Thursday 12 March 2015

Lavenham and its Church

I suspect the medieval village of Lavenham in Suffolk is most rewarding to the summer day-tripper, but we made our way there on a crisp bloody freezing Sunday in January, which was perfect for photographing the impressive local church (which also yielded literary bounty in the form of a second hand book stall inside).

The layout of the church and grounds is pretty tog-friendly, with a variety of elements that lead the eye to the church itself.

The low winter sun played its part by creating a pattern of shadows along the path.

There was a touch of mist in the air, which encouraged a shot into the sun.

I don't go a whole hog on Photoshop's built in filter gallery, or sfx in general, but wanted to create a more dramatic sky for this vaguely gothic treatment of one of Lavenham's many period cottages. I selected the sky and reversed it for that 'negative' look. When doing this to a selection, a lot of attention is required around the border of the selection to ensure the transition is not too obvious.

No Photoshop tomfoolery in the next image, but I did want to emphasis the slightly crooked nature of the building, so stepped into the middle of the road with a wide angle lens set to its shortest focal length (for maximum distortion) and deliberately slanted the horizon.

Travelling light, I hadn't packed my macro lens, so had to make do with the wide angle at its longest focal length for this shot of frost-covered leaves in the grounds of the church. I left the colours in their RAW state (i.e. muted) and just tweeked a little bit of blue in with a LAB curve in the b channel.