autofantasia's photos with the keyword: Parish

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.

So, decided to try bracketing on my Nikon D90 today with a view to trying HDR for the first time. This is the first attempt and I was a little disappointed with it as I felt the need to tweak it somewhat which I'd not expected would be necessary. Also, If it's a windy day and there are clouds in your shot ... be quick taking your set of photos otherwise they're extremely difficult to align!

An alternative version of Something Wicked , which was my entry for the recent Sunday Challenge when the theme was numbers . This time with a bit of selective colouring on the clock face. I think this still works, but I preferred the completely mono version I ended up using. The original image is in the Notes (top left corner).

This week The Sunday Challenge had the theme of numbers: as simple as that . As long as the shot contained at least one number then pretty much anything went and you could process it (or not as the case may be) in whatever way you wanted. I did have a few shots in the archives that I thought about using, but in the end I decided to take some new shots and eventually decided to use one of All Saints Parish Church in Northallerton. This rather impressive looking old building can be found a few hundred yards away from the main High Street and occupies a corner plot offering up many opportunities for taking photos. The original image is in the Notes (top left corner), but as you'll see I've done some processing on it since it came out of the camera. Although it was taken around midday, I decided to convert it to greyscale/mono to create a slightly more sinister feel as if it were actually coming up to midnight and the witching hour, hence the title.