March 2011    Photographers Resource - Monthly    Edition 87

Abbey's, Daffodils and Colour Balance

• Editorial

• Feature - UK Abbeys and How to Photograph Them

• Photographic Feature - Colour/White Balance

• Photographers Diary

• March Wildlife Diary

I consider March to be the start of spring and this is borne out in the wildlife world with all the mammals, birds, insects and other species starting to get a spring in their step and get ready for the new years offsping. Plants and nature start to emerge, with first green shoots and then colour flower heads to attract those hungry insects who are emerging after their winter hibernation. See wildlife photography in March below for more details on what is happening around you outside.

It is also the month when many activities and events start to take place within local communities, with the weather better and the clocks going forward at the end of the month, starting to provide longer days, it appears that not only the nature and wildlife around us is getting going, but us homosapiens are too. You will be surprised at what events take place in some communities around the UK as spring and summer take shape, put on a fancy dress costume and say it's for charity and they all want to take part and show off their skills. Take a look at the March diary highlights below and then the diary pages for this month and next and you will see what I mean.

Focus-on-Imaging Show

The major photographic event of the year, takes places this month from the 6th to 9th and that is the Focus on Imaging Show at the NEC in Birmingham. Don't forget (see last months newsletter) to visit their website and download a floor plan and exhibitors list, you can also still register online and get an e-ticket for entry. If you're a professional photographer then registration gives you FREE entry, for others pre-payment online is £8 whilst on the day you visit entry will be £10.

For photographers professional and amateurs alike, it is the only show that showcases all your photographic needs from image capture through to editing, output and what you can potentially do with your images, whether it be book collections, framed artworks and more. There will be over 200 exhibitors showing what they have to offer, using demonstrations on their stands like on the Lastolite stand using models and their latest equipment, if you have your camera with you, you will be able to try out and take your own images. A company called Just Ltd showing you how to safely clean your DSLR sensor, or DIY framing giving 15 minute practical demonstrations on mount cutting and framing, then Corel Paintshop Pro will have 15 minute demos, Bowens live flash demos, the Epson stand looking at preparing colour prints using their latest printers, and more.

All the latest gear available will be on show and many stands will have show offers, so you might pick up a bargain, but I would suggest if there is something you're specifically looking for that you do some research prior to attending of other prices so that you go armed and can spot those real show offers.

Some highlights include Colour Confidence, will be offering free one-to-one advice on their stand in relation to colour management and their products, they will have the new X-Rite i1Pro range of colour management tools used to get cameras, screens, printers, projectors and more calibrated to all give the same colours. Also Nik software plug ins like Capture One 6 for editing images, and the Hanvon graphics tablets and more. Bob Rigby Photographic will be showing the Traxwatch One remote camera trigger aimed at wildlife photographers, it allows remote photography with or without the photographer present as it will fire the camera when tripped by an animal. Fotospeed from Wiltshire will be showing their new range of photo papers. Studio Decor will be demonstrating studio lighting and a range of backgrounds including White Vinyl, Muslin backgrounds and the seamless Supersoft Black as well as other studio kit. Sigma will have their latest lenses on show including the new 50-150mm F2.8 lens designed for digital cameras, and a new 105mm f2.8 macro lens amongst others. For product photographers Swiftspin is launching their new glass toped photography turntable, made from toughened low-iron glass it reduces the green tint found in normal glass as well as eliminating shadows, it comes on a stand with castors to make it easy to manoeuvre. Portrait Professional will be showing their latest version incorporating a unique intelligent edge finding touch up brush which selectively finds and touches up only those areas that need it, it also has a 'skin regeneration' capability, a great addition to the editing tools of portrait photographers.

So if you get a chance next week, take time out and have a visit with so much sold online these days, it is the one place where you can get to see and handle many of the products you thought you might need, and don't forget the show offers.

Mapping

As you know all our location guides and many of our listings provide you with lots of information and photos of various places throughout the UK, and as a part of this service we provide you with a number of mapping links that you use for finding the locations or in the case of the aerial views get to see what is there before you travel. As well as giving you the postcode and in many cases, particularly when out in the middle of the countryside, an Ordnance Survey Grid Reference, we also provide you with various mapping links. Up to now these links have primarily been Multimap, Get-a-Map and for aerial or street views we use the Google maps. As you may be aware Multimap has now been fully integrated into Microsoft's Bing. Now the one feature of Multimap that we really liked, and something Google does not do, is that you could ask it to find a location based on an OS grid reference. Once it found the location you then had various map views you could use, our links normally going to the Ordnance Survey map view. Unfortunately in moving over to Bing this facility is no longer supported. So over the past couple of months we have been re-assessing all the mapping tools available again to see what we could use to replace Multimap.

All our older location guides currently have Multimap links, and in some cases where we have used a postcode as the reference these links will go straight to the map view in Bing, however most of our links use the Grid Reference and therefore the Multimap link only goes to the home page of Bing. To replace all the Multimap links across the whole site is going to take a while, and is too big a task to do in any one operation. So we have decided that we will, in most cases, update the links within the location guides as we go to update them for other reasons.

In the meantime if you take a Multimap link from one of our location guides and it doesn't work then, in the cases where we have also provided you with a postcode, you could put the postcode into their search box and find the location that way. However if there is no postcode and only a grid reference then you will need to use another mapping service to copy and paste the reference into. You could use Get-a-Map, but this only gives very small images of the OS map and is really difficult to read and manoeuvre around. Or like us you could use StreetMap. Streetmaps initial search box asks for a postcode, street or place, but if you use their smart search facility you can enter a grid reference and it will find the location. The first map it gives you is the road map, but zoom out two stages and the OS map view will be displayed.

We have now decided that all Multimap links will be replaced over time with Streetmap links and this will be our choice of mapping source for the future. We will still however continue to use Google Maps for all aerial and street view map links.

As a start to this process in this edition we have updated all the Abbey location guide map links to now go to Streetmaps. All the Abbey listings by county and the Featured Abbeys do not have direct map links only the grid references are provided, so here you can decide which mapping service to use.

All NEW location guides added to this resource will use StreetMaps for the map links into the future and continue to use Google Maps for the aerial map links.

If you have a view on what mapping or aerial imaging links you feel would be best for us to use, then we would be delighted to have your feedback.

Feature

UK Abbeys and How to Photograph Them

This month we have revised, edited and added to the Abbey Section. I have been through every location guide and updated all the opening times, charges where applicable, map links, and with some have added images as well as reformatting the page into our new format and this allows you in future to see when changes have taken place.

Abbeys, whether they are still in use today or are ruins being looked after to preserve our heritage, are impressive structures and can be a challenge to photograph. There are a large number of abbeys within the UK, but not as many as there were as they were savagely handled during the reign of Henry VIII, many being destroyed under his Dissolution of the Monasteries policy. Some however have survived at least in part as cathedrals, abbeys or parish churches.

We have a number of articles looking at the history and establishment of abbeys and monasteries in the UK over time including The development of Monasteries and Abbeys in Britain,  which takes a look at how monasteries came about, the development of the brands, numbers involved and why each developed and eventually fell out of favour. Whereas the Layout of a Monastery or Abbey,  looks at an early complete design of a Benedictine Monastery, and also looks at some later differences.  A Day at the Abbey, looks at the life of the monks who lived there and how they used much of the space we discover in buildings now. These articles and others within the section, if you can take the time to read them before a visit, will help you to understand what it is you are looking at, especially if it is only the part remains of what was originally a grand building survives for you to see today.

As well as our county listings for England of all abbeys we can identify, we have a list of Featured Abbeys detailing some of the more well known and impressive examples of Abbeys in the UK today. The featured abbey's list links to those location guides we have on this website, whilst the county listings list all abbeys we have been able to identify and links to various other websites to give you information and more.

Muchelney Abbey Somerset

Photographing Abbeys

As you will realise abbeys are large structures, just like cathedrals, churches, tower blocks etc. For most of us the only way to photograph them is from ground level, we do not have the budget to be able to hire planes to get above them, or are physically not able to carry tower scaffolding systems around or long poles, anyway it wouldn't be practical in most cases to use this type of equipment. Sometimes there can be structures nearby where you can get a higher perspective, like at Muchelney Abbey, nr Ilchester, in Somerset where there is also the remains of a Tudor house on the same site, and from this structure you can get a view of the abbey.

Also an abbey is not always in an easy location, as many are in places where you can not get back far enough, or there are obstructions in the way like trees, houses, roads etc. Like at Netley Abbey nr Fareham in Hampshire which has a house in the grounds, is by the side of a road and surrounded by trees, so you cannot get a full view of the building without some obstruction in the way.

A cropped image of Netley Abbey trying to take away some of the obstructions.

The major problems with photographing an abbey or similar large structure is perspective, Exposure and colour balance as there is usually a large amount of sky/daylight around them, which can throw the colour off. For a full explanation of colour balance and ways you can control it see the photographic feature below, where we cover it in some detail.

To help you understand what the challenges of photographing a structure this large can be, and how you might overcome some of these, take a look at How to photograph a derelict abbey. By it's very nature a derelict abbey is in ruin and therefore little of the structure remains, what you are photographing most times are either remaining walls, or outlines within the grounds of where structures used to be. However it is possible with a little time spent before your visit to work out how to get over these challenges and within the article we take you on a journey from planning your visit through to technical considerations, and how you can get the most of your visit by not only taking documentary images, but also some with character by using techniques such as black and white, or other duotone, silhouettes, including clouds, sunsets, or even look at it's 3D possibilities.

So how do you deal with perspective. As you know because you are taking the image from ground level wherever you stand you will tilt the front of the camera up. From this viewpoint you produce an effect where the building reduces in size as it gains in height, the more you tilt it up the more perspective effect is encountered with the building sloping inwards, and with extreme tilts it may look as if the building is slopping backwards. You may also have a depth of field problem in that the distance to the top is much greater than the distance to the bottom. You may want this, but at other times you may want to make the building stand up straight. This can be done in a number of ways, including:-

• being back far further and using a longer lens.

• using wider angle lenses and keeping the camera pointing level, sectioning out lower dead area if necessary.

• using expensive special perspective control lenses, but these are usually not wide enough for our use with these buildings.

• shooting with enough spare area at the top and sides that we can use facilities in Photoshop or other editing software to straighten up the building later.

• taking a number of images and stitching them together in an editor afterwards.

Often its the sheer scale of buildings that presents us with perspective challenges. See Making Buildings Stand Up Straight for more help on how to get over this perspective problem.

Before get obsessed with this some minor perspective effect lines up with what we see with our eyes and looks normal so a minor amount of perspective effect is acceptable in good photographs.

Titchfield Abbey, Hampshire

So far we have looked at how to photograph from the outside and specifically at ruins, but there are still many abbey's, that although may not be as complete in structure as in their heyday, they are structurally sound and still in use today. In these cases you now not only have the possibility of outside shots, but can also take a glimpse and photograph inside. How to photograph an abbey or cathedral that is still in use, gives you some guidance on how to plan your visit and what factors to take into account, as well as how to avoid some potential challenges when you get there. The thing with abbeys is that the more you are prepared before your visit, the better photos you will come away with.

One of the abbey location guides we have significantly updated for this issue, is Forde Abbey, near Chard in Somerset.  Today it is a big manor house and privately owned with impressive gardens. All that remains of the original Cistercian priory is The Great Pond at the far end of the gardens and within the house some of the monastic features that can still be seen includes the Monks Dormitory, the Cloisters being one side of the original quadrangle and is the remains of the lavatorium, where the monks washed their hands prior to eating, and the Chapel which was formally the chapter house. As a monastery it flourished for 400 years and became renowned as a seat of learning. The foundation grew and became very wealthy, eventually by the 14th century, possessing some 30,000 acres of land. Within the large gardens, apart from the great pond nothing of it's time as an abbey remains, they are in fact 18th century in design which have been and still are evolving, like with it's more recent addition, the Centenary Fountain, a 160ft high water fountain which erupts from the centre of The Mermaid pond. Following a visit on a rainy day last summer we have updated the location guide with some of our photos and also added a gallery, so that you can see what is there before you visit.

Colour Balance

Colour balance or to give it it's correct photographic term, white balance, is the term used in photography when adjusting the camera to take account of lighting conditions and the effect it has on the colours within a photograph. This is a part of the Colour management that also includes profiling equipment, screen and printers, to get the same colour out that you see. Whatever your camera whether it be a compact, DSLR or on your mobile phone all devices will have a white balance setting. The majority have Auto White Balance, meaning the camera will do it's best, based on a set of formulas the camera manufacturers have given it, to make the colours in your photograph correct. It mixes the colours in the image and tries to make a neutral mix so counteracting any strong cast. Unfortunately if there is any one strong colour in the photo it will counteract this as well, for example a red rose closeup will come out pinkish, bluebells and sunsets are cancelled out almost completely.

Many cameras have some extra pre-programmed settings beyond Auto such as Daylight (sun), cloudy, incandescent (indoor), and florescent to allow you to have limited control over the colour balance and knowing how to use these settings to get results is the right step forward. On DSLR cameras you may also get extra settings of flash, shaded outdoors, K (colour temperature values ) and PRE giving you more control.

As an example of how colour balance is important there are some that say a digital camera cannot capture true purple colours, or even that purple does not exist in reality, this is not the case. Their problem is that they are not in control of white balance, if you set your camera to have the correct white balance setting for the photo you are taking then a purple iris, will be purple.

The foundations of what white balance is and why we should use it is covered in so what is white balance and why won’t auto white balance do.  While it is acceptable to use Auto white balance for general shots, scenic landscapes and most wildlife, but to be true to the colours you see you need to be able to control it.

So how do we go about setting the white balance. How much control you can get over the colour balance will depend on your camera. If you have a camera with a white balance option on your menus then you can move away from Auto and set it for the conditions you are working in. Choosing the white balance setting to use looks at how to use the camera settings, explains which settings are best to use in difficult lighting conditions and those that will give you consistent colour.

To get even greater control and more accurate colours all DSLR cameras come with a PRE setting. The PRE setting within white balance allows us to get the most accurate colours.  In setting and using PRE we look at how to use it. To use PRE accurately we need to set it before we start taking photographs and again when lighting conditions change. To help us do this we can use exposure and white balance targets.  You can buy special targets in order to do this or if you're on a budget you can do exactly the same thing by setting it using a piece of grey card, we use grey as it is a neutral colour.

Although it is better to take control of colour balance at the point of taking the photo, it is possible if your camera is able to take RAW, to change the white balance setting using a editing package afterwards when you are back at your computer. We discuss this and have an example of how to go about this using Nikon Capture NX in other steps we can take on white balance.

When photographing Abbey's you will have a mass of any one colour, as far as your camera is concerned. The building itself will be one colour, whether it be grey, stone, red etc. You will also have a lot of sky, which depending on the time of year could be white or a nice blue, even nicer being blue with fluffy white clouds. At ground level it will be a mass of green, or if surrounded by hardcore then it could be very similar in colour to the abbey building itself. With this variation of colours the camera is going to struggle in AUTO white balance to get the colours correct, although it will have a good try and after the event you may not even remember what it really did look like. But use the settings to control your white balance and your photo will have perfect and correct colours as they were the day you saw them.

The New April diary is now in the 'next month' slot with March moved to in the 'this month'. Both months have a lot of opportunities for everyone.  Some highlights that are of particular interest are:-

There are two Patron Saints celebrated during March. It starts off with a patriotic day for Wales, with the 1st being St David's Day and across many towns and villages within the principality there will be various events and celebrations taking place. In Cardiff they have an annual St David's Day Parade, this years route will be decked out in Giant Daffodil's and Red Dragon Flags. Highlights include pipe bands in traditional costumes, children in national costume and more. Followed on the 17th with the St Patrick's Day when Irish communities across the UK celebrate their patron saint. The 13th seeing the start of a week long St Patrick's Day Festival in London, kicking off with a St Patrick's Day parade.

St David's Day Parade, Cardiff by Guardian Cardiff

The next major event particularly for photographers, runs from the 6th to 9th and this of course is the UK's largest photographic show, Focus on Imaging, which takes place in halls 9 and 10 of the NEC in Birmingham. See our piece above to find out what highlights you might see this year.

Now Shrove Tuesday, on the 8th, is one of the major events in the Christian religious calendar but for many of us today it is also a day of feasting and lots of merriment through energetic activities. Yes it's pancake day. Whilst many of us will enjoy this day by merely having pancakes to eat at breakfast, lunch or tea. For many it is also time to have a laugh and take on some physical activity in the form of pancake racing, and these will be taking place all over the UK. One of the oldest of these events is the Olney Pancake race in Buckinghamshire, covering 415 yards of the High Street. Participants are female only and they dress in traditional costume and with pancake in frying pan, at the finishing line the winner tossing the pancake.

Olney Pancake Race by Robin Myerscough

However Littlehampton in Sussex takes this to the extreme and on the 5th they have a team based Charity Pancake Olympics. The teams compete in 4 disciplines and each one involves a pancake. In some parts of the UK there are other activities which take place on Shrove Tuesday like the:-

• Skipping Festival on the seafront in Scarborough, Yorkshire.

• Ashbourne Royal Shrovetide Football match in Derbyshire where they play the largest football match in the world over a weekend. The goals are 3 miles apart and each day the match can go on to 10pm if no goal is scored by 6pm, its normal finishing time.

• Atherstone Ball Game in Warwickshire, where a water-filled ball is played in the streets. This game originating in the reign of King John as a contest between Warwickshire and Leicestershire, when then they competed for a bag of gold. Not today though, they just play the game.

• Cornish Hurling in St Columb Major, Cornwall. An ancient game with few rules and played over a 25 sq mile course, using a silver covered apple wood ball.

Ashbourne Shrovetide Football by Paul

Crufts, the major annual event for dog lovers is at the NEC in Birmingham from the 10th to 13th. For those interested in horses there is one of the biggest horse racing meets of the year, the Cheltenham Festival in Gloucestershire, from the 15th to 18th with the highlight race, the Gold Cup on the Friday. Keeping with horses there is also the Kiplingcotes Derby in East Yorkshire, said to be England's oldest horse race dating from 1519 on the 17th and the Shire Horse Spring Show in Peterborough on the 18th.

At the end of the month the major sporting event is the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race on 26th starting at Putney bridge in London at 5pm. This is the annual university boat race between Oxford and Cambridge, who will be crowned kings this year. Take a look at their website (link in the diary) for details of the the route and the best places to be. Another water event taking place the same weekend is the World Pooh Stick Championships on 27th at Wittenham in Oxfordshire, where families race sticks along the river raising money for charity.

Start of The Boat Race 2010 by Ant Miller

There are many other events this month as winter draws to a close and everyone wants to take advantage of our spring and summer months for their activities and events, so take a look at the diary pages for full details of what is on and when.

Don't forget on the evening of the 27th it is the start of British Summer Time, and you should put your clocks forward one hour. Now we are entering spring and the lighter nights.

Daffodils

In the plant world the main species of the month is the Daffodil, with it being used in Wales as an emblem to mark St David's Day. Daffodils can be found in the UK countryside, the exact flowering date will depend on the weather. It is a colourful bright yellow flower, and it's trumpet head makes it distinctive and recognisable. Because of the time of year that they are about they can also be referred to as 'Lent Lillies'. The genuine wild variety in Britain have two-tone yellow flowers, narrow trumpets and forward pointing petals and usually carry their head slightly bowed which can be a challenge if you want to take close up's.

Daffodil

They are a woodland wild flower and adapt well to open pastures where they often provide vista displays. During this month this yellow trumpet flower will start to emerge in woodlands, parks, gardens, roadsides and it will seem to appear just about everywhere. They are concentrated in the Lake District, North Yorkshire, Gloucestershire and Devon. It was those found in the Lake District that inspired the poet William Wordsworth, to write his well known poem Daffodils, with the start line 'I wandered lonely as a cloud'. In some areas special Daffodil events are organised such as the Kempley Daffodil Weekend in Gloucestershire that takes place on the 19th and 20th March 2011. This is a fund raising event, and every spring time when the woods in this area are

carpeted in yellow with the tiny wild daffodils a team of volunteers offer guided walks along a circular 'Daffodil way' footpath covering approximately eight miles. There is also a Daff'n'Ride bus every 30 minutes. If you want to cover the walk at your own speed then you can get a map from the village hall showing the walk and sites of specific interest. The small wild daffodils grow freely in many fields and the surrounding woods and can be enjoyed on the many footpaths between Newent and Dymock. Nearby there is also the Daffodils Way.

We also have a list of places where you can see good displays in Where to photograph daffodils which has been updated for this issue.

On heathlands the striking yellow flower of gorse will be emerging and this along with all the plant life protruding new flower will be attracting the many insects that are coming out of winter hibernation looking for food. Early insect risers include Cranefly, Hoverflies, Earwigs, and ladybirds. You may also see glimpses of the first bumble bees out and about on warmer days. The first butterfly to emerge from hibernation is the Brimstone, the adult is an important pollinator of the primroses flowering at this time, whilst it's caterpillars feed on buckthorn.

 

Within the bird kingdom it is now time to think about the next generation and there will be a lot of nest building and pairing up going on. The dawn chorus starts to swell as our resident birds like the Song Thrush, Greenfinch, Blackbird, Robin and Great Tit are marking their territories for the coming season. Towards the end of the month the early summer migrants/visitors start to arrive, the first of these being the ChiffChaff and the Wheatear. A lot of the winter visitors to our estuaries and wetland spaces will be making their way back to their breeding grounds, most having left by the end of the month. However the water is not sparse of wildlife both above and below with those that are here starting to also get ready for breeding so you may see pairs of Mute Swans starting to build their nests, or Coots fighting for territory using their long claws.

Mute Swans

The Grey Heron pairs will be continuing their nest building up in trees in the heronry, and feeding alongside rivers and canals. Below the water level Frogs are rising from the bottom of the pond, where they have spent the winter and will be mating and laying frogspawn. The adults stay in the pond until the weather is warmer in April. If they have already laid in your garden pond then a film of frogspawn will be floating on the surface, so take time to watch and observe as the tadpoles will start to hatch towards the end of the month.

There is much more going on in the wildlife world so take a look at Wildlife Photography in March to find out what you should be looking out for.

Ladybird

We have now completed the annual guide by month of what is happing in the nature and wildlife world within the UK and now our attention is going to turn to putting together monthly guides of major wildlife events throughout the world. The sort of things this will include are the Wildebeest Migration, Polar Bears and their young, Bears and the Salmon Run and so on. If you know of one of these major attractions that you think we should include, then please do get in touch via our contact us page and let us know.

Wildlife Photography in March

Introduction to white balance and why use white balance

Choosing the white balance setting to use

Setting and using PRE

The K values of light

Other steps we can take on white balance

Colour management outlined

Featured Abbeys & other religious buildings

List of cathedrals and other substantial churches in current use

Where to photograph daffodils

Battle Abbey and Battlefield, Battle, East Sussex

Bishop's Waltham Palace, Hampshire

Buildwas Abbey, Shropshire

Dorchester Abbey, Dorchester on Thames Oxon

Dundrennan Abbey, Dundrennan, Dumfriesshire

Egglestone Abbey, Barnard Castle, Durham

Forde Abbey, Chard, Somerset

Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Water Gardens, Yorkshire

Glastonbury Abbey, Glastonbury, Somerset

Hailes Abbey, nr Winchcombe, Gloucestershire

Haughmond Abbey, Shropshire

Holmcultrum Abbey, nr Abbey Town, Cumbria

Hulne Priory, Hulne Park, Alnwick, Northumberland

Jervaulx Abbey, Middleham, Yorkshire

Lenses Abbey, Abbey Wood, Belvedere, London

Lilleshall Abbey, nr Telford, Shropshire

Malvern Priory, Great Malvern, Worcestershire

Michelham Priory & Gardens, Upper Dicker, nr Hailsham, East Sussex

Muchelney Abbey, nr Ilchester, Somerset

Netley Abbey nr Fareham, Hampshire

Newark Priory, Pyrford, Surrey

Norton Priory Runcorn, Cheshire

Penmon Priory, Penmon, Anglesey

Roche Abbey, Maltby, Rotherham, Yorkshire

Selby Abbey, Selby, Yorkshire

Southwick Priory, Nr Porchester, Hampshire

St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, Kent

Tewkesbury Abbey, Gloucestershire

Tintern Abbey, nr Chepstow, Monmouthshire

Titchfield Abbey, nr Southampton, Hampshire

Wenlock Priory, Much Wenlock, Shropshire

Westminster Abbey, London

Whitby Abbey, Whitby, Yorkshire

Forde Abbey, Somerset