I thank all of you for subscribing and following me during this last year and hope you will join me in my new blog

Mike

End of the Line, originally uploaded by Arkitekt878.

For many years a colliery, which was one of the last remaining operational deep mines in Wales, operated at Point of Ayr. In 1865 Lord Mostyn, owner of Mostyn Colliery, a few miles away had some trial borings done. On the basis of these successful trials the Prestatyn Coal Company was formed but the site was abandoned soon after. A second attempt was carried out in 1873, this time by a newly formed company, the Western Mostyn Colliery Company. However after an unsuccesful trial shaft the project was abandoned again.

In 1883, a third company was formed, the Point of Ayr Colliery Company, and seven years later they found a seam. Pit Ponies were used to bring the coal to the surface and records show there were about 75 being used. By 1896 the pit employed 356 men and a second shaft had been sunk. When the National Coal Board took over the site in 1947 they added a third shaft to the coal field which extended northwards under the Irish Sea. Point of Ayr colliery closed on 23 August 1996 and everything has been levelled. Nothing remains of the colliery except these old railway lines which spur off the main Holyhead line.

If you intend visiting be aware that there is no parking in the vicinity of the site. Although there are a lot of Private Property signs there are also Public Footpaths clearly sign-posted over parts of the site. It’s lonely, pretty desolate, muddy in parts if you go off the footpaths. There was a cold wind blowing the day I visited, right off the sea and I’m glad I wrapped up well.

My first impressions; what a breath of fresh air. No commercial adverts for a start, I hope they can keep it that way. Landscape Photography Magazine has plenty of stunning pictures and in the first issue there’s a Lightroom tutorial. I’ve managed to have a quick peek  but am looking forward to reading the magazine in full later today. Although Landscape Photography Magazine is on-line, you can download a PDF for off-line reading, if required.

So what’s it all about? Well the aim of the publishers is to spread the love of landscape photography all around the world and inspire all ages on every corner of this planet. They intend to include portfolios and images from around the globe and for this they are asking for our help by submitting images, articles, tutorials or anything that can be of help and inspirational to others.

Still in its infancy, Issue 1 of Landscape Photography Magazine has just been released. You can follow the link here

I’ve been a bit quiet of late mainly because I’ve been working on some HDR projects. However over the weekend I managed to find time to complete this excellent project for creating a Vintage Travellers Diary. If you’d like to have a go at it, head on over to abduzeedo where you can find the tutorial and many others. A word of warning though…the tutorial is quite involved and takes a good day to complete.

Sometimes you just want to have a play with Photoshop, maybe try something new and so here’s a little something I knocked up this afternoon. To achieve this I followed a simple tutorial from Gavin Hoey on YouTube, he does a whole series of Photoshop tutorials there. I did modify it slightly to create the background and the border but the main tutorial does show you how to create the ball and the reflection.

Related Articles

• How to Feather in Photoshop (brighthub.com)
• Massive Collection of Best Photoshop Tutorials from 2010 (noupe.com)
• Gavin Hoey on YouTube

As soon as I submitted it I get a comment along the lines of;

You have a style that is, to me, instantly recognisable.  I am not sure what you call it, but this ‘old world’ look is very appealing to the eye.

Now I might not go as far as to say that but looking back over a lot of my old work I do seem to go for a particular style. So maybe it’s time to change. Perhaps I need some for of structured challenge to get me away from that particular style.

So with that in mind, although I’ve always been against them, I’m going to join a Photographic Club. Shock, Horror! There’s a meeting this Wednesday of our local club and I’m going to be there.

Technical Note: Image is a bracket of 5 RAW from -2 to +2 in 1 EV steps, taken with a Samsung GX10 fitted with an 18-50mm kit lens @ 23mm. ISO 100, f13, shutter speeds 0.7 sec to 10 sec. Camera was mounted on a RedSnapper RS-284 & RSH-12 Ball Head and the shutter was fired using infra-red remote control. HDR processing was with PhotoMatix. Post processing consisted of using several textures to darken and grunge up the image followed by some NIK Color Efex, mainly Glamour Glow and Darken/Lighten Centre

Related Articles

• St Hilary’s Chapel – Denbigh (nothingbuthdr.wordpress.com)
• Fremantle Fishing Boat Harbour (nothingbuthdr.wordpress.com)
• Weston-super-Mare Beach (nothingbuthdr.wordpress.com)
• Loch McNess (nothingbuthdr.wordpress.com)

Anyway, I wouldn’t have been able to complete this without the excellent tutorial  and stock images from PhotoshopStar. Here’s the link to the tutorial which shows you how to put the face on the piece of fruit. After I’d finished the basic tutorial I decided to go a bit further and add all the other embellishments. Thought we’d call the baby Percy….

I have to thank my son Jamie Hardisty for the bear image which he took during his brilliant train journey from Hong Kong to UK. I’m not joking he did make the journey by train. Anyway I think the bear photograph was taken in Berlin Zoo.

This is the fifth and final set of free textures which you can use in your artwork (for the time being anyway). This set is a bit of a mixed bag but as before I’ve zipped them up which means you can get them all in one go. All of the textures have been created by me and are free for use in your artwork.

Related Articles

• Free Textures – Texture Set 4 (arkitekt878.wordpress.com)
• Free Texture Sets – Texture Set 1 (arkitekt878.wordpress.com)
• Free Textures – Texture Set 2 (arkitekt878.wordpress.com)

All that remains is for me to say……

Have a Very Merry Christmas

Related Articles

• Free Textures – Texture Set 2 (arkitekt878.wordpress.com)
• Free Texture Sets – Texture Set 1 (arkitekt878.wordpress.com)
• Make Your Own Grunge Textures (pixiq.com)