Introduction

Following my trip to Westgate Hill Cemeteryy I decided to make a trip to Grangetown Cemetery which is very close to my house.

This is a much larger cemetery which is very well looked after and people use it as a park where they walk their dogs or take exercise. It is at least a quarter of a mile wide and maybe even longer in length and there are thousands of graves going back at least 150 years.

Unfortunately the first time I went (yesterday) I wasn't happy with the sky.

Despite it being close to sunset the clouds just didn't look right in a lot of the shots. I went back today and there were some beautiful clouds but unfortunately I had to abort the trip early as I came under attack from one of the great enemies of photography - heavy rain.

I will try to go back and take a better look around as with a place of this size it takes a long time just to look at a tiny portion of the graves before you can even start taking shots. Just walking from one end of the other takes a bit of time.

As before these shots are meant for you to use in your own posts as per Steemit4free.

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Processing

I decided to do some more experimentation with processing on these shots. I wasn't able to do as many as before due to fact that the high contrast black and white ones take a massive amount of time to process due to the multiple masks and curves adjustments required to get them to look right. I have also done a couple of colour versions - I can do more if people want to see them.

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The Photos

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1

This is my favourite of the shots I have processed today. I also like the colour version of this which is next. For this version I used a number of masks in Photoshop and combined them with use of the detail extractor tool from Nik Color Efex Pro 4. I also did numerous curves adjustments to get the contrast right on different parts of the shot. The black and white conversion was in Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 (get all their plugins free here). This was my basic process for all the black and white versions. The colour versions were a bit more straightforward.

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2

It seems the position of the light was just right for this shot. This was also pretty quick to edit in Photoshop. I did a minor curves adjustment and some colour adjustment to bring out the shadows and colours to make it more representative of what I saw with my own eyes.

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3

I have no idea what the emblem on this cross represents but I liked the design. It also had some interesting colours to it and I will try to get out a colour version of it in one of my next posts.

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4

A different view of the same cross. Here you can see more of the trees in the distance.

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5

Another cross with texture that I liked. The colour version of the same shot is next.

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6

I went for a more muted look for this one and resisted brightening up the shadows too much. It was getting really close to sunset at this point. This is a fairly accurate version of how things actually looked at least in terms of colour.

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7

Another grave with a large cross and some interesting texture to it. I tried doing a colour version of this but it just wasn't looking right.

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8

A quick shot to give an idea of how big the cemetery is. This view shows about a sixth of it (maybe even less). I took this as the sun was setting and at that time the shadow areas of the shot were very dark whilst the sky was very bright.

I think for a scene like this HDR photography is the only way to capture it properly otherwise you get a very murky looking shot like this which is neither bright enough in the brights or dark enough in the darks.

Also this shows what the clouds were like yesterday - not really very photogenic. That's often the problem the really photogenic clouds often turn into rain very quickly!

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If you like my work and aren't already, please follow me and check out my blog (I mainly discuss photography but I do other topics too) - @thecryptofiend

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Camera: Nikon D800 with Sigma 24-70mm/2.8 lens.

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Photo Credits: All photos are my own unless otherwise stated and free for you to use under the terms of Steemit4free

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(Verification for me here: http://www.aapicture.com/about-me)

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Some of my other recent posts

• Westgate Hill Cemetery - photos for you to use in your Halloween posts
• Return to the Sage (Concert Venue) in Gateshead - (feel free to use in your own posts)
• The Face 2015 Photography Competition - I received a nice surprise in the post!
• The Only Piece of Art I have left from School and What Made Me Give Up Art for so Long
• New Graffiti from the Sage Gateshead (free for you to use in your own posts)

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