This first picture, "Abbey From Town", was taken as the evening was setting in. I began walking in the opposite direction from the abbey in the background.

When I went to take the picture, I thought the composition was just right. The ominous sky surrounds the abbeys equally spooky tower, which is then juxtaposed to warm bustling streets of the town. I believe this emotion is anchored by the light reflecting for the tiles. 

The photo was taken at low shutter speed to increase the light into lens and surprisingly only took one try. From this I sacrificed the motion blur of the characters walking in the street, but it is only subtle and I think gives the image an important energy. In edit I did very little to alter this picture apart from correct the white balance and increase the vibrance of yellow to increase the luminance of the street light.

This second image was taken early in my walk through the town, in a small garden of a tea shop. When I first took the picture I disregarded it but rarely do the LCD screens on the camera do it justice as in post the picture looked significantly better. 

With this image I used the gradient tool to increase the vibrancy and brightness on the left side of the image where the flowers are. I believe this creates an attractive disparity between the two sides of the image; the dull, rough wall to the beautiful, natural flower.

Images 3 & 4 were taken in a very low light, similar to that of image 1. For these pictures I tried experimenting with the aperture.

In picture 3 I focussed on the statue in the background with the memorial ribbons in soft focus. To do so I used manual focus on the camera and set the aperture to a relatively low setting - F9.0. But because of the small aperture, not enough light was let into in the camera, I tried to rectify this by slowing the shutter speed. And as you can see the photo is slightly blurred from where I was moving. I chose to include the picture anyway because I think it demonstrated a good test of how I experimented. 

Picture 4 was similar in process to 3. When I first took the picture I believed the bright spot on the camera was lens flare from the lamp. Upon further inspection, there had been a slight drizzle and water was on the lens. This caught the light and I believe to be quite artistic.

Picture 5 was a decisive moment mid way through my shoot. The two men arrived just as I did and stood, in the band stand, facing towards the war memorial. I stood behind them and tried to capture the natural symmetry created. I used a high aperture (F22) to capture a broad depth of field. At the time the light was enough that I could use such a high aperture without sacrificing the shutter speed or ISO. 

In post I edited the images white balance and increased the vibrancy. This made the blue of the band stand and the green of the grass stand out significantly. Upon reflection I think the subjects have been lost in the colour because of their black attire and if done again I would avoid this. As well as using a zoom lens to get a tighter image.

Picture 6 is of the front wall of the tea room. I composed the image to include overcast sky to compare to the warmly lit and inviting tea room. 

In post I experimented with the gradient tool to lower the contrast, raise the brightness and increase the vibrance on the left side of the screen. This washed out the sky but illuminated the blue sign. The opposite was then done on the right side of the image to create a warmed aesthetic because of the difference between the yellow of the inside of the house and dark of the wood. This image was also slightly cropped from the bottom to exclude the hedge as I saw it unnecessary to the image. 

The next image is a close up of a small sign at the foot of the war memorial statue remembering those that have fallen in WW1 and 2. A handful of small crosses were placed at this sign to remember individuals, unfortunately the names were worn. I tried to take a close up of on of the crosses but the light was too dark to get an appropriate picture. 

Image 7 is a close up of the window from image 6. In post I edited the image's sharpness to make the 'closed' sign more readable in the window. I also increased the contrast. Other than that I left the image as natural as possible

In the next two images, I tried to experiment with composition. The first I noticed trees that looked like cross were clinging to the wall. I felt that the religious connotations they had suited the towering abbey in the background. The image did not turn out quite how I wanted it to and even in post I could not seem to brighten the image, without jeopardising how bright the sky was. 

The next image I was going for a frame within the frame using a checkered window into the garden in the tea room. I was hoping to catch someone walk past the window unfortunately it was a very quiet at the time I was documenting. 

In post I edited the image significantly. The original image displayed the wood from the slats quite brightly, but I wanted to create a difference between the colours brightness of the garden and the dark of the wood. To do so I raised the highlights bar a up the blacks slightly. I also up the contrast and vibrance to make the garden 'pop'. 

This next image was purely an experimentation with colour. I wanted the green of the tree on the left to highlight the orange of the other. But have them both stand out against the grey of the abbey. I think I achieved this to a point, but the subjects in the picture were not different enough to really make a compelling image. Overall I think the composition is poor, this is true as this picture was rushed as I was trying to keep going before I lost all the natural light. 

In post I upped the vibrancy and the contrast. In review I should have also played with the exposure because the image is darker than I would like it to be. 

Image 11 was the first picture I took. It is of the garden walk towards the abbey. I think he image turned out really well I set a high aperture to include as much of the path as possible. 

In post I increased contrast vibrancy and and sharpness. Although the higher I put the sharpness the worse the image began to look. To counteract this I used the mask to blur sharpness slightly. 

Lastly was a very ominous picture of the abbey that I planned to put into greyscale. But I felt the image was more spooky naturally. Saying that I used the gradient tool to darken the sky at the top, almost applying a dark cloud over the building that I think has worked quite well, but in the future I would make it a stronger dark as I don't think it is significant enough. This image was also cropped slightly to remove people cars moving across the bottom.