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NeilClasper

Tag Archives: black and white

Social distancing: end of week 4

18 Saturday Apr 2020

Posted by Neil Clasper in Diversions

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back garden, black and white, ferns

Black and white fern
A grey day and not much else to do but photograph in the back garden in between half-hearted attempts to tidy and clean the house. We are self-isolating and a day with no real commitments is something of a relief between weeks of juggling work and homeschooling.

Attention is disproportionately focused on deliveries at the moment: what will come to the door today, as we rely on delivery services for food and partly entertain ourselves in a splurge of online consumerism (or attempt to stimulate the economy, I tell myself). This week brought the iMac I’ve been promising myself for some time, a bike tyre, and the new Four Tet record. We hope Ocado will deliver this evening, having given up on Sainsbury’s; sometime in the next week or so we should have some more plants delivered to fill up the borders of the garden (it doesn’t take much in a garden the size of ours). I will probably crack and order a record from Sounds of the Universe or similar, given that it’s virtual Record Store Day.

These ferns grow in the corner of the garden that gets virtually no light; I love the contrast you get between the new bright green leaves and the previous years’ growth.

Black and white fernBlack and white fern

Back garden poppies

04 Saturday Aug 2018

Posted by Neil Clasper in Diversions, Photography

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back garden, black and white, Fuji XT20, Fujifilm, macro, monochrome, poppies

Nice light on a summer’s morning in my back garden. I should probably have deadheaded these weeks ago but have been holding off in order to dissect the heads and show my daughter the seeds, something I have a vague memory of doing as a child myself.

I enjoyed shooting these but was a bit discomfited by how many shots I had to discard due to camera shake: either it’s the increased camera resolution, or I can’t hold the camera as still for macro shots as I used to be able to. Of course, I could have just been not so lazy and taken the short walk back into the house to get the tripod…

Grainger Market, Newcastle-upon-Tyne – Christmas Eve 2017

24 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by Neil Clasper in Photography

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black and white, Fuji XT20, granger market, monochrome, Newcastle

The Grainger Market in Newcastle, winding down for Christmas. I hadn’t been in for 10+ years: nice to see a good mixture of old-fashioned, practical shops mixed with some newer borderline-hipster offerings; deeply depressing to see the foodbank and be reminded of where we are as a country at the end of 2017.

‘Yobs’, Lewisham; November 2017

16 Thursday Nov 2017

Posted by Neil Clasper in Diversions, London, Photography

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black and white, graffiti, Lewisham, monochrome, south east London, street art, yobs


Spotted in the bridge under the railway line by Lewisham station, this struck me as quite an old-fashioned approach to graffiti these days. More like something from a 70’s British photobook than the developer-approved street art of 2017 London.

Canary Wharf station entrance; October 2016

06 Thursday Oct 2016

Posted by Neil Clasper in London, Photography

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black and white, Canary Wharf, escalators, iPhone, monochrome, Tube station

Canary Wharf Tube Station Entrance

Shot on my iPhone, processed with Snapseed iOS app. A walking-from-cash-machine-back-to-the-office snap.

East Greenwich and East London skyline; Jan 2010 & October 2016

05 Wednesday Oct 2016

Posted by Neil Clasper in London, Photography

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black and white, Charlton Road, East London, Fuji XT10, Greenwich Peninsula, london, monochrome, Skyline

Click images for full-size

EastGreenwichEastLondonCharltonRoad

Shot from Charlton Road, overlooking the A102 Blackwall Tunnel approach. The Olympic Stadium is already staring to disappear behind new developments (view full-size, squint and you might see the top of it just to the left of the Orbit). At some point I guess we can expect the Millennium Dome to get similarly obscured.

Here’s a similar view from 2010:

No buildings on the Peninsula between Dome and Greenwich Millennium Village, no cable  car, no sign of the Olympic developments. I just wish the 2010 shot included the “eco” Sainsbury’s which has since been demolished (unthinkable at the time).

Putting this together tells me I should a) get a long lens for my Fuji, b) take these more often (and catalogue them better in my archives).

À Lille, pour le Weekend; July 2016

31 Sunday Jul 2016

Posted by Neil Clasper in Diversions, Photography

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black and white, bnw, eurostar, France, Fuji XT10, holiday, lille, monochrome, photography, travel

untitled-45untitled-44 untitled-52  untitled-48untitled-49untitled-51 untitled-50   untitled-46 untitled-43

A great weekend in Lille, travelling  by Eurostar from Ebbsfleet International (about which I could get quite evangelical – for its convenience, if not its glamour and sophistication: the train left Lille Europe at 17.36 local time on the way home and we got into our house in SE7 at 18.20).

I visited France a lot as a child and – a bit like with camping the previous weekend  – couldn’t imagine at the time that I wouldn’t do so regularly forever, but then through my 20’s and 30’s hardly went at all. It felt good to be back there, and to see my daughter discover Orangina, waffles, pain au chocolat, and all those things that are readily available in London but somehow much better in France. Paris next year, I think.

Bracken; July 2016

26 Tuesday Jul 2016

Posted by Neil Clasper in Photography

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black and white, bracken, ferns, Fuji XT10, monochrome

untitled-34untitled-33untitled-32

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I’ll win no prizes for composition with these shorts (nor probably for depth-of-field control), but I’m very much enjoying what I can do with the Fuji X-T10 with a 35mm f1.4 lens on the front.

These shots from an excellent camping trip to a pine forest somewhere outside Battle in East Sussex this weekend just gone.

Down by the river: Greenhithe waterfront; April 2016

30 Saturday Apr 2016

Posted by Neil Clasper in Down by the river

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black and white, dartford bridge, Fuji X100T, Greenhithe, monochrome, River, silver efex pro, Thames

A quick Sunday morning look at the Thames as it goes past Greenhithe.

Natural History Museum, Oxford; February 2016

16 Tuesday Feb 2016

Posted by Neil Clasper in Photography

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black and white, iPhone, monochrom conversion, natural history museum, oxford, Snapseed, whale jaw

 
    

All shot on an iPhone 6s+, then processed in Snapseed iOS app. Here follows the magic formula* for B&W conversion in Snapseed:

  1. Contrast +10%
  2. Drama +20% (don’t be put off when you open this filter and find it defaulted to a deeply unpleasant 90%)
  3. Convert to Black & White: ‘Neutral’
  4. Apply a colour filter in the Black & White conversion filter, to taste
  5. Warmth +8%
  6. Vignette: to taste, depending how cluttered your corners are
  7. Frame: whatever (but here’s something I have learnt: the more film-like the frame I use, the more I regret it later).

*Not a magic formula, obviously; but a useful shortcut, hopefully. All values above approximate.

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