alan frost photography

Last leg first – Walking the South Downs Way

Whist this blog is about my photography, there has to be an inextricable link between taking pictures with the things I do, the places I go and the people I meet. I don’t ‘set up’ my photographs or continually ‘pixel peep’ by testing cameras, lenses or other equipment. I may from time to time comment on my gear, but for me this blog is more about my experiences and trying to capture those moments with a camera. Nor may I finish processing the images in the strict order they were taken. I will be drawn to a shot, work on it and then return to it later on, and in the interim start processing another image which could have be taken earlier or later.

So you might be asking yourself what is the meaning of the title to this particular entry? Well quite simply in September I walked 100 miles along the South Downs Way from Winchester to Eastbourne and as you might imagine I took many photographs. Although I have now finished processing quite a few of these, there are still others to do. Unfortunately there are only so many hours in the day. However I think I have completed work on the images I took on the last section of the trail as we walked from Cuckmere Haven, up and down the Seven Sisters, over Beachy Head, before the final descent into the East Sussex town of Eastbourne. So this entry covers the last leg of our walk and other posts in the future will I am sure cover other sections of the trail which took place in the preceding days.

Sunlight on Eastbourne as rain clouds circle all around.

Beachy Head lighthouse

Seven Sisters with Belle Tout lighthouse on the cliff in the far distance

Rain approaching the estuary at Cuckmere Haven

All the images in this post were processed in Lightroom 4, converted to black and white in Photoshop CS5 and the grain was added in Silver Efex Pro2 using the Kodak Tri X400 film preset.

Whilst writing this entry I remembered a great line in a Morecambe and Wise sketch from many years ago with the conductor Andre Previn, in which Eric Morecambe was trying to play a piece of Grieg’s Piano Concerto.

Andre Previn said to Eric –
“You are playing all the wrong notes”
to which Eric famously replied –
“I’m playing all the right notes, not necessarily in the right order!”

So until the next leg of the walk, I hope you enjoyed the last one and if you have never seen this wonderfully funny sketch before, then here it is. The section of the sketch referred to above starts at around 10 minutes.

Entries for Open Exhibition – will any be selected?

In about six weeks time my local camera club will be staging its 43rd annual exhibition and in seven days time I will know which of my entries have been selected for display. In essence there are two sections. Firstly one for members only and second an open section for anyone outside of the club who wishes to enter.

I would hope that there would be a reasonable chance that some of my submissions for the members only category will be on show come the 23rd of November when the exhibition is opened to the public. The open section is more of a lottery as I will up against some very capable and experienced photographers. I have chosen four images for each section and my fate is in the hands of the judges who will consider all the entries next Saturday the 19th October. Last year I went along to witness the judging process and I plan to be there again next weekend.

It’s nerve wracking when your own photograph is displayed and rarely do the judges take long to mark the picture out of five. With three judges the maximum mark is fifteen. Twelve or more marks are likely to be needed to secure an entry.

The four images I selected for the open section are:-

…..and the four images for the members section are:-

Trying to decide which photograph went in to which category was quite a challenge in itself but having made up my mind and completed the entry form, I now have to see which ones are selected. With a little good fortune I would like to think that I might get one in the open section, but the standard is very high and whilst my work does well in club competitions I simply do not know how well it will do when competing against some the best images in the country. Well we shall see. Not long to wait now!

All of these images are on my own website – www.alanfrostphotography.co.uk

The First Reading on Sunday

As much as I enjoy taking candid photographs of people I haven’t taken many of late but I really couldn’t resist this shot of a vicar reading the Sunday Times prior to breakfast a few weeks ago. I was staying in a very comfortable hotel in Winchester. As I waited in the lounge for the first meal of the day to be served I was joined by a vicar and his wife and they sat down and started to read the newspapers. Not sure why I had taken my camera with me for breakfast but I am glad I did.

First Reading on a Sunday

For most of the summer I have largely concentrated on landscapes. Perhaps in the future I will spend a little more time taking shots like this one.

Experimentation and still time for tea!

Although I still have a number of images to process from my walk along the South Downs Way last month, there is always time for a little photographic experimentation and a cup of tea!

Last weekend my wife and I visited Pallant House Gallery in Chichester. It’s a place we have been to before and having looked at the excellent variety of artwork on display, followed by a visit to the well stocked book shop, there was still time for a cup of tea.

Table and chairs

It was just warm enough to sit outside but the vast majority of tables were empty. Summer over and Autumn just round the corner some leaves were already falling from the trees. I didn’t have a camera with me, other than my iPhone which can of course produce some good results. Many months ago I had downloaded the Flickr App, but never used its camera or choice of effects. I started to have a ‘play’ as I was drawn to the table a chairs close to where we were sitting. The ‘noir’ effect looked good to me as it seemed to capture something about the emptiness of the place and the onset of Autumn.

No other processing has been applied which is in complete contrast to the work I have been doing recently. I quite like the result and will probably take more shots using the Flickr App in the future.

Designing a new home page for my website.

When I first designed my website – alanfrostphotography.co.uk I was very happy with most of the pages but the home page itself didn’t inspire me. I felt it needed a more contemporary look, and something which would more closely depict my black and white approach to photography. I also wanted it to be easier to navigate, so that anyone visiting the site could quickly get to a particular page.

So this past weekend I set about a re-design and here is the result.

20130929-Screen Shot 2013-09-29 at 17.53.54.jpg

It still retains the traditional menu at the top but now each of the titled boxes link directly to the relevant page of the site. The original home page only showed one image unless you waited for the carousel to kick in, but by then my guess is that any visitors had either moved on to another page or left my site altogether, which is much worse!

I am pleased with the result and if offers scope to update the home page when I add new pages to the site itself.