The Dairy Maid’s Hat

This was taken onb one of the Elizabethan re-enactment weekends at Kentwell Hall, Suffolk. In the dairy parlour, people were making butter and cheese. I took some photographs of course but the straw hat hanging on the peg along with some paddles used to stir the curd caught my eye. A little post-processing was employed to bring out more texture and to make the image more sketch-like.

Derivative – Introduction

Derivative is where an image has been abstracted to a form that doesn’t readily resemble what would normally be considered a photograph. Sometimes it is to make the image look like a painting whether it be pen and ink, pastel, oil or watercolour. Sometimes it is deliberate use of photographic technique to create a more surreal image – something we wouldn’t normally see with the naked eye. I could have called these ‘creative’ but a creative image can still be recognisably a photograph and so ‘derivative’ is perhaps a better description.

Also included here are some infra-red (IR) images. Our eyes don’t see IR so it fits the category well. Monochrome IR could resemble a photograph but the spectral response is such that tones don’t match the colours we expect to see – a blue sky is usually almost black and vegetation is almost white. Some IR images here are left in colour – the limited colour palette and perhaps a little post-processing of the image can result in some quite artistic interpretations though maybe not to everybody’s taste.

Not Knowing where to Start

This was a bit of fun. The figure came from a North Norfolk Railway 1940s event and the kitchen scene behind came from a Bletchley Park display. I like the expression on the face and the title came quite naturally…

Villefranche Impression

I liked the colours and patterns of the houses stacked up on the slopes at Villefranche in the south of France. I used BuzzPro to take some detail out of the buildings (simplify) and a mild pen-and-ink effect to create this painterly impression.

Shutters at Antibes

A typical Provence scene but with a little enhancement to make it a little pen-and-ink like. It looks better as a print than it does on screen.

Loco Motion

This isn’t really a derivative shot at all. It was taken at the 1940s weekend on the Poppy Line (North Norfolk Railway) in 2010 and is an image of the locomotive wheels shot with a slow shutter (and panned) as the train came into the station. I quite like the somewhat surreal effect but it doesn’t please everybody.

Arborial Artform

These trees may be found along the Kingsbridge Estuary close to East Prawle. I like the shapes but the original image was a little flat and uninteresting and so a little Photoshopping and a gentle sepia tone was used to give the image a lift. I’m still debating as to whether it has worked or not…

Merlin Rockets

The boats are Merlin Rockets and are sailing in the Kingsbridge Estuary outside the Yacht Club in Salcombe just before one of the daily races that take place in July. I made this into a pastel image with ink outlines to give a more painterly look.


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