Cragside
A stunning location now run by the National Trust and well worth visiting. Taken last year during our holiday in Northumberland.
For more info go here http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/cragside/
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Tag: Black and White
Mono Monday-Reach for the sky
View of the Shard, London.
Have you ever heard it said that it often pays to look behind you when out photographing? In some cases it also pays to look up.
In other news, the Topaz B&W Effects offer has now ended but is still available at a great price.
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Topaz B&W Effects2 offer
NOTE: This offer has now ended but it is available at a great price.
The good folks over at Topaz Labs recently asked me to trial their new version of B&W Effects 2, which i was more than happy to do. I’ve been using this over the last few weeks and was so impressed its now become my go to plug-in for my mono workflow.
I’ll be posting a review/overview of this software very soon but in the meantime I’m letting you know that in addition to them releasing version 2.1 of B&W Effects, they are also giving new customers a whopping 30%off! Just follow the link on the right (featuring an image by your truly) and download your free trial. If you like what you see use offer code “bw21” at checkout. (Correct at time of publishing)
Offer ends Sunday!
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Mono Monday
It’s time to get my Mono Monday series back up and running, so here is a pic taken at a churchyard near my place of work…and it was shot on film!
I’ve been a fan of all things lomography for quite some time but never had the motivation to get back into the film world…until very recently that is. In fact it was on my birthday that my interest for film was properly re-ignited when I was given a lomography Diana Mini as a present, along with two rolls of Ilford HP5 black and white film. This photo is one of the more successful frames from the first roll. I’m also borrowing a cheapo film scanner in order to transfer to the PC.
Expect to see more Lomo shots from me here in the future, both mono and colour.
I see it is also Dec 24th, so ill finish by wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Mono Monday-Wood and Water
Title-‘Wood & Water’
As the Sun continued to rise, the lovely warm colours that I had been lucky enough to capture on this particular morning ( see here) slowly began to disappear, being replaced by a light blue and rather bland sky. Seeing these worn and battered posts I knew that I had to get a couple of shots of them before heading back towards the WW2 Pill Box. Initially not knowing how to frame this mass of wood, a short wander around to the right revealed this simple composition and I knew straight away that this had the potential for a minimalist black and white image. Processing this in Lightroom took next to no time, using the low contrast Black and white preset then tweaking the clarity slider to soften the image a little. I did consider bleaching out the whites, but for me this made the image too stark and it lost some of its feel. I decided that a slight letterbox simplified things even further, getting rid of unnecessary space from both top and bottom.
I reckon this would be nice as a fine art print using matte paper or perhaps as a gallery wrap canvas.
Mono Monday-Locked
Title-Locked
A simple picture for today, this time using my Holga HL-N lens to take the shot. I think it has taken on a slightly ghostly look. What do you think?
Dave Wares 