For Members of the Concrete Appreciation Group - Northampton

I spent a happy morning photographing the many concrete structures still left in Northampton - here a few to start the homage! (images updated from laptop version)

People and Panoramas

I only had a 50mm lens with me yesterday for my walk round Northampton so quite a number of images that I wanted could only be captured by taking more than one shot and doing a panorama in Lightroom - for instance the first image is to horizontal shots put together as in perspective mode - impressed that LR can do such a good job of the task

 

Charles Rennie Mackintosh Designed House in Northampton

78 Derngate is the only house in England designed by Charles Rennie MacKintosh. It was 100 years old when MacKintosh redesigned the interior in 1916 for his patron, the Northampton Engineer W.J.Bassett-Lowke. I liked the kitchen for its space and light feeling, which may surprise folk as I am very sensitive to green!! The sitting room was very claustrophobic though might be better when the curtains are open. 

As the Light Fades

I stopped off on the way to Abington Club last night and took a few shots as the light faded. All shots are hand held as I didn't want to use a tripod in the town. The Mosque roof made an interesting foil to the moon and street light. It is right next door to a pub which had obviously seen a bit of trouble. The first two street shots below were taken while there was sufficient light to be able to balance natural and artifical light.
For the last shot where the natural light had gone, I closed up the aperture to F22 to prevent burn out on the lights and worked at maximum ISO (6400). I am impressed what a good job the noise reduction in the raw converter has done.

Tilt and Shift in Northampton

As the weather was pretty uninspiring today, I decided to give one of my under-used toys an outing. By using the lens shifted sideways with some tilt you can get some candid shots with only the subject sharp.