Fay Godwin (left), you see much of her work uses black and white photography, which gives an extra dimension to the viewer. Landscapes take on a third dimension, almost a dream scape appeal. You can view some of her landscapes at the British Council website by following the link below: http://collection.britishcouncil.org/exhibition/past/12/14

This is my take on an Fay Godwin style of image. I took this using a Nikon D80, and exposed for the sky first then settled on the path leading the eye to this solitary tree. f25, 1/125th of a second with a polarising filter and an 18mm focal length on an 18 - 55 short telephoto lens.

PLACES - A Familiar Place that is Significant or Important to You

This image was taken at Magic Hour, and captures the light through this tree lined street. It was taken on the Nikon D80 SLR on ISO 800, using 1/200th of a second and f7.1. The focal length was 34mm. I used black and white to appreciate the contrast and the shadows and the perspective without the distraction of the colours.

PLACES - A Familiar Place that is significant or important to you

I like the use of framing here for the composition of this view from the castle window. The views outside are so far reaching and deserted, it gives you a real sense of the reason why they chose this place to build their lookout stronghold. You can see for hundreds of miles in any direction. This was taken at f22, 1/200th sec. on ISO 800 with a focal length of 18mm.

PLACES - A Familiar Place that is Significant or Important to You

This image of Kantara Castle was taken at 1/640th of a second on ISO 800 and f14. I particularly like the clouds and the angle of view which creates the need to look up to the castle and gives the feeling of austerity to the image.

PLACES - A Familiar Place that is Significant or Important to You

This was taken looking up to the Castle at Kantara, which was one of the crusader castles of Richard the Lionheart, built to protect the island from marauding Arabs. I used my Nikon D80SLR with a 20mm focal length on an 18 - 55mm short telephoto Nikon lens. This was taken using f22 and 1/80th of a second. I also used a polarising filter and ISO 800.

PLACES - A Familiar Place that is Significant or Important to You

The Harbour as it is today

I wanted to add this image into my series of familiar or significant places, to contrast with the previous image of the harbour as it was hundreds of years ago. I have used colour to symbolise the new, whereas on the previous image, black and white was to symbolise how old it is.

PLACES -A Familiar Place that is Significant or Important to You

The Old Harbour


I changed this image to black and white to emphasise the age, because here you have a castle which dates back to Richard the Lion heart and the Knights Templar, and the very old boats moored to the harbour.
This was taken on a 55mm focal length at f18 and 1/100th of a second. I used ISO 1600 to add graininess, or noise to the end result.

PLACES - Creating a Vintage Polaroid experiment

For Nostaligic effect

Amongst my city photos I came across an old car just dumped at the back of a falling down house. It wasn't the type of image I was looking for to describe the city or urban sprawl, but I liked the content anyway.

I chose to make this a sepia photograph since it adds to the idea of age, and then I looked up a process of how to create a simulated vintage Polaroid. You can find the process on the web link below. Although this is interesting for effect, in my final book I am going to use black and white in order that this image works with a series of others.
This image was originally taken using a Nikon D80 SLR, an 18-55mm short telephoto lens, ISO 800 and f22/125th second.
http://www.myinkblog.com/2008/06/23/create-a-vintage-polaroid-effect/

PLACES - A Familiar Place that is Significant or Important to You

A Panoramic Image

Here is a Panoramic image made up from 22 separate images that you saw earlier on the contact print sheet. This can be done using Photoshop CS4 and choosing File/Automate, and then Photomerge. Next you choose how you want the images to be laid out, and which images to use. Providing that you have first of all taken the images correctly, your finished piece will work, but you must use a properly levelled tripod as I did here, you must focus by using either manual or infinity, and you need to overlap your images to allow Photoshop to find like pixels within the image to match to.

Contact Sheet - A Familiar Place that is significant or important to you

One place which is of significance to me is my place in Cyprus. This is the view from my roof, which I took using a tripod, and a Nikon D80 SLR. I used an 18mm Focal Length, and f22, and switched to manual focus on infinity. By keeping the horizon as the central point I went around in a full circle to get what will eventually become a panoramic image in a series of images about Cyprus.
You can make a contact sheet using Lightroom, but I made this one using Photoshop CS4, File/Automate/Contact 11.
For information about every technique in Photoshop, the book, "Photoshop CS3 for DUMMIES", by Peter Bauer is a MUST!
Creating a contact sheet allows you to review your images in one place and serves as a good discipline in the selection process.