Cricket in the Twilight on the Vine, Sevenoaks

Cricket on the Vine

The Vine Cricket Ground in Sevenoaks, Kent is the second oldest cricket ground in the world and is still in regular use today. It was gifted to 'the people of Sevenoaks' by the local Lord of the Manor on the understanding that it is used for playing cricket.

The difficulty with this shot is the failing light (not that it stopped play!). I wanted to keep that feel of approaching night but without it just looking too dark. The strong low sun from the side was casting nice shadows but has given us a washed out area on the left of the image.

All in all, I'm happy with this photo because it captures the feeling of a traditional English summer's evening that I felt when I was there taking it. However, I'm sure others won't like it because they don't have that memory of actually being there. When working on a photo it is hard to divorce yourself from the reality of the setting and be able to judge the image solely on its own merits.

More Photos of clouds

One day recently produced a set of clouds that looked totally unreal even when stood looking up at them in the flesh.

The rays of light shining through them looked like something out of a movie or an image that someone had photoshoppped.

I couldn't  help standing and staring at them for a few minutes. Usually when you take a photo of things like this the magic of them isn't captured in the image and they're a bit of a disappointment but this time pictures looked like the real thing.

The mysterious moon

The moon is an awkward thing to photograph. Due to the way our minds work the moon always appears bigger than it really is. So when we try to photograph it the results often disappoint but the moon appears to be tiny in the photo.

Longer lenses and a good tripod can capture some impressive shots of the moon but I actually like an image where the moon isn't the main focus but it appears in the sky as a tiny white orb. In a way it brings some scale to the picture and gives a sense of our play in the universe. It breaks us out of the bounds on the photo's border and reminds us that there is more out there than we are seeing.

This photo of a tree in silhouette could be far out in the country, away from civilization but, in fact, is on a hill overlooking a large town in the South East of the UK. A 30 minute train ride from central London. If were slightly higher and able to look down beyond the hedge we would see the sprawl of houses, shops and industrial building in the valley below.

A continuing obsession with clouds

Long before I became interested in photography I was obsessed with the patterns and colours of clouds in the sky. Their brief and transitory nature made me yearn to some how capture their beauty before disappeared.

However, I realised that the true beauty is in that passing nature of the clouds. It is a brief moment in time that must be appreciated, there and then, for what it is. No image can ever really do justice to the sky and whenever I have tried to capture it the results have always been disappointing.

That said, I often can't resist snapping certain cloud formations and the interplay of light with the ground that they create. Now I try not to capture the moment as it truly was but to create something new and pleasing in itself. I still try to take a Zen-like approach to the clouds themselves and bask in the moment before they, or I, have to go.

Impressive and easy HDR on a smartphone

I've previously shown some images that I've taken on my smartphone and they're ok but, in almost all circumstances, I would prefer to use my SLR. The smartphone comes in handy for a quick snap or a test shot but usually I feel I'm missing out on both quality and features.

However, I'm really impressed with the HDR feature on the Galaxy S3. With no more effort than selecting an option it produces a decent HDR image in one hit. To achieve the same results on my SLR I have to mess around with exposure bracketing and complicated editing to achieve the same results.

Here are a couple of quick snaps that are unedited/untreated save for reducing the image size.

First the normal shot:

Then the HDR:

This shows the real use of the HDR function on the smartphone - getting a more acurate image in difficult light conditions. The bottom photo is far closer to how my eyes perceived the scene at the time.