Ploughed Field with Old Colour Treatment

I took this picture of a field that had been half ploughed just the other day. However I wanted to try a treatment that made it look a little older.

There of lots of aged looks you can go for from monochrome and sepia toned images replete with blurring and vignetting etc. through to 70s and 80s style treatments that have recently become popular on Instagram.

The rural nature of the shot put me in mind of the USA in the first half of the 20th century. I was thinking of some of the recoloured black and white shots from the Depression and early colour shots of farmers and their tractors.

This photo is a mixture of ideas so it doesn't replicate just one style but I like to think that the modern photo with old colouring gives a sense of the continuity of the earth and nature.

Photo slideshow video

I've made a slideshow video of the photos that I like most out of the ones I've produced so far.

Not the Midnight Garden

During the day the road between the camera and the tree is very busy, noisy and clouded in exhaust smoke. It's certainly not somewhere I'd expect to find an interesting shot.

However, the quiet of nighttime along with the orange glow of the street lamps brings this mysterious quality to the whole place. I like this composition, I was drawn to it at the time. There is something intriguing about the steps, the sign and the tree.

Also there is the strong contrast between the natural textures of the ivy and the leaves with the harsh industrial feel of the road and pavement. It seemed like an odd little nocturnal oasis that might disappear when morning came.

Whitby Harbour with Split Tone Effect

This started off as a decidedly average colour photo of the harbour walls in Whitby, North Yorkshire.

Astute readers of this blog may have noticed that often the image editing techniques I use are intended to rescue a poor or uninspiring photo.

I converted this to black and white and then used a split tone effect to add the colours. It uses a yellow to blue gradient which resulted in the sunset like sky.

The processing took away some of the detail as you can see on the edges of the lighthouse but it works well enough for a postcard sized print.

The Many Colours of The Sun

A low evening sun filtered through clouds produced this fabulous light. The photo doesn't quite do it justice. In person it was both eerie and wonderful. The field was shrouded in a deep golden glow along with these long shadows that added texture to the grass.

This is why I now carry a Smartphone with a high megapixel camera. The idea of not having been able to capture this in some way is too much for me to think about!