Wimpole Christmas Lights Trail

This is the first time Wimpole Hall (National Trust) has organised a Christmas Lights Trail. We visited on Sunday and came away with mixed feelings. It is certainly very bright and festive with lots of very clever modern technology both in light and sound. The main drawbacks were the very large number of visitors combined with the narrowness of the paths meant that there was a lot of queueing and you were too close to the exhibits (for people with sensitive eyes it was uncomfortable in many areas). For me, the best exhibits were the 'standard' coloured lighting of trees and features and the lighting of the Hall itself. 

Cambridge Exile versus Cottenham Renegades

CRUFC 3rd team beat Cottenham Renegades 26-10 in a very tough match played in cold rainy conditions. Here a set of action photographs in monochrome. which seemed to better represent the conditions!! There is a single colour shot at the end. All have been processed with Lightroom only making full use of  the new masking facilities eg select subject - a very powerful addition to the software.

Playing with Shallow Depth of Field

Toft Photoclub met in the church yesterday evening to get to know our cameras especially regarding aperture and depth of field. I used the Olympus manual lens mostly at F1.8 and played with getting interesting out-of-focus backgrounds. Last image of the roof angel at F8.

Creative Xmas Lights

A series of 7 images taken with an Olympus 50mm F2 lens wide open getting the lights in and out of focus and then combining the images with a focus-stacking software. Completed with a panorama shot and a couple of crescent moons. 

 

Treescapes in the Snow

Bradgate Park has some wonderful old and newer trees. Here some images of them after the snow during my recent visit to the area. 

Red Deer at Bradgate Park

 I am still sorting the many images that I took at Bradgate at the end of November. We spent some time looking for Red Deer and, in the end, they came to us - at one point we were surrounded by about a dozen magnificent stags.