Pine trees on the coast of NW England.
There's always an on-shore wind from the west in this part of England and the trees that survive the frequent gales all grow with their branches facing inland, away from the prevailing wind.
Like what you see here and are interested in photographic composition?.....the blog section of my website now has a complete set of 5 articles covering my personal approach to the subject: Ian Bramham Photography - Blog
For purchasing high quality archival prints of any of these photos you can send me an email by clicking here or by going to my website Ian Bramham - Fine Art Photography where prices are listed in the gallery sections under each individual photo.
@Pavan Kaul: Thanks Pavan!....I was trying to get an image with a full range of tones in it but without blowing the detail in the whites. If you open up the photo in Photoshop and crop off the white border you should see that the sand stops just short of the 255 white clipping point on a histogram. Controling the white point is an aspect of photo post processing that I'm still struggling a bit with and I'm also aware that not everybodys computer screen will show the same degree of contrast and highlight. I'm considering working to a lower clipping point of, say 250 instead for this reason.
@Stephen Phillips: Thanks very much Stephen!
@Ann: Thanks for that Ann!....I think I could spend the rest of my life trying to learn about B&W photography and still be experimenting with it.
@lux: Thanks very much!
@John Leech: Thanks very much for that John.....it's just the kind of thing I needed. I did play around with the sky quite a bit as I realised that the tops of those two trees at the front were a potential problem with the sky. Just like you mentioned I went round in circles with the processing of a number of the photos in this set as there's so many ways of approaching the B&W conversion from colour.....just look at the difference between these two versions of the same photo (again from the same area): http://www.flickr.com/photos/ianbramham/3943930879/sizes/o/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/ianbramham/3913190741/sizes/o/
@elena: Thanks Elena!
@john4jack: Thanks Jack!
@Viewfinder: Thanks Glenn!
@Mags: Thanks Mags!
@Paolo: Thanks Paolo.....that's the highest compliment you could anyone whose interested in B&W photography.
@Anne: Thanks very much Anne. There's so much to learn about in B&W photography isn't there!....I've been practicising hard with it for over 2 years now and there's still so much to learn (I haven't even studied Ansel's zone system yet). I'm pleased that you thought the calibration was okay - I've been trying to keep my whites just below 255 on my recent B&W photos but I will often let areas of the black go completely black.
@JannuD: Thanks Jannu!
@Mike: Hi Mike!....yes, I agree that photos either work or they don't and that good composition, interesting light and a great subject form the core elements of any photo but with my recent B&W photos I've also been trying to get a full range of tones from white to black and also to balance them in a way that compliments the subject of the photo. It all adds an extra layer of complexity to something that I never used to give a lot of thought to.
@Pavan Kaul: I'm very envious of your new camera Pavan!....from your last photo it also looks like you've got a lovely lens to go with it - it's the 70-200 f2.8 I presume?
@Luca Bobbiesi: Thanks Luca!
NIKON D40
1/160 second
F/11.0
ISO 200
42 mm (35mm equiv.)