French farmhouse

This is one of those lucky shots that came about from shooting a blood red poppy field. Its just the horizon, with the foregrounds over-bright poppy field removed. That cloud is as it was, where it was, and I just left it hanging pensively in the corner!
From Summer Painterly;
Verdigris Overlay @ 44%
Copy of base image, desaturated with more contrast.
Iridescent Brush desaturated, Soft Light @ 100%
Matmos Lake - flipped vertically, desaturated and blurred, Soft Light @ 100%
Labyrinth-desaturated, from flypaper set 2, Overlay @ 100%

Summer Painterly Pack

36 large textures for only $40

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$100 for Tex Box One and Two and the Fly Edges

Combo Pack Offer

Only $65 for Tex Box One and  Tex Box Two

Fly Edges Pack

Only $40

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The Black Mill

How do you make a famous much photographed landmark look fresh?
Simple - take a back shot! This huge black Beacon Mill in Rottingdean overlooks the English Channel, when it was built back in 1802, it defiantly faced France, the great Napoleonic foe!
Here these black sentinels are still facing the wind some 200 years later, though now in genteel retirement, their flour grinding days are sadly long gone. This one stands in the rough, on the edge of a charming hilltop golf course. Its funny, but after 100 years of decline windmills are now very much back in fashion!
There used to be many such windmills, now all but a handful survive.
These mills were made famous in a classic Michael Cain Movie;
The Black Mill. The two windmills in that movie are in nearby Brighton.

This image is a composite, a Vertorama made up of 4 landscape format images stacked, overlapping and stitched together using Auto Panopro.
Though the free Autostitch is just as good.
In very high winds its always a good idea to shoot fast as those clouds were whipping by! Shot with a rotating polarizing lens filter.
You'll notice the history plaque has been cloned out on the textured version, as ever, I always try to remove modern day additions from antique structures.

B/W base image copy - Hue @ 35% with added contrast
Apple Blush - Overlay @ 54%
Raw Linen - Soft Light @ 100% Desaturated
Matmos Lake - Soft Light @ 100% Desaturated and flipped vertically
Rose Blush - Soft Light @ 100% slightly Desaturated

Both this and similar images can be seen on my Photoshelter.

Summer Painterly Pack

36 large textures for only $40

Flypaper Triple Combo Deal
$100 for Tex Box One and Two and the Fly Edges

Combo Pack Offer

Only $65 for Tex Box One and  Tex Box Two

Fly Edges Pack

Only $40

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Brighton West Pier in Sea Mist

Back in Brighton I took loads of photographs on my late afternoon
visit, walking from one pier to the ruined West Pier. I remembered seeing it before I left England in the 1990's, It was being renovated into a huge restaurant come night club but had mysteriously caught fire.
Today this is all that remains of this Victorian iron construction, impossibly expensive to repair and left to rot gracefully like a whales skeleton.
New plans are afoot to mark its spot by building a huge new 'London Eye' type structure. But for now this wreck is the perfect resting place for migratory starlings!

The first landscape version had already been brightened with Matmos Lake added, flipped vertically and desaturated. Jill suggested it would also be nice cropped square and re-textured. This is the result!

Simple, light processing was called for as there was already quite a lot going on texturally already.
From the Summer Painterly set I used:

Aquarius - Soft Light @ 100% desaturated to a pale blue tone
Brushed Rose - Soft Light @ 100%

A final tweak of the merged image to pull the sky tones together.
This image can be seen on my Photoshelter. Buy prints etc. on my Redbubble

Summer Painterly Pack

36 large textures for only $40

Flypaper Triple Combo Deal
$100 for Tex Box One and Two and the Fly Edges

Combo Pack Offer

Only $65 for Tex Box One and  Tex Box Two

Fly Edges Pack

Only $40

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Belle Toute Lighthouse

On my recent visit to England I returned to an old haunt of mine,
along the cliff edges of the Severn sisters. When I lived in London I'd often drive down to this place to get some fresh air and walk the dog. This 'Belle Toute' lighthouse was then on the top of the hill near Eastbourne and there was ample grass to walk around its frontage.
I'd guess where we used to walk has now gone into the sea below, as it seems around 20 meters of land has been eroded.
The lighthouse having also been moved back inland on rails that were dug under the building.
For more info on this famous building please visit their official website!
www.belletoute.org.uk./

Processing was fairly straightforward, I used the CS5 HDR filter to first brighten the image, this is the base image shown.
The green sky colour mostly came from the textures, but added depth came from the use of a B/W copy of the base image.

Brushed Rose - Overlay @ 81%
Base image copy - Overlay @ 19% B/W Sky made darker with sliders
Iorek Ice Overlay @ 22 %
Apple blush Overlay @ 9%
Apple blush Overlay @ 9% flipped horizontal to balance edge tones
Necropolis - Soft Light @ 58% Slightly desaturated.

This image is only two thirds of the original format, the complete edit can be seen on my Photoshelter.

Summer Painterly Pack

36 large textures for only $40

Flypaper Triple Combo Deal
$100 for Tex Box One and Two and the Fly Edges

Combo Pack Offer

Only $65 for Tex Box One and  Tex Box Two

Fly Edges Pack

Only $40

See all our packs and deals on one Page