Abbey and Castle ruins of South East Wales

thereyougo! · Mar 24, 2012

A fine Saturday was in store and my wife decided she would go into Cardiff for the day with her mum and sister, so my brother in law and his fearsome son, Alfie went ona trip around some of the ruined castles and an Abbey. Chepstow will have to be reshot as middle of the day meant fairly flat unhelpful light.

We started in Tintern at the Abbey:

Canon 5D mkIII 24 - 70L 46mm f/10 1/80 ISO 100

Tintern-Abbey by singingsnapper, on Flickr

Same camera and lens: 24mm f/14 1/40 ISO 100

Abbey-and-tree,-Tintern by singingsnapper, on Flickr

After stopping in Chepstow, me stopped for lunch between Chepstow and Newport to allow some time for the sun to lower and then made our way to Caerphilly, home to one of the largest castles in Europe:

Canon 5D mkIII 24 - 70 L f/11 28mm 1/30

Caerphilly-Castle by singingsnapper, on Flickr

Same camera and lens f/16 28mm, 1/20

Caerphilly-castle-from-moat by singingsnapper, on Flickr

thereyougo! · Mar 26, 2012

here is a black and white version of the first shot. Converted in Color efex and adjusted using curves to make a gentle s curve

Tintern-Abbey-black-and-white by singingsnapper, on Flickr

Scuba · Mar 26, 2012

The B&W image is much better. The color was too flat, the B&W pulls the detail out. I would be interested to see #2 in B&W as well.

thereyougo! · Mar 26, 2012

Scuba said:
The B&W image is much better. The color was too flat, the B&W pulls the detail out. I would be interested to see #2 in B&W as well.

Your wish is my command:

Tintern-Abbey-and-tree-bw by singingsnapper, on Flickr

Scuba · Mar 26, 2012

I like that image as well in B&W. The color of this image is still good as well. I just get that old weathered building feeling more from the B&W. Nice job.

thereyougo! · Mar 26, 2012

Scuba said:
I like that image as well in B&W. The color of this image is still good as well. I just get that old weathered building feeling more from the B&W. Nice job.

The problem is that the weather is too sunny and hazy. Shoudn't grumble really as this will probably be our summer for 2012! Looking at it with outsiders eyes, the colour shots are nice but they are shots could have been taken by anyone potentially. The B&W makes them stand out a bit. The colours are closer to snapshots. I am doing shots of castles and coastlines for a charity here in South Wales (licensing the images for a penny for them to use as they wish for postcards calendars etc) so they will be tourist spots but I don't want them to be shots that could be taken by anyone, they still need to stand out. I'll have to return at a better time for light, but without a car this can be challenging and waking the wife at 5 won't make me popular!