Theme 1 Community Buildings - Hilton Village Hall 30 10 10

Have been reading some stuff about photographing buildings and I will put some of the detail on here, but I figure that while there is still some good weather I should get out and take some photos

14mm, F16, 1/4sec, ISO 100

 Hilton Village Hall,
Half in Shade   

 

Out of the sequence this one stood out for me.  Kit zoom lens set as wide as it will go.  Still early morning so camera supported on a tripod to enable me to use a small aperture - F16 and a longer exposure - 1/4 second while using an ISO of 100.

This was taken from as close as possible to the building while still being able to see it all within the shot.  Unfortunately I was not able to get square on to the shot as the skate ramps were in the way.

I have seen this building many times, usually either early evening or late in the day.  This rear wall usually appears very dull, almost featureless.  It is the external wall of a hall that doubles as a badminton court and a performance space with the traditional village hall stage at one end. The early morning sun changed the colours of the brickwork, emphasising the red.  Long shadows have added a real difference to the appearance, highlighting the shallow buttresses and casting a series of shadows that cover half of the building.  The shadows only struck the top of the window arches for a short time as the sun rose.  Fortunately I was there to see it.

If I have another opportunity I think that it would be possible to improve on this by taking the shot from the top of the skate ramp.  This would put me square on to the building.  The additional height would also improve the image as the whole of the building would appear above the fence line.  All in all not displeased for a first effort.

I have added the images below as they place the wall in context.  The 16:9 image is taken from the north-east of the building.  Early shadows from the east.

 Hilton Village Hall                                                               Hilton Village Hall

Early Autumn Sun                                                                 Early Shadows

14mm, F22, 1/4 sec, ISO 200                                        14mm, F22, 1/2 sec, ISO 200

Hilton Skate Park

14mm, F16, 1/15, ISO 100

The image of the hall was taken while I was stood next to the large ramp on the right. 

If you enlarge the image above you are able to see the edge of a new building that was built for the Scouts.  During the development they had real problems with vandalism on site adding many £1,000's to the cost of the project.  Even after it was built there were a couple of attempts on the storage yard at the back.  One solution is captured below, not everything to do with the community is fluffy.

Warning, razor barbs!

25mm, F11, 1/8th, ISO200

This is the shot as taken.  Having just spent time looking at other walls I wanted to do more with this.  Taking the image on the angle, while focusing on the warning sign.  I tried the shot with a wider angle, which was not as effective - it was just a wall.  Filling the image and cropping in close was far more effective at producing a dramatic image.  Have still used 1/3rds, but on the diagonal.  The edge of the gate brings in another texture and reveals more of the spikes.

One of the filters that Olympus include with its' software is one called 'Grainy Film'.  While reducing the size of the file to upload to blogger I applied the filter, which made the image much more dramatic