The Author – Bart Busschots
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Feb
14
Photo of the Week 157 – Ennis Friary
Filed Under Photography on February 14, 2011 | Leave a Comment
This is another one of the shots I took in the ruins of Ennis Friary when I visited Ennis for a friend’s wedding the summer before last. This is not the first shot from that visit to make my Photo of the Week series, see also Photo of the Week 77, Photo of the Week 87 & Photo of the Week 153. I chose to process this shot as a monochrome HDR to really bring out the fantastic textures in this tomb and the doorway next to it.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Exposure: 1/125 sec
- Focal Length: 18mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Processing: created by tonemapping a single RAW image with Photomatix Pro, then converting it to monochrome with the Channel Mixer brick in Aperture, and bringing out the texture even more using the Curves brick.
Jan
18
Photo of the Week 153 – Ennis Friary
Filed Under Photography on January 18, 2011 | 1 Comment
This week’s photo of the week was taken the summer before last when I was in Ennis for a friend’s wedding. I didn’t have much time for sight-seeing on my visit, but myself and another friend did find a half hour to go pay a visit to the ruins of the old Friary in the town. We didn’t have much luck with the weather though, it was generally cloudy, and we spent quite some time sheltering from the rain within the ruins! Just as we were about to head for the exit the sun burst through very briefly, and I managed to get off a few shots in good light, including this one. You can see the full set of shots from my visit on Flickr.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Exposure: 1/1250 sec
- Focal Length: 18mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
May
23
Photo of the Week 116, 117 & 118 – April in Belgium
Filed Under Photography on May 23, 2010 | Leave a Comment
With being sick for the last two weeks I’ve ended up with a triple post this week. I’ve chosen my three favourite shots from my recent trip to Belgium for this instalment’s theme.
The first shot I’ve chosen is of a lovely medeival castle in my home town of Duffel that is locally known as “Kasteel Ter Elst”. It remained intact right up until the first world war when it was unfortunately destroyed. You can read more about the castle here.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Exposure: 1/400 sec
- Focal Length: 18mm
- Focal Ratio: f/7.1
- ISO: 200
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the second shot I’ve chosen is a train shot. In this case showing the work-horse combination of the NMBS/SNCB’s intercity services. Here we see a rake of M6 double-decker coaches (with an M6 DVT in front) being pushed by NMBS/SNCB Class 27 electric locomotive number 2725.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/640 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/5.6
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Processing Used Topaz Adjust 4 plugin to give the shot a little more ‘pop’.
The final image I’ve chosen is a butterfly shot, specifically a Green-veined White (Pieris napi) feeding on a Dandelion flower (Taraxacum officinale agg.).
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 55-200mm
- Exposure: 1/1600 sec
- Focal Length: 200mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Processing: Selectively applied the Topaz Adjust 4 plugin to the butterfly and the flower.
Aug
12
Photo of the Week 77 – Ennis Friary
Filed Under Photography on August 12, 2009 | 1 Comment
This is my 67th Photo of the Week, yet it is only the second monochrome image to make it into the series. I think this is because I absolutely adore colour, and feel rather out of my depth when colour gets extracted from the equation. It took me hours to process this shot the first time, then I got some feed back from people on a few flickr groups, and then it took me another hour or so to have another go and come up with something I not just liked, but liked a lot. Most of the time I only revert to monochrome as a fall-back, but I’m going to try change that, and spend more time experimenting with monochrome precisely because I’m not comfortable with it.
Returning to this image, I reverted to monochrome here because I didn’t have a choice. I had once chance to get a short visit to the priory, so I had to make do with what ever I got – which was mostly rain! At the very end I got a few shots in good sun, but I didn’t have the opportunity to re-shoot this shot in sun because of time pressures. So, what I got was an image with a blown out sky, a flat looking stone building, and almost no colours to speak of. I was either going to bin it, or go monochrome. Determined not to waste the shot, I went for the monochrome option – deciding texture was going to be what I needed to concentrate on – in particular, I wanted to recover details in the sky, and enhance the details in the stonework of the building.
Since I’d shot in RAW I started by tone-mapping the image to recover detail in the sky, and also to enhance details in walls. Then I converted to monochrome using the monochrome mixer in Aperture, before using Aperture’s dodge & burn plug-in to correct some side effects of the tone-mapping and to pick out the spire of the church a little better. After seeking and getting some opinions from others I also used some pretty dramatic levels adjustments to really push up the contrast and really make those textures jump out.
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Exposure: 1/400 sec
- Focal Length: 18mm
- Focal Ratio: f/8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Processing: Generated by tonemapping a single RAW file in Photomatix Pro, then converting to monochrome in Aperture, dodging & burning in Aperture, as well as applying some other tweaks in Aperture.
Nov
2
Photo of the Week 37 – Laraghbryan Church
Filed Under Photography on November 2, 2008 | 1 Comment
The ruins of Laraghbryan Church are set amidst an old graveyard and next to a modern grave yard. The whole lot is surrounded by high trees so although the church is only a few hundred yards from the road, many people drive by every day without ever realising the wonders hidden behind those trees. Because of the trees though it’s very hard to get a good shot of these ruins so I’ve had to resort to HDR to even have a chance. I’ve taken a lot of shots of these ruins and I’ve settled on this one as my favourite because of the nice shadows being cast across the church.
For those of you interested in such things, here are the technical details of this shot:
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Focal Length: 18mm
- Focal Ratio: F5.0
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Three Brackets:
- Exposure Bias: 0.0 (Exposure: 1/800 sec)
- Exposure Bias: -1.0 (Exposure: 1/1600 sec)
- Exposure Bias: 1.0 (Exposure: 1/400 sec)
Jul
20
Photo of the Week 22 – Kasteel Ter Elst
Filed Under Photography on July 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment
This is an old photograph. I shot it back in 2001 with an old digital camera so it is small, even at full-size it’s only 640×480 pixels. I held off using it as a photo of the week for ages because of that. However, I’ve decided that size isn’t everything, so here it is!
This shot is a silhouette of the ruins of a once beautiful castle in my native town of Duffel in Belgium. It was shot against a lovely winter sunset. The castle itself dates back to the 12th century and was home to the first recorded lords of Duffel. It now sits in a small pond a few hundred meters away from the river Nete but when it was first built it sat on an island in the river. Obviously it’s not the castle that’s moved since but the course of the river! Like so many things in Belgium it was unfortunately destroyed during WWII. If you’re interested in learning more about the history of the castle check out this page.
For those of you interested in such things here are some of the technical details of the original shot:
- Camera: FujiFilm MX-2700 (point-and-shoot)
- Exposure: 1/400 sec
- Focal Length: 7.6mm
- Focal Ratio: F8
- ISO: 120
- Camera Mode: Auto
- Exposure Compensation: -0.9
[tags]sunset, Belgium, Castle, ruin, Duffel, Belgie, Kasteel, Photography[/tags]
May
10
Photo of the Week 12 – Autumn in Maynooth Castle
Filed Under Photography on May 10, 2008 | 1 Comment
This is a shot I came across by complete accident when having my lunch outside with a friend. I’m not even sure why I had my camera with me but I did. This shot was taken with a zoom lens from the back of The Mill Shopping Centre in Maynooth and looks through the grounds of Maynooth Castle up towards the front gate.
For those of you interested in such things here are some of the technical details of the shot:
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Exposure: 1/50 sec
- Focal Length: 55mm
- Focal Ratio: F8
- ISO: 400
- Camera Mode: Auto
- Exposure Compensation: 0.0
[tags]Photography, Maynooth, Ireland, Castle, Autumn[/tags]
Mar
23
Photo of the Week 5 – Nightfall at Taghadoe
Filed Under Photography on March 23, 2008 | 1 Comment
This photo was taken on the evening of the 26th of July 2007 at Taghadoe Round Tower just outside Maynooth. One of the things I really love about living in Ireland is that there is history all around you if you just go out and look. What disappoints me a little is how few people who live in Maynooth realise that this little treasure is hidden just a mile or so from the edge of the village on one of the smaller back-roads.
Click to View Full-Size (1.2MB)
For those of you interested in such things here are some of the technical details of the shot:
- Camera: Nikon D40
- Lens: Nikon DX AFS 18-55mm (D40 kit lens)
- Exposure: 1/10 Sec
- Focal Length: 22mm
- Focal Ratio: F5.6
- ISO: 1600
- Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
- Exposure Compensation: -2.0
[tags]Ireland, Maynooth, Sunset, Taghadoe, Round Tower, History[/tags]