Wood & Stone

Continuing my edit & post fest, here's a post featuring photographs of things made out of wood and/or stone.  Because I like stuff like that.

Rings & Ripples.

After some pretty major flooding in my home town of Stratford upon Avon a few years ago, there was a lot of debris and detritus strewn along the river bank.  This wooden palette was teetering on the edge down by the Lucy's Mill weir.  I liked the contrast between the obviously distressed wood, the concrete edging on this part of the river, and the now-calm water gently lapping at the shore.  And then I went and defocused almost everything because I thought it would look good.  Meh.

Chesterton Mill.

The palette pic was taken on a Sony X10i - an 8mp smartphone snapper.

This picture from inside Chesterton Windmill was taken on my 13mp Sony Xperia S.  Aside from a slight vignette and some sharpening, this is how it came out of the camera.  I had many more images of the mill I wanted to post, but the Google+ photo editing software - which I use for all of my edits - wasn't playing ball and would only allow me to edit landscape images for some reason.  I may try again another day and do a separate post, as there's some lovely shots in that set.

Don't look back.

Next is an image from a Chronicle Rally planning trip to Wales.  It's another Xperia S snap which didn't come out of the camera too well at all.  It was wonky, slightly out of focus and the contrast was all wrong.  A few edits have put most of that right, but a moody/stormy affair was about the best I could do to make it presentable.  Funny really because it was a really nice day when I took the picture!  Creepy Causeway.

Weedy Window.

Here's another one from the same expedition to Wales, and it's another one which came out very poorly.  The phone sensor couldn't handle the huge contrast between the dark interior of the tower and the bright vista beyond.  The result was an excessively overexposed window and poor detail on the stone.  Once again, Google+ came to the rescue and I was able to bring out much of the detail in the stone work and recover at least some of the countryside in the background.

Don't look down!

More from Wales, this one was fairly early in the day.  As such, there was still a lot of cloud cover.  Good news for the phone, as there wasn't such a great contrast to deal with.  Again, I've just sharpened this up and added a vignette, otherwise it's as it came out of the camera.

Technicolour monastery.

Grey Friary.

Now, here's two versions of the same picture.  Actually, it's two separate exposures, but they're almost identical.  I couldn't decide whether I liked it better in colour or black & white, so I did the two versions.  On the one hand, I love all the colours in the stone, the purple heather behind, the red stained wooden benches and lush green of the grass.  On the other hand, I like the atmosphere afforded by the B&W version.  There's also a processing artefact in the B&W version.  It's slightly less obvious with the colour taken out, so that helped me to decide which one should be which!

Purple hills.

There was no such uncertainty with this picture of the ruins.  Those purple hills deserved to be presented in all their glory.  As it was overcast, and slightly misty, there was little to be done with this one.  I tried straightening it up, but it just looked worse the more I fiddled, so I just plonked a vignette on it and left it as Sony intended.

Colourful Cloisters.

Grey Gable.

Alas, the indecision returned with this one.  The myriad colours in the pillars and the vivid green grass look fantastic, but then there's this drab void in the upper right corner.  Stone always looks just fine in black & white and it balances out the dull spot.  That said, removing the colour seems to remove something of the soul in the stone.  That's why I present them both here.

And you'll no doubt be glad to hear that little dichotomy represents the last of the images from the monastery.  You may be slightly less relieved to hear there are more pictures of Wales yet to come!

White Cross.

Another Welsh ruin snapped with a Sony Xperia S.  Again, the contrast was all over the place, but not as bad as the window in the tower from before.  Still, it was very dark, so I went with a black & white job.  For something so simple, I think this picture says a lot!  I can just imagine being a Welsh bowman aiming my weapon at the invading English through that little slit.

Right, just one more Welsh castle and we'll move on.

Below is a picture from the now English village of Whittington in Shropshire.  The castle you see would have been right on the front line during any tests on the border, but it was pretty tiny.  You're looking at the gate house.  There's a moat, gardens and a few ruins inside, but you'd still describe it as sweet rather than imposing.

Cute Castle.

With good lighting, this one's much as it came out of the camera.  You guessed it, I just added a vignette.  And sharpened it up a bit.

I love that a duck just happened to be landing as I took the pic (completely by luck) and cast a bunch of ripples onto the moat.

Don't jump!

And a final image from Wales!  This time it looks like a seagull about to throw itself off a pier.  I can't decide if I like how this one is framed or not, but it's the contrast between the wood, rope and iron on the pier with the water & rocks beneath which I like.

Perhaps the gull is simply taking in the view!

Reach for the sky!

Leaving Wales behind altogether, we head off to Belgium for this one.  Antwerp, to be precise.  Still using a Sony Xperia S but in bright daylight now.

There's a little bit of faux HDR applied to this to help with contrast, otherwise the tower was mostly in silhouette.  Aside from that and my usual edits of a little sharpening and a vignette, this is pretty much as it came out.

Right, just one more before I call it a day on this post.  I'm going to bring it home to Stratford with a picture of Holy Trinity Church, below.

This is one I took on a snowy January afternoon in rapidly fading light.  I could have included it in my earlier low light post, but you would have thought I was cheating!  The image was noisy and not particularly sharp, so I've actually dropped the contrast and left it looking a little bit washed out.  Obligatory vignette to break up the otherwise white sky, give some depth and draw the eye to the subject.

Chilly Church.

As I always say, my pictures are free to use as long as they're attributed back to this blog.  All of the Wales images on this page should also be attributed to Chronicle Rally with a link to http://www.chroniclerally.co.uk included.