Caerthillian Cove - digital photograph

Photographing locations

Finding locations to take photographs can be a time consuming job if you just go out to collect photographs from everywhere you visit. What am i talking about I hear you ask?

Rather than going out, armed with your camera, finger at the ready, consider taking time to find locations and make a note of what will make that particular location work well for you. Note this down and take advantage of situations when they arise.

It’s a bit like hunting I guess. You first learn about your “quarry” for us the location. Learn how it reacts to different conditions, there are many variables to have in your list, here are a few:

• Tide - will tide height show more interesting detail. Can you get to areas to improve angles on your shots, will a longer looking beach add more to the photograph.
• Cloud - nice strong clouds will help frame many shots and give them more depth. However, sometimes a cloudless shot may well be perfect for the image you are trying to capture, have a look at this cloudless sky at Hayle in Cornwall
• Wind - adding texture to water scenes, movement to trees and flags, storms produce some of the most dramatic images full of action and emotion.
• Mist - Shaded trees enveloped in mist produce fantastic photographs and can be soft and comforting or harsh and cold, it’s up to you!
• Sun - The angle of the sun is possibly the most important single factor for daylight photography. Direct over head sun is harsh, bleaching and flattens images. Early or late sun contains warmer colours and casts long, interesting shadows, catching rocks and other items to add interest to your image. this effect can be seen in the image here on the cap of the cliff on the right hand side of the image.

So, you have the idea. Learn about what makes your location work and when you get the right combination, hop in the car, take a walk and capture the image portraying the picture you want to show.

After a while you will get to better understand this system and you will have lots of options open to you that you can take advantage of depending on the conditions that day!

Cornish Storm Clouds

Strong sun and Clouds in Cornwall

Burning amber’s, yellows and blacks make this impressive winter sky line over the west of Cornwall.

The textures of the cloud across the top and bottom of this photograph, frame the dying sun, as it peaks from behind the cloud strata’s.

I really like the top level cloud, licking the top of the image. It reminds me of a traditional oil painting, Full of texture, depth and tones.

Please click here to purchase this image - Amber Skies over Cornwall

Tehidy in HD

Tehidy House

This fine country house is Located between Camborne and the North Cornish coast.

Tehidy nestles amongst great woodland, amongst lovely walks, a cafe and some lovely wildlife, including the chance to feed squirrels and ducks with your family.

The Basset family once owned the house, using the money from tin mining to establish it and add to its grandeur

To buy this photograph of Tehidy House follow this link

A photograph of Breage Side in Porthleven

Breage Side, Porthleven

This black and white photograph of Breage side in Porthleven was captured with a long exposure to capture any light that was available and smooth out the water, leaving a little texture. There are a few artifacts on the image. An artifact is unwanted information captured with the image. The reason for this is my camera is not great in very low light conditions, and struggles. However, the concept of the photograph is there and I will work on this capture to improve it…… It will be back here soon!!

Natural light portrait photograph

Natural light portraits in Cornwall

This image was taken on a dull overcast day, where the light is just fantastic for capturing detail and texture in skin.

The image has been sharpened and highlighted in areas to increase the images depth.

Please contact me from this blog if you are interested in some natural light portrait work.

Equine portrait photography

Equine photographs

This equine photograph was taken back in the summer while I was working on capturing movement by panning the camera and using a slower shutter speed to through the background out.

This approach gives the feel of movement and adds a new dimension to the photograph. The image is not pin sharp but conveys the movement and muscle mass off the horse.

Black and White portrait

Cornish light Portrait

Yesterday, the wind was howling and the rain was coming in horizontal. All in all not the best day to try and get natural light portraits of children.

Around the narrow back streets of Porthleven in Cornwall, we found some shelter from the weather and I had the chance of getting 4 quick shots of my boys before the interest was lost. Fortunately in my portrait photography I look for natural, fun shots that express themselves. Hopefully you can see by the expressions here, they were having fun…..

Post processing was minimal. I have boosted the contrast a little and played the dodge and burn tool over the whole image. Taken with a large aperture the background has naturally blurred just enough.

Falmouth with heavy skies

Falmouth photograph

This digital photograph of falmouth was taken on an overcast day. The cloud was looking really heavy and full of texture. it almost looked like a scene from the wizard of Oz, when the witch gets squashed under the house!!

I have used a gradient map behind the image to tone the sky to increase the impact of it. This was achieved using photo shop CS3 to digitally enhance the image.

Porthleven - Black and White photograph

Black and White photograph of Porthleven

An interesting photograph of the peir at Porthleven. The sea spray has softened the focus as well as the apature being set to around f3.5 to reduce the distant focus.

I really like the way the clouds and the hard line of the pier take you into the photograph, leading the eye into the middle distance. As well as the contrast of the white sea spume against the dark granite structure of the pier.

This photograph is pretty much off camera. The only area I have really adjusted is the clouds. I dodged and burned over them a little bit, to increase the darkness and contrast on the bottom of them.

There are a few more pictures of Porthleven here,

• Porthleven photograph in Colour
• Storm at Porthleven

I would love for you to comment on this post and tell me your thoughts about this photograph, or any others on the Digital-scene blog.

Cornwall a digital STILL

Cornwall, a field of view

This photograph was taken of a field overlooking Loe Bar, near Helston and Porthleven. It was taken at the end of the summer while I was taking some of my grass shots

The depth of field is interesting. It was focused into the first third of the image using around an f3 aperture, which decreases the depth of field, throwing some of the background and fore ground out of focus. I also like the way the grass contrasts with the background fields.

I was not sure if I sould publish this photograph initially. But after looking carefully at it I decided to go for it. What do you think?