Shot on iPhone…

Posted on November 7, 2023 by Guthlac

Over the past few days a small but interesting corner of the Internet has slowly been consuming its own babies over whether recent Apple event which was ‘shot on iPhone‘ was actually ‘shot on iPhone‘. This is so ridiculous but the argument boils down to whether using top end professional camera tools with a iPhone 15 Pro Max constitutes the title…Sometime you just have to smile at the time people will waste going down a deeper and deeper rabbit hole. The good thing is that as far as Internet rabbit holes are concerned this is one of the more harmless.

So what has this is to do with me? Nothing other than the following images were ‘shot on iPhone‘. Equally, no industrial level equipment was used to capture the image, that is if I don’t count as ‘industrial‘…some days I’m not sure what I count as.

So what is the point of all this you may well ask? Well I have been testing the photographs I can make from the images I have captured using an iPhone 13. These are some of the results. What have I learnt? Firstly, use the Adobe Lightroom camera app – the only way I have found to extract ‘RAW’ images from the 13. Secondly just stick to the prime lenses and don’t touch the zoom. The phone only captures 12 MP images so anything that destroys image quality is to be avoided. The third is do not, I repeat, do not try to create the image on the phone using the Lightroom App. Perhaps if you have young eyes it might be different but for me I need as much real estate as possible to get things the way I want them and even then not always.

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A Lovely Dawn…

Posted on November 6, 2023 by Guthlac

One of the joys (?) of the clocks being turned back is that you don’t have to get up at a silly hour to capture a cold sunny dawn. There was a time I would be found driving miles across country to capture the sunrise over the sea. Nowadays I’m not so keen.

One of the joys of being up and moving at dawn is that you get to see and hear things that later on in the day just don’t happen. This morning I discovered that we have at least one pair of Ravens here in Leicestershire. Now, as the Raven flies, it is only Leicestershire by a beaks length but it is Leicestershire nonetheless. There they were circling about my head and calling out with a call that once heard is never forgotten. They are a magnificent bird but as I didn’t have my long lens with me I didn’t capture any images. Still can’t complain.

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What Was he Thinking?….

Posted on November 4, 2023 by Guthlac

If I find the whole ‘..when Rishi met Elon…’ nonsense just that then what must the archetypical Conservative party member, let alone his fellow Conservative MPs, think? I think it is time that some one reminded our Head Boy that he is actually the leader of a country that could comfortably bring about the end of life as we know it. Perhaps he should start to act like that – he is not at Winchester school anymore. I know Elon is all shiny and rich but Rishi would do well to listen to the wise words of Frank Underwood…

The more this nonsense carries on the more I think Rishi, whom I’m sure is a very decent man, is going to be the final jenga block in the collapse of the Conservative party as a credible political force. Yes I know argument: even if they lose the next election they will lick their wounds and come back stronger. Unfortunately, I suspect there are much stronger forces at work this time that will pull what is left of the once mighty ‘…party of government…’ apart.

I’ll leave you with this chilling thought. Should the Conservative party get a real good kicking at the next election then they’ll be looking for a new leader, Rishi Sunak is more than likely going to lose his seat in these circumstances. Probably the last ‘ Big Beast‘ of the Conservative Party left in parliament would be Liz Truss…need I say more?

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You Look Like….

Posted on November 3, 2023 by Guthlac

I love capturing images with my phone but please don’t believe the hype when push comes to shove an iPhone really does have its limits.

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Damp Toes….

Posted on November 2, 2023 by Guthlac

So the plan was to get out and capture few images in the neighbourhood before Storm Ciaran arrived. The images were going to reflect the very damp nature of things at the moment and perhaps maybe also capture some rich decaying autumnal colour. That was the plan and to a degree it came together. Unfortunately, I also discovered the limitations of my new walking boots. It seems that no matter how waterproof your boots might be if you step in a puddle that is deeper than the top of the boots then your foot is going to get wet. I guess that’s physics for you!

So I had to beat a damp retreat (luckily it was only one foot) but still managed got some images.

Storm Ciaran is now having a good puff outside but nothing compared to what the winds are like along the south coast which thankfully is the our lot. We live just about as far as you can from the sea in Britain which usually removes some or most of the ferocity of any passing storm. So it rains but never too much; It snows but not too deep. The only problem being so far from the sea, by British standards, is that during the summer heat waves don’t have cooling breezes blowing in from the sea so can get a bit sticky.

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Young at Heart….

Posted on November 1, 2023 by Guthlac

There is a point where the World Wide Web just can’t do justice to an image and three of these image proves that point. They contain so much detail that you need to look at them really closely. Unfortunately that detail is not discernible in such small files even when I have given them just a bit more data.

All three images take in vistas from the top of western Charnwood hills. The first image is of the Trent Valley, the second of the Soar Valley and third is the view across to the Malvern Hills the other side of Birmingham.

The last image dosn’t suffer from such problems.

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Lamplight from your Window…

Posted on October 30, 2023 by Guthlac

Make the most whilst the sun is here. I was out this morning walking a very old road Fosse Way. It was first established back in the 50’s CE which means it is almost 2000 years old. There are some suggestions that the Romans may just have reused a much older trackway. I have no idea whether this is true but by any standards it is old.

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And the Walls Kept Tumbling Down…

Posted on October 28, 2023 by Guthlac

Standing at the top of the ridge upon which Knaptoft stands you did get a feeling that you are looking out on a very green and pleasant land. This is of course is true right upto the point it is not. It also appears that the whole of the Soar valley is wooded. Again, true in parts. What was very clear was that it was lovely autumnal afternoon and just for a moment it felt that everything was right with the world. Surely you can forgive me my small delusion.

Glen Williams

My partner in crime has been able to put a name to the artist I couldn’t find in my previous blog – Glen Williams. He does have a website but it clearly isn’t updated that much. If you want a better feel for his work, including a number of paintings that were exhibition at Huddersfield, then the better link is this.

I guess the reason I found the work so emotive was because it reminded me of the life I lead growing up in a pit (coal) village. Of course that way of life has now gone to be replaced by commuting into Birmingham. I know only visit the village occasionally and it just isn’t the same place. Life moves on and that is the story of the village which has been mining coal for the best part of two millenium, unlike many of the pit villages in West Yorkshire which sprung up because of a deep mine being sunk, and so has experience of moving on .

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Aging Rock Star…

Posted on October 27, 2023 by Guthlac

One of the many signs that age is catching up on you is when you visit a statue that memorialise something or someone from your formative period and you appear to be the only one who notices. Yesterday we visited Huddersfield to view the Contemporary British Painting Prize 2003 and whilst there I wanted to visit the Harold Wilson statue. It was a damp day which added to the cragy splendor of the statue and yet we were the only people paying any attention to a statue to one of the greats of 20th century British politics. The people walking by didn’t care and I suspect for many of them he meant nothing.

I won’t dwell on the exhibition we came to see at the Temporary Contemporary Gallery because my travelling companion David Manley will be more eloquent and informed in his review on his blog.

There was another small exhibition, well at least I think it was but I forgot to take a photo of the introduction so I can’t say for definite. I have tried to find out the name of the artist from the gallery website and well the site, such as it is, appalling with little or no information. This is such a shame but there we are.

Huddersfield town centre is really quite small but packed with excellent Victorian or Edwardian architecture. Unfortunately, it is a town that appears to have seen better times and whilst the local council is really trying its best the place does have sense of decline. It is no wonder that many of the so called ‘Red Wall‘ parliamentary constituencies are scattered around the area – central government has over the years slowly disemboweled local government and given them little or no chance of trying to make things better. Hopefully, things might improve should we get a change of government next year.

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All So Autumnal…

Posted on October 25, 2023 by Guthlac

So autumn is starting to catch up. The storms of the past few days appear to have blown the last embers of summer out and we are slowly cooling off, but not as quickly as we probably should do.

A nice afternoon found me meandering around the byways of Gartree once more. This is third of these projects I have undertaken and this one is the first where I have deployed the data I have at hand, the mapping facility in Lightroom, to try and map out where to go next. David, my erstwhile partner in crime, has also started to map out his canvases that will one day be the paintings inspired by our travels.

We humble photographers, in contrast, have to put in the hard physical miles to capture our images compared to painters inspirational travels – hence solo trips. (I know – what a hardship!)

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