Andrew Kent
Well-Known Member
Hi guys,
Just thought I would post to share recent evenings photography up at Clee Hill.
Clee hill is in Shropshire,, near Ludlow. The hillside is covered in old ruins from titterstone quarry which mined for dhustone (dolerite) for road building.
Shot of the hill front from one of my earlier visits:
Clee Hill by Andy Kent 100, on Flickr
Our plan was to head up after work, get in some daylight shots, and the sunset if it was a decent one, then hang around to play in the dark!
We had a fair group, Adrian, Leo, Ian (My brother), and I.
The sunset was spectacular, god rays beaming down out of the clouds to light the fields ahead of the hills, which were showing great recession.
After the amazing sunset had passed Dan showed up too!
We have been to Clee before, and despite the amazing scenery, struggled to come up with many shots. So we planned in advance this time, and took a big box of costumes, torches, the mandatory wire wool and gas mask, and a UFO!
The sunset that greeted us on arrival:
Clee Hill Sunset by Andy Kent 100, on Flickr
So then it was on with the shots.
I had been planning a shot with a dead character of some kind, with his ghost standing over the dead body. I considered everything from worksite falling accident, failed parachute, car crash, but my first try at the concept was at Clee. I used an old hazardous chemicals container I had, and added a toxic label to it. Got Leo in the gas mask and hooded leather jacket to lie down dead in the ruins.
Then had him stand behind where he had been laying.
The ghost was easy, just cut out, desaturate almost completely, and then drop layer opacity. I used single frame HDR tone mapping as well to punch up the ruins and sky a bit.
I was really happy with the result:
Toxic Death by Andy Kent 100, on Flickr
Next up was a shot I had in mind to use the dark pillared underside of the structures.
This one took some time! I did loads of red flashed exposures under the building (Although they don’t show up much in the final image). These and the two exposures for wire wool spins were stacked up together using startrails.exe.
Then I did a 7 frame HDR on the building itself.
Between shooting the building and the wire wool spins I had to leave the camera set up for three quarters of an hour while it got dark!
The sky was from that evening on Clee hill, but was taken facing the opposite direction, and HDR using 4 frames.
Then there was me with the skull mask and two off camera flashes as the final part of the image.
There are 17 exposures used in this image in the end, although I could have got away with less as the red flashes didn’t show up much.
Final image “Hell Fire”:
Hell Fire by Andy Kent 100, on Flickr
My final image of the evening was a massive wire wool spin across the ruins.
Turns out I was having a wool fail! Every spin I did made a few revolutions, then the wool would escape my whisk and do a shooting star off into the distance! Luckily Dan, wool spin extraordinaire was on hand to save the shot! So all the spins were done by Dan.
We did have one small fire break out! But some frantic stomping of boots soon solved that!
For post processing, I took each wool spin exposure, and changed the colour using Hue and Saturation in Photoshop. Then used the colour shifted spins, with a torch lit background of the ruins in Startrails.exe to stack it all back up:
Red White n Blue Hill On Fire! by Andy Kent 100, on Flickr
I still have a few more shots to edit, will post them up when they are done.
Also I will link to the other guy’s shots when they post them.
Ian did a cool looking silhouette for which I model by me standing on a ledge on the ruins against the almost dark sky, one of lots of him “many me” shot around the ruins. Leo got some cool shots of his home made UFO, and 2010 Space odyssey monolith. Meanwhile Adrian was light painting his car!
Leo also shot me in a Hazmat suit, pouring toxic waste down into the ruins! (Light painted toxic waste). Looked cool on camera, can’t wait to see the finished shot!
Dan did a light orb, and some shots under the pillars:
All in all a great evening s fun! We left the hill about quarter past 1 am, with an hour drive home ahead of us, and early starts for work the next day! All in the name of getting the shots!
A few of Dans:
image by dajoolzcat, on Flickr
image by dajoolzcat, on Flickr
A few Of Leos:
UFO Cleehill by Leo smith - rocket2cool, on Flickr
Toxic Plasma by Leo smith - rocket2cool, on Flickr
Reseshion by Leo smith - rocket2cool, on Flickr
One of Ians: - Many Ians in fact!
Many mes clee hill by iankent, on Flickr
Holding the sun by iankent, on Flickr
And this is one of mine taken at Clee hill on a previous visit:
Deaths Door Re-Edit by Andy Kent 100, on Flickr
And one of Ians from a previos visit, this is the same structure that "Toxic Death" was shot on:
Clee Hill Star Trail by iankent, on Flickr
Cheers,
Andy.
Just thought I would post to share recent evenings photography up at Clee Hill.
Clee hill is in Shropshire,, near Ludlow. The hillside is covered in old ruins from titterstone quarry which mined for dhustone (dolerite) for road building.
Shot of the hill front from one of my earlier visits:
Clee Hill by Andy Kent 100, on Flickr
Our plan was to head up after work, get in some daylight shots, and the sunset if it was a decent one, then hang around to play in the dark!
We had a fair group, Adrian, Leo, Ian (My brother), and I.
The sunset was spectacular, god rays beaming down out of the clouds to light the fields ahead of the hills, which were showing great recession.
After the amazing sunset had passed Dan showed up too!
We have been to Clee before, and despite the amazing scenery, struggled to come up with many shots. So we planned in advance this time, and took a big box of costumes, torches, the mandatory wire wool and gas mask, and a UFO!
The sunset that greeted us on arrival:
Clee Hill Sunset by Andy Kent 100, on Flickr
So then it was on with the shots.
I had been planning a shot with a dead character of some kind, with his ghost standing over the dead body. I considered everything from worksite falling accident, failed parachute, car crash, but my first try at the concept was at Clee. I used an old hazardous chemicals container I had, and added a toxic label to it. Got Leo in the gas mask and hooded leather jacket to lie down dead in the ruins.
Then had him stand behind where he had been laying.
The ghost was easy, just cut out, desaturate almost completely, and then drop layer opacity. I used single frame HDR tone mapping as well to punch up the ruins and sky a bit.
I was really happy with the result:
Toxic Death by Andy Kent 100, on Flickr
Next up was a shot I had in mind to use the dark pillared underside of the structures.
This one took some time! I did loads of red flashed exposures under the building (Although they don’t show up much in the final image). These and the two exposures for wire wool spins were stacked up together using startrails.exe.
Then I did a 7 frame HDR on the building itself.
Between shooting the building and the wire wool spins I had to leave the camera set up for three quarters of an hour while it got dark!
The sky was from that evening on Clee hill, but was taken facing the opposite direction, and HDR using 4 frames.
Then there was me with the skull mask and two off camera flashes as the final part of the image.
There are 17 exposures used in this image in the end, although I could have got away with less as the red flashes didn’t show up much.
Final image “Hell Fire”:
Hell Fire by Andy Kent 100, on Flickr
My final image of the evening was a massive wire wool spin across the ruins.
Turns out I was having a wool fail! Every spin I did made a few revolutions, then the wool would escape my whisk and do a shooting star off into the distance! Luckily Dan, wool spin extraordinaire was on hand to save the shot! So all the spins were done by Dan.
We did have one small fire break out! But some frantic stomping of boots soon solved that!
For post processing, I took each wool spin exposure, and changed the colour using Hue and Saturation in Photoshop. Then used the colour shifted spins, with a torch lit background of the ruins in Startrails.exe to stack it all back up:
Red White n Blue Hill On Fire! by Andy Kent 100, on Flickr
I still have a few more shots to edit, will post them up when they are done.
Also I will link to the other guy’s shots when they post them.
Ian did a cool looking silhouette for which I model by me standing on a ledge on the ruins against the almost dark sky, one of lots of him “many me” shot around the ruins. Leo got some cool shots of his home made UFO, and 2010 Space odyssey monolith. Meanwhile Adrian was light painting his car!
Leo also shot me in a Hazmat suit, pouring toxic waste down into the ruins! (Light painted toxic waste). Looked cool on camera, can’t wait to see the finished shot!
Dan did a light orb, and some shots under the pillars:
All in all a great evening s fun! We left the hill about quarter past 1 am, with an hour drive home ahead of us, and early starts for work the next day! All in the name of getting the shots!
A few of Dans:
image by dajoolzcat, on Flickr
image by dajoolzcat, on Flickr
A few Of Leos:
UFO Cleehill by Leo smith - rocket2cool, on Flickr
Toxic Plasma by Leo smith - rocket2cool, on Flickr
Reseshion by Leo smith - rocket2cool, on Flickr
One of Ians: - Many Ians in fact!
Many mes clee hill by iankent, on Flickr
Holding the sun by iankent, on Flickr
And this is one of mine taken at Clee hill on a previous visit:
Deaths Door Re-Edit by Andy Kent 100, on Flickr
And one of Ians from a previos visit, this is the same structure that "Toxic Death" was shot on:
Clee Hill Star Trail by iankent, on Flickr
Cheers,
Andy.
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