autofantasia's photos with the keyword: windows

A belated entry for this week's Sunday Challenge , for which we were asked to produce an image that matched our idea of maximalism . This is actually 3 images combined of the glass façade of the new £53 million Ayrshire College, which opened this year and occupies the area of the town where the old Johnnie Walker factory was located. Travelling through the town last week on the way back 'home' to North Yorkshire following a family funeral this was the first time I'd seen the new building up close and I was blown away by the scale of it. The design of the main entrance incorporates so much glass that it seemed an ideal subject to shoot for the challenge. As it happens, the world famous brand of Scotch whisky owned now by Diageo actually originated in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire. It is believed to be the most widely distributed brand of blended Scotch whisky in the world, sold in almost every country, with annual sales of over 130 million bottles. Sadly, in 2009 Diageo announced that under a restructuring programme production would be moved from the brand's original home to Diageo plants in Leven, Fife, and Shieldhall, Glasgow. So in March 2012, the Johnnie Walker plant (then the largest employer in the town of Kilmarnock) closed its doors and the name joined a long list of world famous brands that had once originated from or been heavily associated with the town: names such as Massey-Harris (later Massey-Ferguson) and Saxone Shoes. We can only hope then that some of the bright young students that will pass through the doors of this most impressive looking new college will go on to develop ideas, products and businesses that will in time become equally famous and provide employment for local people because overall it has to be said my hometown needs to find a new direction. Incidentally, the old Kilmarnock College campus on Holehouse Road, which was the predecessor if you like to the huge new Ayrshire college is still there although I'm not sure what the long-term plans are for that particular site.

A little bit of fun produced for the Come Slide With Me group challenge. It's based on a shot taken inside St Laurence's church in Ludlow and shared with the group by Ann Roberts . You'll find a copy of the original image in the Notes though it has been manipulated quite a bit since then. So much so that I can't even remember how I did it or even start to think how to deconstruct it.

For this week's Sunday Challenge , which has the theme of windows . This was an optician's window display that I spotted in Harrogate, North Yorkshire. I liked the surreal nature of it with heads stuck on poles and thought that it would make an interesting image, especially with some post processing to help isolate the background clutter. The more observant among you might also note that there are some other windows caught in reflection, which I think give it a real world connection, but without making it initially too obvious what's actually going on. This is also somewhat of a departure for me in that I rarely ever use portrait orientation for my images preferring to go landscape 99.9% of the time. Anyway, I hope you like it?

So, a fun week for all involved with The Sunday Challenge , well at least for some and I include myself in that category. The theme this week was HDR (High Dynamic Range) Imagery . It's a technique that really does seem to attract quite diverse opinions as I've found out over this last week as I've posted various attempts at creating an HDR image. As it happens I've always liked HDR, at least for certain subjects and when it has been applied in a controlled and sympathetic fashion. However, it wasn't something I'd ever attempted myself until this week so as I said earlier it has been a fun week. So much so that after playing around with the trial version of Photomatix I ended up taking the plunge and buying the software outright. If nothing else it means that I can continue to experiment with the medium without having the Photomatix watermark applied to my final creations. This particular shot that I've ended up using as my main submission to TSC is actually taken inside All Saints Church in Northallerton. In the past I've taken several shots of the exterior, but this was the first time I'd ventured inside and I have to say I was most impressed by what I found. Not quite York Minster perhaps, but very attractive all the same. I just hope that my HDR take on this subject helps convey at least some of the beauty and splendour of this grand old church. By the way, this was the result of combining three RAW files: one at normal exposure, one at -1.5, and one at +1.5. You can a representation of the three base files in the Notes.

Yet another detail shot on that 5-window coupé.