Visited with UE Skeleton Key. This wa s amassive part of my childhood and I was gutted to hear that it had been abandoned. I was even more upset to see the state it was in.
The Photos.
A short video of the days adventure are found here.
If you are new to Photoshop and have never cropped and rotated before then this may provide you with some much needed help. before you read on too far I used Photoshop 7.0. As far as I know the crop tool hasnt changed much.
Ok so you have shot an image but it is slightly wonky. No great dramas here.
Open the image in Photoshop and click the following. Select and then the all button from the select menu. See below.
This will select the whole image for its operation.
Now for the rotating part. I will assume that you will want to line your image up with either a horizontal or vertical line. Click the View button on the tool bar and select “New Guide”
Now you have to tell Photoshop the orientation of the guide. Will it be vertical or Horizontal. I generally use horizontal to line up landscapes.
Once you have selected the guides you will see them land on the screen. 
You can manipulate the guides using the move tool. Which my cursor is above in the above image.
Now you are ready to start manipulating the image. With the image selected go to EDIT then TRANSFORM then ROTATE.
Once the rotate command is selected you will notice the box surrounding the image. There will be nine squares in three sets of three surrounding the image. Place the cursor just above either of the top left or right or under the bottom left or right boxes and left click and drag the image to the desired position.
Once you have rotated the image you will notice areas of background coloured screen about your image. This is because you have lost part of the image from the canvas. But do not worry because here is where the crop tool comes in.
Simply select the crop tool, specify the dimensions in either pixels PX inches IN centimeters CM. After you specify the size of the image you need to assign a dpi value to it. This is important because if you want to print an image you need a resolution of 300dpi. If a file is only needed to be displayed on a monitor then give it a 72dpi resolution.
Once you have this set, select a start point, left click and drag to the end point. The preserved area will stay the same colour but the area lost will be greyed out. Right click and select crop or cancel or Esc to cancel or Enter to select and you are done.
Should I shoot in raw is a question that lots of people ask. My answer is yes if you have the card capacity, you value getting a photo that is of optimum quality. I will forewarn that I do not know everything this is just my oppinion. So here goes.
You can not guarantee that you will get exposure and white balance correct. I never understand people who have great cameras, lenses and then shoot poorly white balanced photos in Auto mode. White balance can be corrected in photoshop Elements and lightroom to name but a few programs.
Lets look at white balance.
I shot this in greenwich last year. Here is how it came out of my camera.
To adjust the image in Photoshop Elements 8 we can take the following steps.
Right click the raw file and open in Elements 8. The raw file editor will open up and you are able to change the settings. The white balance can be adjusted by either moving the slider or typing a new value into the input box.
Here is the box.
Here is the result.
See the difference in the image.
Having spent countless school holidays feeding seaguls at Padstow. I will always have an affinity to padstow. I was fortunate enough to get down last september for a week. I packed my tent, my clothes and my camera. Aaaah Bliss.
Porth Cothan bay has long since been a favourite place to spend a day. Be it camping nearby and having a day by the beach or passing through enroute from Newquay to Padstow. Newquay is a shithole these days. Long gone are those innocent days of lounging on the beach, watching the surfers. Its all about the chav infestation.
Anyways here are some shots I took of the bay in september of 2011. Hope you enjoy.
More info regarding Porthcothan Bay can be found here
There is a wikipedia Entry
Beacon Hill Fort. Is situated in the picturesque hamlet of Harwich Essex. Harwich clearly has some messed up people based on the signs of heroin use were there as were the signs of chronic alcohism.
The history of the fort and photos are availible on the following sites.
Here are my photos.
Walthamstow staduim has been abandoned for four years and looks amazingly derelict and overgrown. We visited today with the expressed inteneton of shooting some video and stills. Not theiving metals or damaging anything.
The security guard was beside himself with anger when he saw us. He said in his best african accent. ” You are theives”. “I want your camera”. “I am going to call the police”. “Does my bum look big in this”.
I did suggest that we should lay in wait and sing happy birthday to him but no one seemed interested. The guard dog was free roaming and seemed to just do its own thing.
Here are my photos
Some relevant links.
Where to start where to start. There area few fan sites for enthusiasts of old airfields. Nerds as we know them. Derelict places is full of those types.
A link to the wikipedia page is well worth a visit.
I headed there with my boss and his wife for a general mess about. Here are my efforts.
Thanks for looking.
