Photo 150 "2022" - Howard_S

Yeah, Wytham Woods are great, as your horse race shot.

Wētāpunga wrote: The Wytham Woods has an interesting atmosphere, and I wonder if you'd considered trying this as a black and white or split-tone image?

Well, I had a go with another shot, using colour grading in Lightroom


Wytham Woods in winter

Thanks, Brian. I think I'm with you on the colour grading vs 'original' treatments, but it was worth a try. The Blavatnik keeps drawing me back, and I plan to include it in the itinerary for the Oxford DMs.

Indeed the horse race is splendid and dynamic. And the first Wytham Woods version can stand on its own without another PP trick imho, I really like the yellow/orange glow of morning or evening light between the trees in that one.

Week 6

A: Creative

I'm going to borrow from my Open View post here and discuss one of my photos of The Nuba Survival:


The Nuba Survival | John Buckley /8
A stitch of four frames to make a Cinemascope or 21:9 format view of the scene.

The fibreglass sculpture is 5m high and has been in this field for 20 years. The sculpture was the artist's response to visiting the Nuba people at the invitation of the Nuba Rehabilitation, Relief and Development Organisation in 2001. According to an Atlas Obscura article on the sculpture, the artist John Buckley 'lived in the region from 2000 to 2001 as a guest of the Nuba Rehabilitation, Relief and Development Organisation (N.R.R.D.O.). Thirty years of fighting has left the indigenous tribes living in the Nuba Mountains on the edge of survival, what some relief groups are calling an ethnic genocide. Buckley was struck by the resilience, despite their suffering, of the people he met and created this incredible work to call attention to their plight.'

Many prefer the ninth photo in my series in the Open View post, but it was this panorama of four frames each at 24mm that lead me to the monochrome conversion and subsequent colour grading. This dark sepia has yellows and blues among the three dials that Lightroom offers, and an early iteration had a muddy straw colour. The finished tone express part of my feeling about a sculpture of African mountain people transplanted to a field in the downlands of Oxfordshire. The use of 21:9 brings a cinematic story-telling feel to the picture.

The artist has rendered the two people with skeletal body art; indeed some sources refer to the sculpture being of two skeletons that embrace each other. But the Nuba have a strong tradition of body art, of many styles and patterns, and I think the choice here says something more about the threat to the Nuba people in 2000-01. Whether this is hope or despair is left open, I think.

C: Prime lens

And it is back to the Nuba Survival.


The Nuba Survival | John Buckley /7 | NEX-7 and Sigma E 30 F2.8

This is three landscape shots stitiched vertically and cropped to 6:7, a medium format crop. Underlying it all is a monochrome conversion that produced the dark sky, and Silver Efex Pro 2 was used to finish the treatment here and a different, blacker sepia-like toning was used. Also, the texture on the surface of the fibreglass is more apparent here.

The leafless trees in the background convey an idea of African savannah, and there isn't much here beyond the GPS coordinates in the EXIF file that say south Oxfordshire.

You did a very good job straightening the verticals on the Oxford pic; almost too good - it feels strange to see the spires all point straight up when I normally see them leaning in!