Adieu to the North East

As I've officially left residence in the North East to become a Midlander again I thought I'd pay a final tribute to my time there by posting some photos I took of the Angel of the North.
The first set were taken on my film camera, and possibly suffer a little from overexposure, but all the same I do like them. 

These last two were taken on my digital, and they show better the darkening evening sky, and bring a whole new atmosphere to the photos.

Tribute to a lost friend.

To my lost friend Philippa,

We miss you so much, and may our memories of you continue to brighten our days. Our thoughts and prayers go to all who knew you, may you now be at peace.

Lightroom - making bad photos a whole lot better!

Recently I shot a couple of films using my Pentax film camera, and although often the composition of the shot was as I envisioned, the results came back woefully overexposed. There are potentially a few reasons for this, with the fact the camera and all of the equipment I'm using being from the 60's a likely answer. Whilst this can be corrected in the future by just adjusting the shutter speed and aperture on the camera, it felt a shame to abandon the films I had taken all together.
This is where Adobe Lightroom 5, a program I am currently trialling with a view to buying comes in.
If you want to know more about this general idea of this I will post a link at the bottom of the page, as the official website will describe it much better than I can.
Take the following photo of Aly taken after we helped out at the rat race. 

 Granted neither of these photos are going to set the world alight regardless of what I do to them, but by using Lightroom to adjust the exposure and colours slightly the images can be improved.

 The same goes for the still life photos I took a few days later.

Due to overexposing the film the vibrancy of the colours in the flowers has been somewhat lost, which is a real shame. Also using the spot remover function and dust particles on the lens can be corrected to improve the overall image.

Overall whilst I'm a big fan of staring with a great photo, using programs such a Lightroom in a subtly manor can help correct some flaws to improve an overall image, and has helped me turn dodgy photos into ones that I'm much happier to share with friends and family.

Link for the Lightroom website.
http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/photoshop-lightroom.html?kw=semgeneric&skwcid=AL!3085!3!33014109934!b!!g!!adobe%2520download%2520lightroom%25203&ef_id=URq2BQAAAEJFb178:20130907170251:s

A photo worth stopping at the side of a busy road to take?

A sunset I was unable to resist. A beautiful end to one of the last days of summer.
(yes I did cheat a bit and use a colour enhance filter, but only because my camera was washing out the sky)