Photography Resources Newsletter

Friday 12th September 2008

Colour Management and Sunsets

We all know we have to manage the exposure, focus and depth of field, but for some colour management is not practiced. While initially many may be delighted with their results, as you move on you may feel that you would like to get better and more accurate colours. Some people are not at all concerned about colour arguing that by the time they see the results they have forgotten what the original colours were and after all they can twiddle with the colours in editing can't they. Some others will want all photos fully colour managed, and every colour perfect. I find myself between these two, yes I want to be able to absolutely control colour when I want to, and for some projects, while at other times, I can relax a little, knowing that my general colour management will mean that I will never be that far out.

It's a small world

One of many effects you can get with a fisheye lens.
Taken from top of tower at Portchester Castle.

Image taken with Nikon D300, 10.5mm fisheye lens, F22 at 1/160, ISO 250, EV -0.7

The objective of many of the articles this week, is to allow you to underrated colour management and be in control, its then up to you, having the knowledge to decide what is right for you. We start with an overview of Colour Management which includes three basic elements, white balance on the camera, screen and printer. This article then links to a range of others, some you will have seen before looking at white balance and some new ones looking at profiling your screen , profiling for each combination of printer, ink and media , and the equipment that is used for profiling . We looked within these articles at the economic way to get quality in printing, from post in profiling services, saving the cost of acquiring equipment that won't be needed often.

We also have an article looking at low cost printers, we have for example bought a low cost printer from Tesco for under £30, produced the profiles for this and can get high quality images out of this up to A4 size. We also look at low cost media , or how to save on photo printing materials.

One of the common problems many have is in getting really good photos of sunsets and sunrises , and we have an article on this, together with an article on how to get sunsets when they don't naturally exist using sunset filters.

Next week we are looking at another challenge of rainbows, and we have a article on how to photograph rainbows that explains a little about them as well as how to photograph them, some more photography areas, as well as an update on the free online courses being put together by Photo Skills. Just before the start of the new Merlin series on BBC One on Saturday evenings we will also be looking at who he was. We have already looked before at King Arthur.

While looking over recent weeks at abbeys and other religious buildings, we came across many locations that had, over time, had a series of activities, or uses, and we documented some of these where they were within the theme we were working on, so for example most cathedrals where the church part from an older abbey, and some abbey building had been reused in other ways.

We also came across some buildings that had taken on a completely different role, as a Romanised ruin, or folly, and we covered a little of this where a part was taken from Netley and put elsewhere as a folly, and at Coventry where the bombed out ruin is next to the new cathedral.

However some gained subsequent life as a ruin that attracted many people, and amongst these are Tintern Abbey in the Wye valley, which became a very popular place to visit even before roads went anywhere near it, and Europe's best preserved ruin at Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire, where later a large water garden was built next to it with lakes, canals, temples, follies and more, using the abbey ruin as a major part of its scenic splendour. Today it forms Yorkshires first World Heritage site, a 320-hectare (790-acre) estate containing Fountains Abbey, Studley Royal Water Gardens, a working water mill that was originally a part of the abbey, church, a deer park and more. Another that was converted into a romantic ruin was Titchfield Abbey, although it also had an interesting life between being an abbey and a ruin, having been converted into a house that was to have many Royal visitors and visited by Shakespeare amongst others.

The last two are also connected, in that some less than honourable politics were involved by those building them. Titchfield was the home of the guy who was Henry VIII's principle secretary, one of the few people to be advising him through most of his reign, and to have both been well rewarded throughout and kept his head, although there would appear to have been more than a little fiddling along the way. The creator of the Royal Water Gardens, was the Chancellor of the Exchequer and involved in the South Seas bubble, convicted of receiving bribes while in office and spent a short time in the tower, before being banned from public office, and getting more involved in building the water garden, amongst other projects. He appears to have done well out of it. Another connection is the headless statue in the water garden looking towards the abbey, said to be of Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's second wife, who lost her head, but thought by many to be the driving force behind the split from the catholic church and resulting affect on the monasteries.

We have produced large feature guides for each of these three locations. We have visited both Tintern Abbey and Titchfield Abbey recently, and although in the past I have visited a number of the Yorkshire abbeys, I didn't realise there was so much to see at Fountains Abbey or know of the Royal Water Gardens until I came to do the research for the location guide, and its now been added to the list of places I want to visit, as there would appear to be so many photo opportunities and challenges waiting for me there.