Anyway if you missed them you can find them by going over to www.fantasiaphoto.co.uk and selecting ‘Blog’ at the top right.  Or you can follow these direct links….

Hello 2013 – Goodbye 2012

The Flooded Gate

Pools in the sand

Waiting

A Cold Bed

Cars and Bikes Gallery now online

Netty

The Hidden River

New Photos in the Black and White Gallery

Keep Calm

Bonneville – and more

Animals

Also if you’ve not updated your RSS feed or bookmarks then please please please do so as I’d love to see you over on the new site

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However, it’s not going to be practical to move all the blog posts over from here.  The new blog will be at  www.fantasiaphoto.co.uk/blog but I’ll leave this one active here at blog.fantasiaphoto.co.uk

Anyway I’d love it if you’d head over to the new site, take a look around, and let me know what you think.  There is still a lot of work to be done to get it exactly how I’d like to see it.  So expect plenty of uploads and updates over the coming weeks.

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Redemption

Well it’s been a busy few weeks since my last post with all sorts of things happening.  I’ll try and catch up with it all over the silly season holidays.  Anyway here is a shot to kick it all off again.  I’ve called this one ‘Redemption’ and I hope it’s clear why.  The shot was taken a few weeks ago at an old unused church some friends told me about.  The church itself is Saxon with a medieval altar and this shot was taken looking through a ‘squint’.  That said I like the way the perspective is such that it looks almost like a walkway.  In reality it was only a few feet high.  I’ve got more shots from there but I’ll share them later.

On a different note – are you on the ‘New Myspace’?  If so then why not let me know so we can connect over there.  Oh and if you want to join up I still have a few invites left

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The Old Tower

This weekend I visited Cold Christmas Church in Hertfordshire.  This is an old church which was partially demolished in 1853 in favour of a new church.  When we set off I had no idea where we were going as the trip had been planned by someone else.  So we were most of the way there before I knew anything other than we were looking for an old church that had been abandoned.

I’m not 100% certain of the name of the church as looking about online it appears to be referred to as Cold Christmas Church and Thundridge Church.  I’m not sure which is historically correct but I love the idea of a church called Cold Christmas.  I mean seriously how on earth did that village get it’s name?  The stories online say it’s probably something to do with several (3 in some sources) children dying at Christmas over a couple of years.  No idea if that’s true, but I would imagine if that’s the case an older name must exist somewhere.

I’ve also read lots of accounts of people saying it’s ‘haunted’, they visited and it was ‘freaky’, or there is something ‘weird’ about the whole place.  Honestly it just felt like an abandoned tower that even the local kids have grown tired of.  Parts of it were definitely dangerous and we saw some graffiti that had obviously been made by people taking silly risks.  Some of it was dated to the early 80’s!

I’ve also seen sources online stating that the church dates back to to the 11th century but with my limited knowledge of architecture I’m fairly certain that what remains is later than that.

Looking online people have said that they have felt colder there than expected – sorry I didn’t, I was nice and warm in my clothing.  That they’ve seen a ghostly woman, one stated she might have been walking a dog.  Yup I did notice someone walking their dog but didn’t have any thought other than my dogs would have loved a walkies in those fields.  That they’ve heard grumbling, growling and strange noises – sorry didn’t hear anything like that.  They had rocks thrown at them – again a nope although there was quite a lot of broken stones higher up that could easily get dislodged.  The one thing I did experience which I’m sure some would interpret as evidence of paranormal activity was sudden coldness.  However in each case I traced it back to wind coming in through windows.  In short I didn’t get any spooky or weird feelings, and nothing freaky happened.  Maybe it is haunted, but we saw no evidence.  None of our photos showed anything unusual and as someone who has a history of reacting weirdly to places I didn’t feel anything unusual.  In short a great photography outing

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Over the hedge (Buy prints and greetings cards)

This last few weeks the air has contained that icy edge meaning winter has definitely arrived.  There has been frost in the mornings and freezing fogs.  Unfortunately I’ve not been able to head out first thing with my camera but thought I’d share one with you from last winter.

This particular morning it had been snowing and the freezing mist was hanging around.  I headed out in my car in the immediate area around where I live.  I didn’t want to travel to far as I knew there was a reasonable chance of getting stuck so I headed over the river into Suffolk.  I drive this road every day and so pass this cottage frequently.  To start with I wasn’t happy about the overhead cables but after a bit of repositioning I could use them as a leading line.  I love the idea of peeking over the hedge to ‘find’ this home only just visible.  One day I’d love to live somewhere like that.

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And Nature Returns (Buy Prints etc)

This shot is a bit of a departure for me.  I took it last weekend at the old abandoned farmhouse in Essex as part of the Other Realm / Ghost Project.  However it’s the first shot from that series which I’ve not processed purely into monochrome.  Despite being upstairs this room was by far the darkest in the house.  The glass from the window was long gone and nature was climbing in.  The light streaming through those ivy leaves was amazing and gave the scene a fairy tale feel.

Normally when processing shots like this with extreme lighting conditions I would bracket and combine those images in post-processing to bring out all the details, but with the ghost project that’s not an option.  I know it’s possible to take multiple exposures and combine them to produce lots of wonderful effects, including ghosts, but all the shots in this series are being created from single captures.  So that means bracketing isn’t an option.  Instead I went for some off camera flash to help brighten the inside of the room.

Then I processed to give the colouring shown.  I wanted to emphasise the green of mother nature reclaiming this man made structure.  Overall I’m quite pleased with the result.

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Last weekend I was out and about again doing some urbex photography with my friends Ann and Neil.  This week was the turn of a lonely forgotten farmhouse, perfect for some ghost project shots.  I could have spent days in there investigating and happily shooting away.  Unfortunately it was only a few hours before the sky started to darken and our stomachs were rumbling loudly.  A return visit is in order for sure.

It never ceases to amaze me how on such an over populated island we have places like this.  Someone must own it.  Someone has taken the decision to abandon and allow nature to reclaim it.  Why?  Was it genuinely forgotten or did some horrible event happen there causing it’s family to choose to abandon their home?  Guess I’ll never know but it’s fun to speculate.

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Ghostly Vision

I’m super pleased with how this shot came out.  Last weekend I went with some friends to explore an old abandoned farmhouse and found this window in one of the old bedrooms upstairs.  The glass from the window is long since gone and mother nature is in the process of reclaiming the building by climbing in through the window.  Sunlight was also creeping in to the mainly darkened room.  It was screaming out for a ghost shot.

Fortunately I had packed my long green velvet hooded coat and quickly bullied my friends into helping by firing off some fill in flash while I stood still for the long exposure (45 seconds if you’re interested).  The resultant image was then converted to black and white on the computer and I’m delighted with the result.  That place is most certainly on my ‘revisit’ list.  Hmmm…. now I wonder what props I should take next time….

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Standing in the Hidden Doorway

This image is a departure for me from the regular Ghost Project shots as it’s made up of two separate shots.  The first shot was of my hand holding the crystal ball and the second of me as a ghost in a doorway.  They were then combined to make it look like you could see the ghost me in the doorway through the crystal ball.  The sunbeams which form part of the ghost were created in camera I might add.

Just like the shot from the last post this one has aspects that are about boundaries.  The idea of seen and unseen in this case.  That said  I don’t want to start sounding like some arty farty type who takes themselves far to seriously and waffles endlessly about the symbolism.  So I’ll leave it at that and let you make your own mind up about the shot.

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Catching Sunlight (Buy a print or greeting card)

The ‘Ghost Project’ is taking on a life of it’s own and I think it’s far enough along to start sharing more of it with you all.  There have been a few posts already but to be honest I’ve not shared most of it.  This is a recent one taken last week on an Urbex trip with some friends.  I love how 3 photographers can visit the same place but come away with such different shots.  I made a video of the shoot which you can watch here.

Once again this is a self portrait and it was a complete so-and-so to take.  This old industrial installation has been abandoned for some time and posed some interesting lighting conditions.  I liked the idea of the ghost being on the boundary between the bright world outside and the dark inside of the man made structure.  So I positioned myself where part of the wall had fallen away beneath a window frame.  The starburst in my hand was created using a crystal ball (there is a smaller star burst at the top of the ball if you look closely) and as usual the image was captured in colour before being converted to black and while.  I’m fascinated by this idea of the ‘boundary’ and it seems to be featuring more and more in my thinking when it comes to this project.  Expect to see more of these shots in the next few weeks.

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