I have added some new photographs into the “Recent” section of my website. “Recent” is a bit of a misnomer really as the images were actually taken in 2018. I’m still ploughing through last years images and the process has taken a bit of a back seat recently as I work on my Royal Photographic … Continue reading CM Photo Website Update
I have three colour photographs for you this week all based around a winter theme. The first is a leaf that I found in the garden after a frost. I loved the way that the frozen moisture coats the edges of the leaf. Tiny frozen droplets of moisture can also be seen on a … Continue reading Field and Frost
I love the detail in this first image that I photographed in a church graveyard. But I didn’t see the humour in the notice until I started writing this blog post. Duh! I know I can be slow sometimes. I’ll need to go back and try and catch an image of the sign with the … Continue reading Field and Fence
“Color is descriptive. Black and white is interpretive.” – Elliott Erwitt As is obvious if you look through my blog, most of my photographs are monochrome. I'm often asked why this is so. The quote above by Irwin is exactly why I process the vast majority of my images as black and white. A person … Continue reading Why black and white?
These three images were, like the last post, all taken at the Black Country Living Museum near Dudley in the West Midlands. The first is a found still life of a watering can and two water butts. I did not arrange these and came upon them behind one of the turn of the century cottages … Continue reading Bricks and iron
Museums can be great places to take photographs. You have the architecture of the buildings themselves, some of them are marvels of modern architecture. Then there are the people who visit the museums looking and absorbed in the exhibitions and finally but not least, you also have the exhibits themselves. The three photographs in today’s blog … Continue reading Black Country history
Following on from last week’s post where I showed three of my ICM (intentional camera movement) images, I thought this week I would post some multiple exposures created in camera. These are not several images put together in Photoshop etc. but where you have instructed your camera itself to overlay two or more images. Done … Continue reading Go forth and multiply
Intentional Camera Movement is a style of photography that does what is says on the tin. You move the camera whilst you take the picture. In most circumstances, blurred images are usually considered a photographic mistake. But done intentionally I find that ICM can be a useful aid to clearing a log-jam of imagination … Continue reading ICM
I go to Batsford Arboretum two or three times a year. I can usually find something to photograph whilst I’m there. In winter some of the trees are not looking their best so I try to look for details or other views to photograph. The first image is of a leaf that I noticed on … Continue reading Winter Challenges
Last post I showed three colour images that I took whilst out on a walk near my home. This week, I have another three photographs from the location but processed in black and white. The first is a landscape which shows tractor tracks disappearing into the mist across the field. I got down low with the … Continue reading Countryside Studies
We British are notorious for moaning and whingeing about our weather. This is because we never know what it is going to be like from day to day. Our weather prediction services seem to be totally incapable of getting their forecasts right and you may as well hang a piece of seaweed outside your front … Continue reading One Misty Morning
It is important in monochrome images that the photographer can get his vision across to the viewer using only the attributes of that medium. The careful construction of an image should give visual weight to the components in the frame enabling the viewer to see what the photographer intended with his photograph. In the first … Continue reading Open and Shut
I do take a fair number of close-up photographs, not as many as other styles of images I take, but a few. The three here are a fair representation of the subjects I sometimes take when I get in close. I do take flowers, both in colour and monochrome, but the latter are by far … Continue reading Get In There
I have three photographs this week that were taken at the very atmospheric Magpie Mine in Derbyshire. This former lead mine is one of the most famous lead mines in the area as it is the only one that has a significant part of its buildings still standing. The mine was first recorded in 1795 … Continue reading A Light on the Past
You may have notice that I have changed the title of the post this week from the generic "Photographs #XX". This is because the titles didn't give any indication of what was in the post and didn't give a reader a mental link to the photographs featured. I hope that this new will work better in … Continue reading Kingdom of Madness
I have three colour images for you this time. All three were taken with the Nikon D800 and Nikkor 24-120mm f/4.0 lens. The first is a view across Weston Super Mare towards Brean Down which you can see on the horizon. Brean Down is a promontory extending one and a half miles into the English … Continue reading Photograph #21
You will all be pleased to know that the three images into today’s post are the last images from the Weston Super mare shoot. Two of them centre on the famous Weston Pier, which was built in 1903 and opened in 1904. The original theatre situated at the pier’s end was destroyed by fire in … Continue reading Photographs #20
All the images I am posting today are in colour. Once again taken in Weston-Super-Mare. I got so many different types of photograph whilst down there, that it was worth the drenching from the storm. All three photographs were taken with the Nikon D800 and the excellent Nikkor 24-120mm f/4.0 lens. I followed my usual … Continue reading Photographs #19
Today’s images are again from the Weston-Super-Mare shoot. Despite the weather (or should I say because of it), it was such a great day for photography. The light was that really translucent type that seemed to just emanate from everywhere. These next three images are again in the 1:1 or square format that I like … Continue reading Photographs #18
Ok, I make no apologies for showing some more photographs that I took on the trip Mrs M. and I went on down to Weston-Super-Mare. I got some great pictures on that trip. As I have said before, the weather was stormy and the first photograph below shows the magnificent display of clouds we were … Continue reading Photographs #17
Following on from my last post, these are some images taken from the visit that Mrs M. and I made to Weston-Super-Mare during September. The weather was stormy and very, very changeable. The clouds were boiling over the sea and pushed by a brisk wind were heading for a collision course with the town. These … Continue reading Photographs #16
This collection of images were taken on a short break in the west country during September. The weather as is usual in the United Kingdom was variable. Indeed, on that break, we encountered warm sun, as well as torrential rain, a hailstorm and buffeting winds. The upside to this was that the cloud formations were … Continue reading Photographs #15
The images on my blog today, were some of the first that I took with a Fuji camera back in late 2015. The reasons that I moved from Nikon to Fuji can be found elsewhere on this blog so I will not bore you by going into them again. These images and others that will … Continue reading Photographs #14
I like taking abstract photographs. The individual’s visualisation of something on which they are laying their own interpretation is both gratifying and exciting. There is always the risk of course that someone may not be able to see what it is you are trying to pull out of an object or a scene, but to … Continue reading Photographs #13
The three images in today’s post appeal to me for different reasons. One for texture and detail, one for the questions it asks and the other both for its suggestion of mysterious overtones. The first picture is in my favourite format of 1:1 or square and monochrome. The plant, is a thistle, with its seeds … Continue reading Photographs #12
Colour photographs by their very nature rely in some way on their main characteristic of colour to draw the viewer into the image. So, when you are looking to take a monochrome image, you have to discount that attribute and rely instead on other aspects of the subject to give to your viewer. There are … Continue reading Photographs #11
In Photograph #7 I said that I enjoy taking photographs of flowers in monochrome but of course, that doesn’t mean that I don’t also process flower photographs in colour. The following two images show two different approaches to flower photography. The first is a single bloom with the lens opened to an aperture of f/1.8. … Continue reading Photographs #10
These two images are part of a series I have been working on for a couple of years now. The series is called Senescence, which is a biological term meaning “the condition or process of deterioration with age.” The subjects I am photographing are not biological. The images are studies on the effects of age … Continue reading Photographs #9
The following three pictures were all taken at St Mary the Virgin church at Broughton Castle in Oxfordshire. I was using a Nikon D800 and a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 lens which really came into their own inside the church and to take pictures of the tomb inside of Sir Thomas Wykeham and his wife. The … Continue reading Photographs #8
Flowers and plants have to be one of the most popular subjects for photography. For the most part they are easily accessed, they are usually colourful and striking and can be taken indoors or outdoors. Probably the first thing we notice about flowers are their colours and as you walk about the many gardens that … Continue reading Photographs #7
Most of the images that I take, and have taken, over the years are monochrome. That’s not to say I don’t like colour images, I do, very much, it’s just that l like to produce black and white photographs. I find it easy to visualise the monochromatic values of a scene when I look at … Continue reading Photographs #6
These three images were taken at Stowe gardens like those in 2015 Photographs #4. Once again they were taken with the Nikon D800 and the 24-120 f/4.0 lens. I do like taking statues, as they are not usually prone to moving and with some creative positioning, exposure techniques and post processing a decent image can sometimes … Continue reading Photographs #5
I always try to inject some atmosphere into my black and white photographs and the following images taken at Stowe gardens are indicative of how I try to make my photographs more interesting. When I’m out on a shoot I tend to see most of the pictures I take as monochrome. I look for … Continue reading Photographs #4
The following photographs were all taken at Buscot park in Oxfordshire. Once again they were all taken with a Nikon D800 and a 24-120mm f/4.0 lens. The first image taken of the copies held at Buscot of some of the terracotta army is in my more usual format of 1:1 or square. I opened … Continue reading Photographs #3
These two images were again taken with one of my Nikons that I had in 2015. This time it was the superb D800 and the lens was the very good Nikkor 24-120mm f/4.0 zoom. Both images were, as I normally do, shot in RAW, imported into Lightroom CC as DNGs and then processed mainly in … Continue reading Photographs #2
As we come to the end of 2016 I am reminded that although I have tried to maintain this blog as much as I can, I have gone for some periods of time this year without posting. I would like to do something about that. So, starting today, I am going to post photographs I … Continue reading Photographs #1
