The small village of Ysbyty Ifan can be found in the Snowdonia National Park, in north Wales. It’s a historic village, dating back to at least the 12th century. It has a predominantly Welsh speaking population of little more than 200 people, an ancient church, a water mill complete with water wheel, and an old bridge over the Conwy river.
I took this photo just before Christmas last year. I had a long weekend in Bremen to visit both the city and the Christmas market, but as I discovered there wasn’t much to see in Bremen, I decided to have a day trip to Hamburg to visit the markets and the city there.
This image is comprised of four original shots taken at different exposures, merged into a single high dynamic range image using Photomatix Pro, then finished using Photoshop CC and Nik Color Efex Pro.
I hope you like it!
It’s amazing how many people think it’s OK to steal your work and then use it on their own websites. Most of my work is licensed under a Creative Commons licence to allow people to use it for non-commercial purposes, as long as I am credited.
Some of my work is licensed through Getty Images, and that can only be used by paying the relevant license fee.
I spent some time recently tracking down people who have been stealing my images, and requesting that they either (a) provide me with evidence that they have indeed licensed my work, or (b) attaching an invoice for the license fee and requesting that they pay in order to ensure that they are fully licensed going forward.
The results of those investigations – three users just removed the image from their site, one is looking into how it happened and will report back, one has been very apologetic and we have agreed that they can continue to use the image but with credits, and one has just ignored me completely. Unfortunately the one who ignored me is hosted in Mexico, so I can’t enforce the provisions of the US DMCA to take down the image.
So far, nobody has felt that the correct course of action is to pay the photographer a fee to use his copyrighted work.
I’d be interested to hear other peoples experiences in this matter!
Just before Christmas I spent a couple of days in Bremen, in northern Germany. Here are a couple of images from inside the Cathedral.
The Cathedral was originally built in Mediaeval times, but was restored in 1901 after falling into disrepair. It can be found in the Market Square, and is dedicated to St Peter.
As this is my final post for 2013, can I take this opportunity to thank you for following my work, and to wish you all a very happy and prosperous 2014.
A few weeks ago I spent a couple of days shooting in the Conwy Valley in north Wales with renowned photographer Rick Sammon.
Along with local expert Pierino Algieri we explored some different locations in this beautiful part of the world.
First stop was this waterfall, close to the village of Trefriw.
I’d like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a very happy Christmas, a happy holiday season, and a peaceful and prosperous New Year.
Thanks for taking some of your busy time to enjoy my work during 2013.
Here is the famous Hohenzollern Bridge in Cologne, Germany.
Hey there,
I’ve been posting lots of stuff on 500px and Flickr recently, but I’ve been neglecting my blog.
I apologise. 😦
As a small step towards correcting my tardiness, here is a rainbow I shot in north Wales recently.
I mentioned in my last post how I’ve been given a free Awesome account at 500px. What has surprised me is which images are receiving the best responses.
To date, the image above has been my most popular image. To me, that is not a huge surprise. It’s probably my favourite image out of my portfolio.
More of a surprise to me, is that this image came a close second in terms of popularity:
This is a six image stitched panoramic shot, the first one I created using PTGui. Am I happy with the results? Yes, otherwise I wouldn’t have posted it! But do I think it’s my second best image? I don’t think so.
Which just goes to show, sometimes you need other people to view your work in order to judge its worth. You get such an emotional attachment to an image through the creative process, that sometimes it’s difficult to take a step backwards, and assess your work critically. But it’s so important to do that.
For completeness, my current third most popular image is:
I note that all three of these images were taken on my most recent shooting trip, when I was in Paris. That is a good sign that my work is continuing to develop!
I’ve just been given a free three-month trial upgrade to an “Awesome” account at 500px so I’m working through my portfolio and uploading them there to judge the response.
Feel free to check me out there as well!
Today’s image is Boa Viagem beach in Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil. It’s my girlfriend Ana‘s home city and has a gorgeous urban beach. Outside of Brazil, people think of Copacabana or Ipanema when you mention beaches there, but the north-eastern beaches are waaay prettier than the Rio beaches!
I’ve been revisiting some of my unloved images on Flickr recently. This is one of my favourite shots, taken back in 2007, yet it was languishing on my last page of “most interesting” images according to the mysterious Flickr algorithms.
So I revisited the post production, gave it some promotion, and it’s now up to number 3 with over 100 views and over 15 favourites!
Just goes to show, never give up on your old images. It’s sometimes worth revisiting them.
Steve Oldham Photography 