Photography Archives - Page 3 of 6

An Italian Side Street

Fuji X-Pro1 | XF18mm f2 Pancake Lens | Exposure f4 @ 1/125 sec. | ISO 200 | © James Gray

Propped up on its stand, an old timer bicycle waits for its owner in a cobbled side street in Mantova, Italy. Just a short drive from Verona, the home of the lovers, Romeo and Juliet. There’s history on the corner of every street in Italy. If the motorbike wasn’t in the picture, then it would be much harder to date the picture, but I took it just a couple of years ago on a Fuji X-Pro1, which was a pretty good camera for taking street photographs. This camera hardly made a sound when you take a picture, just the slightest noise.

Taken on a visit to a supplier in a nearby town, and this was from a walk about in the afternoon to chill out before flying home the next day.

Reflections

Photography

Photographed on the lobby of the apartments that form part of the El Corte Ingles complex on Av. António Augusto de Aguiar in Lisbon. A modernist design with huge plate glass windows looking out to a decorative small lake. When I took this picture, I always intended it to be in black and white, making the most of the clean symmetrical lines.

Light Trails Through Cardiff Bay

Photography

SONY A7R | Voigtlander 40mm Nokton f1.4 lens | Exposure f22 @ 8 seconds | © James Gray

Luckily for me, a bus drove past during the exposure

SONY A7R | Voigtlander 40mm Nokton f1.4 lens | Exposure f22 @ 8 seconds | © James Gray

A second exposure with more traffic passing. You never know what you’ll get when you shoot long exposures like this.

Taken on a Sony A7R, which was new to me at the time these pictures were taken in Cardiff Bay. I set up my camera onto a sturdy Manfrotto tripod and then just waited for traffic to come through. I set the exposure to be f22 at about 8 seconds to maximise the starlights.

I then post processed in CaptureOne. For the main edit, I decided to get rid of the Sainsbury’s corner shop in the bottom left corner as it didn’t seem to add much to the picture and was more of a distraction. Once I’d cropped that out, I worked through the tabs gradually reducing the colour of the sky and lightning the image to add more interest and let the starlights from the lamppost in the centre and at the back, come to life.

one advantage of working with such a small aperture (f22) is that you can see the individual lens blades. The lens I used here was a Nokton f1.4 from Voigtlander, paired with a Sony A7R was great for landscape work, especially when using a tripod, as you’ve more time to get the focus right. The Voigtlander is a completely manual lens, no autofocus here..! Old school, but works a treat when you take your time.

Editing this in Capture One to get the final images at the top…

Morrisons Petrol Station, Cardiff Bay

Photography

Morrisons, Cardiff Bay

My theme from a City & Guilds project in 2007, although the other 25 gas stations have yet to be photographed, was based on the work by Ed Ruscha. Reason for the project, as the world starts shifting to electric, then these are going to fade and disappear from collective memories.

Route 66

Edward Ruscha’s iconic 1963 artwork, “Twentysix Gasoline Stations”, was a collection of photographs taken along the famous Route 66 spanning the United States. The gas stations featured in this series represented some of the most well-known brands in the country, including Chevron and Standard Oil. Each photograph captured the classic gas station architecture of the time, from tall arches and visible gas pumps to bold lettering and clean sidewalks. These images painted a vivid portrait of Americana at its finest.

View the book by Edward Ruscha ‘Twentysix Gasoline Stations’ 1963 – the inspiration behind this project, which is featured here on the Tate Gallery.

Now, all I need to do is complete the project and continue photographing gas stations around Wales. I’ll do this, and post the images here as they get done.

Mother & Child

Photography

A black and white picture of my wife and eldest walking through one of the main parks in Lisbon, Portugal. My eldest was having issues walking and didn’t want to walk any further, not that the walk we’d been for was incredibly long. She was probably about 4 or 5 at the time and was making her feelings known!