Choosing a welcome screen

I turned my computer on recently when someone saw my welcome screen. They told me they liked the picture and you can see it on the left. There are some icons covering it but it only affects around a fifth of the screen and there is plenty of space with no detail. That's why I chose it.

The photo on the left is Lanaster Castle and the Priory Church. When I was looking for a photo for the welcome screeen I was looking for photos with a lot of plain space and the photo on the right was also a conternder. I think for me to choose the photo on the right I would have had to create more river and get rid of the bank.

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The eye of the beholder

And finally for the Lancaster City Museum, here is a photo of the main entrance. Again I have corrected the converging verticals as I can't stand further back without getting things in the way like a Christmas tree. This way it looks like I stood further back without any of the distractions.

I started these Christmas lights blogs by saying that monochrome came out well. I think they come out well again but as with any photo, or any form of art for that matter, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

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Market Square, Lancaster

You saw the Christmas tree yesterday. Today you can see more of Market Square and Lancaster's former town hall now the city museum. It isn't too difficult to imagine this area being a market because there are often stalls in it.

Notice the CCTV. I didn't see it when I took the photo but they are everywhere. I did notice the Christmas tree which is just out of view on the right. I haven't changed these photos greatly. The main changes have been cropping and correction of converging vertialca. I didn't over-correct so they still converge a litte, but this is far more preferable than correcting too much.

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Lancaster Christmas Lights

I took these photos a few hours ago. It was quite cold so I think I'll wait for it to warm up a little before I take more photos of Christmas lights. A couple of days ago I was saying how well Christmas lights look in monochrome. This time I felt that colour was better.

You may recognise Lancaster's town hall on the left. The photo was taken from the opposite end of Dalton Square and you can also see the statue of Queen Victoria. On the right the tree is to be found in Market Square. It is very close to the old town hall, now the Lancaster City Museum.

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Eric and snow

I took these photos of Eric last week. I like statues as subjects anyway but I think the Lake District mountains in the background look particularly beautiful. Partly this because of the snow and partly because of the lighting/

Flash is really only useful when you are close to the subject but statues don't mind you getting close. I'll have to get up earlier to take the photo on the left so that the sun is falling on Eric. For the photo on the right the time of day doesn't really matter.

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More Christmas Lights

Following on from yesterday's blog, you can see that I have walked a few more yards. This is because I am dedicated to the cause of photography. I am willing to take these extra steps but it isn't the slightly different perspective that I want to show you, it is the difference that is made by changing the colour.

Sepia toning was popular in Victorian times which gave a warm red/brown colour to the photo. It was a method to fix the photo. It seems really strange to use the word fix because all we do now is press print, but we used to need chemicals to make sure that the photo remained a photo after light hit the paper from an enlarger. It sounds like ancient history now but that's what we did. Anyway, all we do now is change the colour by clicking on a variation. On the left is the typical sepia, which I think gives the photo a look of nineteenth century photography. On the right I have used cyan and if sepia is warm then cyan is cool. I am thinking Addams' family even though when I watched the television series it was definitely monochrome.

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Christmas Lights

These houses are on the main road between Lancaster and Morecambe. In fact they are close to my house but walking round the corner to the nearest house with Christmas lights is not the reason I took this photo. Alright it is.

They have now been lit well over a week but hey, bonfire night has been and gone. I know it takes some time to put lights up and there are some houses that really go to town with their lights. One house in Morecambe doesn't even have time in the year to take all the lights down and put them up again. The point about the photos is that you need a tripod. I know I like flat surfaces and the use of the camera's timer but it really does help to have a tripod. What surprised me with this photo was how good it looked in monochrome. I didn't expect that with coloured lights.

Happy snapping