Some Cityscapes

Hi all

Thought I'd post some cityscapes from the last few months... All from Manchester and Bristol... All taken with the K3... a few in camera multiple exposures, a bit of tilt shift (Mir 45mm Pentacon Six on an Arsat tilt adaptor), and the odd long exposure.

1.




2.




3.




4.




5.




6.




7.




8.




All thoughts, comments etc gratefully received as ever...

Best

No's 3 & 4 are the stand out images here.

Best regards

Now I like numbers 4 and 7. But I don't know what to make of 5

Interesting set but 5 and 8 are confounding. I like 2 but would prefer the structures to be sharp throughout, so 3 and 4 are my choices from the set.

Cheers.
Philip

An interesting set. 3 & 4 are my favourites. Not sure about No. 5 - it reminds me of when you try to separate two pages of a magazine where some water has stuck them together ? What processing technique did you use for this one ?

i would suggest the idea behind 5 maybe "tree houses", did you take them from opposite SS Great Britain and rebuild them on the downs . 3 & 4 are excellent, those cranes certainly make a great subject and you have done them well. i also have real liking for the processing of the Balloons and feel it would look good as a large piece of wall art. not so keen on Manchester i feel they are quite ordinary in comparison to the Bristol shots. all the aforesaid purely my personal views and tastes

Some are a bit eccentric but the straight shots are very good indeed. I love the one of the floating harbour.

The multiple exposure ones are certainly interesting but, on their own, with no overt purpose or context, you have to ask,"what are they telling me?"
The first one and the harbour cranes really shout out - I like them.

Thanks all for taking the time and trouble to comment on these... very useful, as ever... so, 1, 3 and 4 are straight, 2 and 6 tilt shift... 5, 7 and 8 are all in-camera multiple exposures (using bright blend, approx three exposures for 5 and 8, nine for 7), everything done in camera, pretty much nothing done to them in post...

Thanks for kind words re 3 and 4 in particular... 2 and 6, the tilt shifts, are possibly not tilt shifty enough I suspect (esp no 6 on reflection), and maybe fall in between a couple of stools...

Thought the multiple exposures might divide opinion (they usually do!)... as I've mentioned before, my interest in them is that (similar to ICM) they tend to present a thing/collection of things in a way that we might not have considered them/it before... so they often spark debate... and that's rather a good thing I think...

David asks an interesting question with "what are they telling me?" ... the honest answer I suppose is I have absolutely no idea... but I can give you some idea about why I took multiple exposures of these things (and not others) in the first place, why I posted these ones (and not the 100s of others I've taken), and why I happen to like them myself...

No 5 is of the multicoloured houses of Totterdown in Bristol, just across from Victoria Park... For me they're quintessential Bristol (as Joe says, they're very similar to lots of others around the city, esp across the harbour at Hotwells etc.)... they're Victorian, on the side of a hill, and a real jumble of colour and shapes... so I like this one because it takes that idea to the nth degree... it's a jumbled up jumble of a jumbled up subject... the green in the photo is of the Park where I took it from...

No 7 is of a single balloon that flew over Perrett's Park in Bristol just before sunset during the Balloon Fiesta in the summer... Over 100 balloons flew over the park that evening, one after the other... if you've never had the pleasure, it really is quite something, and worth a visit... but each balloon was completely different, unique... I like this photo because to me it suggests what it might look like if 100 balloons (or the nine in the photo) flew over which were identical... I also liked the colours... I can't claim that that's what I was thinking as I took the photos, because I wasn't... I was frustrated because I couldn't find a way of getting loads of balloons in the frame, even though there were loads in the sky, and thought of this as a way of solving the problem... but that's why I liked it afterwards... I took plenty with the balloon on it's own, and with the others around it, but they just don't do it for me in the same way as this one...

No 8 is of a building in Bristol which I love, and which I've been trying to take a decent photo of for ages... It's the old Shot Tower, where they made lead shot (molten lead was dropped from the top of the tower, through a copper sieve, cooling and turning into ball shapes via surface tension on the way down)... I think it's an extraordinary building, and have been trying for a while to find a way of photographing it so that it looks as extraordinary as it actually is... this is the first time I'd thought of using multiple exposures on it, and the first time I'd been pleased with the results... fwiw, it's my own personal favourite of the shots above...

So there you go... some explanation at least for why I took em, and why I like em... thanks again for looking, and keep it coming!

Best

Ah. As I said - some context - makes a world of difference. You keep em coming too; it sparked a nice debate

"A jumbled up jumble" you described, well i'm all in favour of jumbled up jumble, as i have much jumble on my computer but don't know where to go with it! for me the balloon(s) are a charming sight and would grace a wall for sure, please keep up with your jumble even if the responses don't always go down well on here, elsewhere they would get a pretty good reception for sure.

A very nice set of images, some of which make the viewer wonder and question what the photographer was trying to achieve.

Thanks David, Maria and Stan for thoughts on these... Much appreciated...

Best