Gloucester Cathedral

I recently visited Gloucester Cathedral, the same bank holiday weekend I visited Severn Valley Railway. It was a great place to take photos because of it's great magnificence both inside and out.
Gloucester Cathedral is located in Gloucester centre just off Westgate Street. It was built in 1100 as a Norman abbey church and survived the Dissolution thanks to its historical connection with the monarchy. It was from this church that William I ordered the Domesday Book. Recently the cathedral was used for the filming of more than one Harry Potter movie.


A photo of Gloucester Cathedral from the outside looking up at the pretty perpendicular Gothic Tower with a Tudor House in the foreground.


What I did: I cropped it slightly to exclude a bin by the wall, adjusted the levels generally and in the sky to make it more punchy and I did some sharpening on the Gothic Tower to really bring out the detail.

More info on Gloucester Cathedral.

What do you think of my photos? Do you like the HDR look on the second photo or not?

Miners Wheel: Black and White

Here is the Miners Wheel memorial in Highley (Shropshire). With this photo I did quite alot of photo editing.

• Firstly I converted it into Black and White and then I played with the levels in lots of layers to boost the contrasts and to bring out the details in the photo particularly in the sky and the wheel legs to stop them blending into the hedge behind.
• Secondly I did some dodging in the grass to boast the contrast giving the grass a infrared look.
• I then did some burning in the sky to stop it looking so bland and lifeless.
• Then I did some selective sharpening particularly on the rock and and on the grass to bring out the details. And Finally I added a vignette effect to draw the eye into the centre of the image.

This is the book Digital Masters: B&W Printing that gave me the inspiration, it made me want to go out and have ago at some black and white photography. Here is the review I wrote on it Digital Masters: B&W Printing Book Review.

25 Stunning HDR Photos

Carefully applied, High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging can create visually stunning pictures which blur the difference between reality and illusion. HDR imaging is the process of taking several photographs of a scene at various exposures, then merging them into one file. So the entire photograph can look crisp and detailed, from highlights to midtones to shadows. So photographers needn't sacrifice any part of their image.

This post covers 25 stunning HDR photos. Many of them might look surreal, too colorful, even magic or fake, but they are not. Keep in mind that they’ve all been developed out of usual photos, and not a single image is an illustration.

• This selection isn’t supposed to be complete which is why I encourage you to post links to further stunning HDR images in the comment box.


• There is no ranking, all pictures have been selected due to their outstanding quality and excellent execution.


• You can explore further works of the designers and photographers we’ve featured below by browsing through their sets on Flickr.


• All screenshots are clickable and lead to the pages from which they’ve been taken.


• You might want to take a look at this book Complete Guide to High Dynamic Range Digital Photography I reviewed earlier this year. Using this book is the easiest way to to master this exiting relatively new technology with this thorough easy to follow and visually stunning book. It covers everything you need to know to produce some great HDR photographs, from how to take great source images to how to merge and tone map your photos

Here are 25 stunningly beautiful HDR photographs.