Category Archives: Black & White

Beautiful Ulster, Belfast, Black & White

Middlepath Street, Belfast

The murals on the overpass at the end of the Sydenham ByPass, and adjacent to and viewed from Middlepath Street.

Photographed with a Fujifilm X-T5, simultaneously in Acros black and white film simulation, and in RAW. The RAW image was processed in colour, and in Photoshop overlaid with the monochrome image; a mask applied, and the mural colours revealed with the brush.

I’d intended it to be in monochrome only, but the result was drab, – and that street corner is brightened greatly by the colour on the walls, – so I went for a compromise, – a monochrome image with a splash of colour. In the early digital era, that technique was frowned upon as ‘cliched!’ But sometimes it just works.

Fujifilm X-T5, with 50mm with Nikon manual focus lens, f/5.6 @ 1.125th sec on ISO500

Beautiful Ulster, Black & White, Co. Antrim, Photo-Essay

Crosskeys Inn

The Crosskeys Inn is a traditional thatched building in Co.Antrim, sited between Randalstown and Portglenone, north of Lough Neagh.

Photographed here with a Fujifilm X-T30 camera, F= 21mm, f/4 @ 1/1250th sec on ISO640. If the shutter speed seems a little fast for a static building – I agree! I’d just managed to capture a shot of a motorcycle and sidecar roaring by!

Beautiful Ulster, Belfast, Black & White, Photo-Essay, Travel

Queen’s University, Belfast.

Rarely is there anywhere to park a car in the vicinity of Queen’s University, – parking spaces are few and hotly contested, but on 27th December 2023, I was driving through the area on return from an appointment in South Belfast, when to my surprise, I found an empty space, right beside the Students’ Union. I quickly parked, and stepped out with the Fujifilm X-T30 fitted with an 18-135mm zoom lens.

The Queen’s University, Belfast.

Photographed with a Fujifilm X-T30, F=18mm, f/5.6 @1/125th sec on ISO250.

Because it was still student holidays, traffic around the university was light, and that helped quite a lot with the photography. I stood outside the Student’s Union to capture the main image, but it wasn’t long before some human interest occurred.

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Beautiful Ulster, Black & White, Co. Antrim

Lislea Mission Hall

Lislea Mission Hall, in the townland of Lislea, between Portglenone and Kilrea. Now long abandoned and disused, it has been boarded up, and become overgrown and is slowly crumbling away. Once would have been a meeting place for worship to groups of local resident, farmers and their friends, and their children.

Lislea Mission Hall
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