A wet evening of cycle racing in Aylsham

On June 13 the Pearl Izumi Tour and the Johnson Health Tech Grand Prix came to Aylsham.  When the Ladies started, the clouds opened and the rain came down in stair-rods. Two hours later it had stopped by the time the men started and the sun even came out at the end.  I could not fault the organisation with free park-and-ride coaches for spectators running from a local National Trust car-park. The races were around a 1.7 km course, so there were plenty of chances to see the riders pass.  I was a little disappointed with my pictures, but here are a few, mostly of the women's race

An experiment in nostalgia  which also eliminate some of the less than pleasing background!

Work in progress - English U23 & U20 Athletics Championship. 15-16 June 13

I arrived home from the second day of the championships with a total of 3200 shots to process; sadly, this is not yet complete, but this is a taster from most of the events that I watched.  We had torrential rain, sunshine, strong winds and still calm - a bit of everything!

Later.... I have now made my selection of 45 shots from the complete set which are here

Viaduct over Scandal Beck, Cumbria

Three shots to five photos; the first three of this sequence are all different treatments of the same shot. The other two are just further pictures of the same viaduct near to Newbiggin-on-Lune.

This is as it came out of the camera:

In this version I have corrected the perspective to stop the viaduct falling out of the picture, I have also applied tone mapping which has lightened up the insides of the arches (probably too much):

For this one I went back to the original and re-did the perspective correction and flipped it (still searching for left handed pictures!). Next I selectively lightened the inside of the arches, darkened the sky and increased the contrast around the brook, then converted to monochrome with Nik Silver Efex and sharpened it a bit:

For the last two I just tottered down the valley a little further:

A little treatment to this one to try to bring out the sky and the distant hills - the sun wasn't helping me with this one!

Following advice at Cambridge Camera Club Aperture group, I have reworked a few images from Cumbria. I have retrieved some sky on the barn,

 

and letter-boxed some of the landscapes.