monochrome | alan frost photography

Posts from the ‘monochrome’ category

Gun Wharf Quay and Spinnaker Tower

Last Friday was a significant day for me. Earlier in the year I had agreed with my business partners that as from the 1st October I would reduce the numbers of days I work each week, from five to four days, electing to take Friday as my day off. The 5th October was therefore the first Friday I didn’t go into work, which left me free to do something completely different to what I would normally do on that day of the week. I decided to head on down to Portsmouth and Gun Wharf Quay in particular, to take a few shots of Spinnaker Tower and its immediate surroundings. It was good fun, I didn’t go inside any of the shops although I was questioned by a security officer who must have assumed I worked for a terrorist organisation! I can’t blame him for questioning me, he was only doing his job. In fact once we got talking he was quite interested and liked some of the shots I had taken.

Here are selection of the images, all taken with the Olympus EM5 and as is usually the case with my workflow, imported into Lightroom and converted into Black and White with Silver Efex Pro2.

Spinnaker Tower – an unusual but symmetrical approach to this very tall structure
12mm f10 1/500 ISO200

Spinnaker Tower looking across the harbour – a much more traditional approach
12mm f13 1/320 ISO200

A statue near the entrance to the Historic Dockyard with the tower in the background
45mm f3.5 1/4000 ISO200

A Ship’s Head again with the tower in the background
45mm f4 1/4000 ISO200

The rigging of the ‘Old Warrior’ ship – part of the Historic Dockyard
45mm f4.5 1/3200

A view across Portsmouth Harbour
45 f6.3 1/500 ISO200

The ‘Ship Leopard’ pub now closed down
45mm f4 1/1000 ISO200

The pedestrian walkway leading to Gun Wharf Quay and its shops
12mm f13 1/8 ISO200

A Busker in Gun Wharf, fiddling for a drink perhaps?
78mm f5 1/1000 ISO 200

An old dockyard crane in front of No. 1 Apartment Block
67mm f6.3 1/800 ISO200

Another unusual angle looking up at Spinnaker Tower
12mm f10 1/500 ISO200

HAPPY FRIDAYS!

The Characters of the Goodwood Revival Meeting

There are two major elements to the Goodwood Revival Meeting. Firstly the wonderful machinery (the cars, the aircraft and the motor bikes) and secondly the people who attend and frankly make this event what it is today. In the past I have concentrated on the former but this year I decided that I would work harder to capture images of the characters, their outfits and through them the spirit of the event itself.

In an earlier blog entry I made it clear that all my images this year would be in ‘black and white’ and through this medium I think the mood of the event is further enhanced.

With one exception all the photographs have been taken using the Olympus EM5, imported into Lightroom and converted into black and white using Silver Efex Pro.

The Rocker
Olympus EM5 45mm f2 1/1250 ISO 200

The Bike Mechanic
Olympus EM5 12mm f2 1/500 ISO 200

The Artist
Olympus EM5 20mm f2.5 1/20 ISO 200

An Artist drawing one of the Silver Arrows

I later found out that the artist in the above photo is Stefan Marjoram. He is both a professional artist and a photographer specialising in motor sport. In my opinion he produces some wonderful work. His photographic work can be found here and his drawings here. He has a specific blog entry for his drawings of The Silver Arrows, which includes the very drawing he is working on in this image.

The Pilot and the moustache
Olympus EM5 45mm f2.2 1/1600 ISO 200

The Kenwood Shop Assistant
Olympus EM5 20mm f4.5 1/80 ISO 200

The Car Salesman
Olympus EM5 20mm f1.8 1/125 ISO 200

The Couple
Olympus EM5 20mm f2.5 1/800 ISO 200

The Cleaner
Olympus EM5 20mm f2 1/800 ISO 200

The Lady and the bike
Olympus EM5 20mm f2.2 1/800 ISO 200

The American Biker
Olympus EM5 45mm f2 1/1250 ISO 400

The Lady in the bike shed
Olympus EM5 45mm f2 1/640 ISO 200

The Lady and The ‘Spiv’
Nikon D90 70-300mm @ 116mm f5 1/320 ISO 200

New club season underway

Earlier this week the first club competition took place at my local camera club in Havant. After a successful season last year when I was promoted to the ‘A’ league for both the print and projected image (PI) competitions. I was now be up against the ‘big’ boys and ladies of course! Our club is in the 1st division of the Southern Photographic Federation (SPF) for both prints and PI’s, so the standard is pretty high.

Much to my amazement, one of my two entries scored 10 out of 10 and is shown below. My grateful thanks to Derek Trendell ARPS, for getting the season off to a great start! The image entitled ‘Ride along the prom’ is shown below.

‘Ride along the prom’

My other entry was again black and white and called ‘Contemplation’. It scored 8.5 so I was very satisfied with the combined result. I am sure as the season progresses I will not have the same good fortune. During the season there are four competitons for both prints and PI’s, so a total of 8 submissions in each category. At the end of the season the best six scores are counted. At the very first meeting I attended a couple of years ago, I was told how difficult it was to select images for competitions, as all judges adopt a slightly different approach. They do all require a technically competent photograph, well composed with no blown highlights and reasonable detail in the shadows. The rest is somewhat subjective and what might grab the attention of one judge could easily be discarded by another. So the job of trying to decide which images to enter, gets harder and harder in the quest for a good score. I do like the competitive element but for some it may drive their photography down a certain path, which may not necessarily be a good thing. Right here and now it works for me but I might change my opinion in the future.

‘Contemplation’

I was also very pleased to learn that two of the photographs I had submitted for the SPF Exhibition were selected to be shown at the beginning of next year.The venue for the exhibition is Salisbury Library and starts on the 5th January and runs until the 26th January. There is a preview evening on Friday 4th January. Its a long way to go but it would be fun to be there on the opening night. More details of the SPF Exhibition here.

The two images which were selected are ‘Sand Waves’ and ‘Sea Swirl’ – both shown below.

‘Sand Waves’

‘Sea Swirl’

I don’t wish to brag, but ‘Sand Waves’ did rather well last season, as it won me ‘PI of the Year’. It came as quite a shock when it was chosen as I don’t remember winning any trophies before. It really was quite embarrasing to walk out of the hall clutching four of them! For the record here they are.

Unfortunately they will all need a good polish when this season comes to an end!

The Silver Arrows at the Goodwood Revival Meeting

1934 heralded the arrival of the Mercedes and Auto Union to GrandPrix motor racing. It was a wonderful era and these two makes affectionately known as ‘The Silver Arrows’ dominated top level racing. A year later in 1935 they made their UK appearance at Donnington. 75 years on and to mark this anniversary the 2012 Goodwood Revival Meeting brought this famous racers together once more.

The attention to detail at this annual event is so special that the cars were housed in an authentic recreation of the pits at the Bremgarten circuit which staged the Swiss Grand Prix in 1938.

As well as recording these magnificant cars in camera, there was an artist doing a superb pencil drawing of one the Auto Union racers.

All the photos were taken using an Olympus EM5, imported into Lightroom and converted into black and white using Silver Efex Pro.

The Silver Arrows lined up in the pits
Olympus EM5 12mm 1/320 f9 ISO 400

An Auto Union Silver Arrow with the ‘artist’ in the background
Olympus EM5 20mm 1/60 f2.8 ISO 200

The artist and a superb pencil drawing
Olympus EM5 20mm 1/20 f2.5 ISO 200

An Auto Union being rolled out for action
Olympus EM5 45mm 1/500 f3.5 ISO 400

An Auto Union - one of The Silver Arrows

Magnificent machines all in a row. An extraordinary sight
Olympus EM5 45mm 1/60 f16 ISO 400

This is the first entry about the Goodwood Revival Meeting. When time permits more will follow.

Goodwood Revival Meeting this weekend

It’s mid September so once again its time for the Goodwood Revial Meeting which starts tomorrow and finishes on Sunday. I have photographed this event in the past, so on this occassion I shall be concentrating on capturing the historic ‘vintage’ flavour of the event. Black and white will be the order of the day and I shall be exploring new areas of the circuit and of course people watching. I will be there for two out of the three days, so the Olympus OMD memory card could be quite full by the time the last chequered flag is waved on Sunday. I will post a selection of images in the weeks to come, but in the meantime here is the Ferrari 250 GTO taken in 2010.