Photowalk 37 - Fort Brockhurst

Sometimes Photography can be an almost Zen like experience. Just walking, looking, pausing and shooting. Focusing on the moment, trying to see the details and not the whole thing.

My photowalk today was like that. It was mid-morning on a brightish day, so I knew landscapes were out of the question, it was time to get close and go for the small things.

Watching Taken With Fujifilm S5700,, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/500th, ISO 64, Focal Length 25mm, Hand-held

The above is a close-up of the bunker that sits in front of Fort Brockhurst, built in 1940 in case Tiger Tanks came trundling up the A32... Makes you wonder who thought it would be a good idea to put troops with a couple of machine-guns inside a 12ft square concrete box when there's a bloody great Fort, complete with earth defences, moat, covered gun emplacements and a field of fire across the whole area about 50 yards away....

Ballancing Taken With Fujifilm S5700,, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/1000th, ISO 64, Focal Length 10mm, Hand-held

I've noticed then if I'm using the "multi" photometry mode on my S5700 that it's best to knock the exposure compensation down slightly, to prevent the "blinkies" popping up too often. I've got into the habit now of reviewing the histogram after every shot I take, to make sure it isn't overexposed or blown-out in portions.

I also set the colour mode to "Fuji-Chrome" to saturate the colours more without having to do it in post processing.

Pointing Taken With Fujifilm S5700,, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/450th, ISO 64, Focal Length 39mm, Hand-held

I've been pretty aggressive in post-processing in most of these shots, using my favourite levels / hue / levels adjustment layers combination, stripping out the colour, playing with the darkness of the different colour channels, then adjusting the levels and their blend modes to complete the effect.

The bricks of Fort Brockhurst are very red - great for b & w conversions. Seeing the detail in the brickwork makes me think about what great craftsman those Victorian brickies must have been - plus there must be a million bricks in the whole structure!

Reclaiming Taken With Fujifilm S5700,, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/680th, ISO 64, Focal Length 50mm, Hand-held

I tried to keep my ISO low, between 64 & 100 to keep the quality up, but that meant I was shooting wide open (f3.5) to avoid camera shake - It would be interesting to use a tripod with some of these scenes and try a middle aperture, say 6.8, to see if I could get them a bit sharper.

Peeping Taken With Fujifilm S5700,, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/800th, ISO 100, Focal Length 63mm, Hand-held

OK, its a Pigeon, but I thought he looked quite relaxed sitting in the Gun-Port.

Climbing Taken With Fujifilm S5700,, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/140th, ISO 200, Focal Length 21mm, Hand-held

I have to apologise for the titles I've used. Eventually I get a bit of "title burn-out" and can't think of much to say. I'll soon been slipping into just leaving them numbered by the camera...

Rippling Taken With Fujifilm S5700,, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/250th, ISO 64, Focal Length 12mm, Hand-held

Hmmm. A few problems with this one. The auto-focus on my camera had a bit of trouble locking onto the water, and I've made it a bit too noisy by pushing the colours too hard in Photoshop Elements. I like the crop though.

Hiding Taken With Fujifilm S5700,, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/150th, ISO 200, Focal Length 59mm, Hand-held

I watched an episode of Photoshop User TV last night, and one of the tutorials was a real simple Infra-Red B&W treatment, so I gave it a spin on this shot.

What I did was apply a hue / saturation adjustment layer, stripped the master saturation down to 0, but then lightened the green and yellow channels. Then I duplicated the background layer, applied a gaussian blur, changed it's blend mode to overlay and turned the opacity down. To complete the effect I added some noise, gaussian, monochromatic. It sorta works, but the problem was that the shot was a bit blurred to start off with. Next time...

Reflecting Taken With Fujifilm S5700,, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/240th, ISO 64, Focal Length 63mm, Hand-held

I'm sorry if this has all got a bit arty on this Photowalk, but I was just so relaxed as I was walking around the moat, I just shot any shapes or forms that caught my eye.

Staring Taken With Fujifilm S5700,, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/480th, ISO 100, Focal Length 9mm, Hand-held

Can you see the pigeon?!!

Protecting Taken With Fujifilm S5700,, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/320th, ISO 100, Focal Length 11mm, Hand-held

This door is actually a light green colour, but by dragging its lightness down in the hue / saturation adjustment layer in Photoshop Elements, you get make it any shade of grey you like.

Sinking Taken With Fujifilm S5700,, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/170th, ISO 100, Focal Length 11mm, Hand-held

Man, this makes me sick. The Fort and its moat are a haven for wildlife, yet people use it as a f&*king dumping ground.

Exciting Taken With Fujifilm S5700,, Aperture Priority, F3.5, 1/300th, ISO 64, Focal Length 37mm, Hand-held

Not a very exciting shot I know, but I love it the way loads of Street Names in Gosport have stories behind them, this being an obvious one. One of my favourites is "Weevil Lane", supposedly named after the grubs that would drop out of the rations as they were on their way to the Royal Navy Ships....


I really enjoyed this Photowalk. The exercise invigorated me, it was good to walk around the Fort again, and I loved just concentrating capturing the details, it gave me a great sense of fulfilment after I'd uploaded to Flickr. Zen!

Thanks, Rob.

PS, A note on camera exif data. Being a bridge camera, my S5700 has a crop factor because the sensor is a lot smaller than on a dSLR, so when you're looking at the focal lengths bear in mind that the S5700 has a focal length range of 6-63mm, which is the equivalent of 38-380mm in a 35mm dSLR. Also the aperture and shutter speeds given are approximate, as for some reason sometimes they're different in the PC exif data than what I actually took, but its usually just the next step up or down.

Comments

[Victor]

Hi Rob,

I mentioned before, your work has a really nice 'polished' feel to it recently and is a pleasure to view.
I noticed the 'history' for your image of 'Watching' on your flickr comments and it somehow made the image even more appealing. Just had to come back here and read the photowalk story!
It made me think about 'relationships' with photographs, in as far as what it is, where it is, how it was done. This used to be a common occurence in photography of 'yesteryear' and often included the year of capture. I don't suppose a photograph viewed in 1969, taken and marked as 1968 made much difference then, but it certainly does in 2008 and especially if what it is and where, was recorded. That's the appeal I've found with your photography as well as the excellent capture - date, what, where and how.
Well, it has definately inspired me to record items such as these on my final prints.

That also made me think about your description of 'title burn-out' and how I've suffered the same problem. But you're titling works even in the simplest way - 'Sinking', both visually and emotionally descriptive - 'Protecting' gave me exactly the same feeling, as well as 'Watching'.

So sorry, I've 'waffled' on a bit, but just wanted to say thank you, very inspirational.

Regards

Victor

[Rob_Nunn]

Hi Victor,

Thanks for your excellent comments, much appreciated. I think I'm starting to understand the limits of exposure a lot more, framing, composing, etc, and a lot of that comes from using the Film SLR's and also thinking "make this right enough to sell" (not that any have!) before I press the shutter.

I enjoy learning about History, I guess it comes from where I live and my upbringing (Dad in Royal Navy), but sometimes I think that photo's by themselves don't tell enough of the story - you don't get the complete picture.

I'm glad you think displaying the picture data is a good idea - I was not sure how useful it would be to anyone, but as you say, when you read photo books and mags they always display that sort of stuff, and it just seemed the right thing to do. (Especially as its so easily available in the EXIF data in the jpg.)

It makes me feels great that you get inspired by the blog - makes it all worth-while!

Thanks again Victor, Rob.