Buzzards, a new sculpture in Malvern

Visited Malvern this week (bought lots of second hand books) and saw this new sculpture in Rose Bank Gardens just above Bell Vue Terrace. It was added in November to celebrate the Queen's Jubilee as the gardens were being updated. We saw the sculture from well away and I couldn't resist find what it was all about.

As a complete contrast, here is a photograph of a lilac tree after a recent small snowfall.

It wwas actually taken thru the kitchen window with a 10x zoom, when I thought I saw a small bird in the branches. It was actually a blue plastic hook from a chinese lantern which had blown away in the winter winds. I photoshopped it out. LOL

Another failed shot....................

Photographing Artwork

I am never quite able to obtain the exact colours of a painting, and for my style of painting which relies on colour to a large extent, this is a nuisance. I always try to photograph artwork in daylight but it is not infallible. Here are a few examples of the differences which I find in one piece of art.

Firstly, the image from a photograph taken at night

under light from ordinary incandescent light bulbs. 

A washed out appearance results. 

The Blue in the sky is almost grey and 

the red on the horizon has become orange,

I applied an image/adjustment selecting auto-levels from the 

menus, this made quite a difference. The blue in the sky 

was bought out quite well and the sillouettes of the trees 

were much closer to the original painting. The red on the horizon

however, was still far too orange.

I used the hue/saturation tool to try to change the redness 

of that colour on the horizon.

This now has a feel of the original painting but is just not right. Trying to place this for sale on the internet would simply not be fair to the prospective buyers. DO NOT take photographs under the wrong sort of light.

Now, let's see a photograph taken in daylight. This 

was again a very washed out image, but note the 

colours. The blue is OK and the red now looks red.

I again selected the auto-levels and this again adds

contrast to the image, but still not strong enough.

I now selected the brightness/contrast tool and reduced 

the brightness to bring back the solid sillouettes.

It now looks very close to the original painting.

I do not consider this editing to be cheating, since I am simply re-creating the atmosphere of the original painting. In my work which, as I said relies upon colour and tonal contrasts, this is absolutely vital to create the right impression of the artwork.

The issue here I think is that I took the natural daylight photo quite early  (early February) in a room close to a window and the light was probably not strong enough to give the correct tonal values. I do not have a set-up to achieve this sort of image without this minor editing, although it does produce a profound effect.

Finally, I do play with photoshop sometimes but will always say so when I do ...............

......................... smiles!

The limitations of my camera

I was in a hide (i.e. a wooden building with a smallish window) at a garden centre / farm shop this week and found myself watching a procession of wild life partaking of the fruit and veg and stale loaves which were laid in front of the hide - specifically to attract them, of course.

I had my compact camera with me but the limitations have been made painfully obvious by the images captured. The wild life was at a distance from the window and I used an optical zoom to bring them closer. The resulting images are mostly blurred, I did not have a tripod but for some used the windowsill to steady the camera. This explains the difference in degree of blur. All the photos have been heavily cropped.

  A muntjak deer, never seen one of these at this feeding ground before

 woodpecker

 deer and friend?

 thrush

 blue tit

?

I will have to make sure that if expecting this sort of outing again, I have a tripod handy in my pocket.