Wargrave at Sunset

I stopped off at The St George & Dragon pub in Wargrave on my home from work as after another day of rain the clouds had broken to reveal a gorgeous sunset. The location has long held a special place for me as it is where my parents had their wedding reception back in 1960. Although the weather remained awful the flood waters had receded somewhat and I was able to park my car in the car park and get down to lower parking area to get some photos, something I would not have been able to do a week or so earlier. In the first photo you can see how the Thames had burst its banks and spilled over into the neighbouring fields. I was pleased with the reflection of the sunset on the river. The second photo is a little more unusual and just a quirky unplanned picture that I thought might be fun. I had actually walked back to my car, but as I looked back on the scene I had just photographed the shining lamps were already casting artificial light onto the car park with the sunset providing a beautiful back drop so I thought I would take a photo and see how it came out. This photo won't win any prizes, but I like it and think it is at the very least interesting.

UK Floods January 2014

Once again this winter the River Thames has burst its banks at Medmenham where I work and the water is not too far away from the estate, but hopefully we will spared flooding. I always feel a little guilty photographing flood water as for those people affected by floods it is absolutely devastating. The recent rains over the Christmas period have simply fallen on a pretty full water table and there is simply nowhere for the water to go. It's pretty much the same situation the length and breadth of the country.

For the first photo I got as close to the water as I could without sinking into the mud. The poor dogs were not impressed at having to wait for me to do my clicking! I used the intelligent auto setting on the camera and then in editing I converted the photo to black and white using the low key setting in Photoshop Elements.I quite liked this effect as it made an already dramatic scene a little more brooding and sinister.

In the second photo I used exactly the same editing effects, although I shot in RAW mode using the landscape setting on the camera. The sun had disappeared just behind the clouds and there was a decent colour to the sky with blue and threatening great skies fighting it above, but once again I felt the low key black and white effect gives the scene an extra dramatic edge.