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.

The Tree on the Hill - Black and Whte

This is yet another shot that made me wish I had my DSLR with me. The smartphone hasn't done a bad job but it is easy to see the limitations of the lens and sensor straight away.

Fortunately I shall be back that way in the next couple of months and I won''t have any luggage problems that will prevent me from taking a full bag of camera kit with me.

As I've said before, I treat these smartphone shots like planning shots. It is easier to run around and get lots of shots with a basic camera or a smartphone and the lack of options forces you to think about the composition more. Then you can go back later and spend some time on the shots you liked most and get a good capture.

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.

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.