Loving Lightroom!

It's snowing here again - never, ever thought I'd say those words and not be leaping around like a 6 year old but bah! snow, so over it now. Had hoped to get out and take some more pics but fifty shades of grey not doing it for me today and have some conference photos from Weds that I need to get to work on, but first decided to revisit one of my favourite photos taken in Jan when snow was still a whoop whoop thing! Thats what I love about lightroom. I can just go back to the processed version of the original photo, click on the "import" data button and the original untouched photo comes back, make a virtual copy and you have a whole new photo available to process again.

I really liked the tone mapping thing that I was doing last week and had a feeling that this photo would work really well.

Here is the "original" finished image:


And here is the "new" tone mapped version:

Looking at it I hadn't done a bad job on the first version, the only real difference is that the foreground stuff; road, houses etc has a bit more "pop" than on the original where that bit is a bit flat compared to the great sky.

Of course now want to go back through all my fave's and have another go at them using tone mapping! Conference photos to process first, if there are any goodies I'll pop a couple up.

Calder & Hebble Navigation

Went for a walk along the canal this afternoon. I think canals are fundamentally depressing and I was having a seriously bad photo day, everything I touched turned to yak so was pleased to come away with 4 out of 60 photos and to be fair only 3 of them are really any good but anyway's here they are.

Quite like this one.


Surprising how nice the barges are.


Another attempt at dodge and burn, again not done well really - tried bracketting some shots when we were out but the canal was like the m62 and getting an unpeopled spot was impossible!


Not reallly very fab although I like the reflection.

Thats all for this weekend.

Happy Valentines Day!

To the best husband in the world, who knows that a big box of maltesers beats a fancy box of chocs anyday! Love you xx

HDR - well not really!

Fancy having a go at HDR - this is where you take 3 photos, one with the correct exposure, one a stop under another a stop over and then you do some kind of technical wizadry in lightroom and photoshop combined to create a single image with the full range of tones from light to shadow giving you an image with high dynamic range (hdr). There is also a method called tone mapping which takes a single RAW file and uses dodging and burning on shadows and highlights to give a wider range of tones, creating a similar but less intense effect. Two schools of thought on the whole hdr thing some say it should be subtle others think if you are going to do it make it show. Not decided myself have seen examples of both that I love. Anyway here are my first two attempts at tone mapping.

Not very happy with this the big dark patch in the middle of the path stands out too much and the hills in the distance look a bit rubbish.


Like how the urn turned out on this, think the tree looks a bit odd. But its worth recording first attempts if only to see how things improve! Here are the two urn photos next to one another so you can see the difference the tone mapping makes.



And the two park views:


This one shows the contrast far more - the colours just look much punchier.

Walking along the canal to Brighouse this afternoon and going to take some photos to have a go at proper hdr with oh and maybe a valentines themed photo too!

Greenhead Park, Huddersfield

Had an hour to kill whilst Tom was in his maths lesson so decided to have a look around Greenhead Park, to be honest wasn't expecting much. Have only been there a couple of times and today was cold and grey and pretty uninspiring but I have decided that I need to take more photos of where we live - it's easy to be inspired when you are away on holiday and I often overlook the things that are right under my nose!

I had never noticed just how beautiful the War Memorial in the park is. Beautiful golden stone, sandstone?, that has weathered and worn.


I loved the combination of columns, curves and squares.


The memorial itself is moving, as they always are. Although not a fan of the techinique whereby you de-saturate all the colours and just leave one but as soon as I saw it in Lightroom could see this photo was crying out for it. Am so cross I just clipped the first "m" though.


Having stuck my lens through the fence to take the photo above I suddenly realised that there was a fence, with a gate and a padlock. How awful that the gate has to be padlocked, presumably whilst the poppies are on the memorial, to prevent them being damaged or abused. What a sorry state of affairs.




The cross on the top of the memorial sits on the most magnificent stone plinth.


The whole thing is just beautiful.

The park is being completely overhauled at the moment, loads of muddy footpaths and piles of rock and masses and masses of fencing. Have a feeling its all going to be worth it though.

A lake no less! Restoring one of five original lakes.


The view from the memorial down to the main entrance, all looking a bit tired and unloved right now.


Cant wait to see this finished - there's nothing nicer than a bandstand in the middle of park.




More fencing - this time around the Victorian conservatory - it is a massive structure and again is going to be quite stunning when its finished.


The gentleman was on a plinth behind fencing too so I don't know who he is unfortunately, he is patiently awaiting a bit of a wash and brush up too I imagine!

Will definitely go back and take some more photos as the work on the park progresses, noticed on one sign there is a "Friends of Greenhead Park" group and they are asking for photos taken during the works so will send them a link to this post.