Mr Hardaker's backyard

This weekend saw Prescot Cables playing away to AFC Fylde. The club won the FA Vase in 2008 under their former name of Kirkham & Wesham. I am not sure the new name has established a unique selling point. Some of us stopped on the way to the game in the Bitter Suite in Preston: when some other customers heard we were going to Fylde, they thought we meant  Fylde RFC (where I have been a couple of  times to watch Lancashire v Yorkshire rugby union).

Fylde play at Kellamergh Park in Warton, between the former and current homes of the Football League in Lytham St Annes and Preston. The ground has an air of provisionality: although Fylde moved there in 2006, their long term plans involve a multi sports complex nearer to Kirkham, so the stand, bar, board room etc. look neat and tidy, and able to be dismantled and sold on to recoup some of the costs of the new development.

It can get a bit windy in these parts, as we can see from the angle of the trees.

It was a clear day for November, although that is a relative term: I think of November as the month with the least attractive light. Perhaps it is the transition from October, when we usually have at least a couple of good days, with the backdrop of the leaves changing colour. From the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, the fruitfulness has departed, leaving just the mists.

The auto focus is not always quite as responsive as in the lighter months. I have no problem getting enough to create a slide show, but a few shots that looked good on the camera's montitor prove to be out of focus when seen on a larger screen.

A lot of shots appear murky as well, even at the beginning of the game. Take this example.

After cropping, the next thing I do in Photoshop Elements is look at the levels.

The black part in the middle that looks like a range of mountains is the histogram, and it shows how well distributed the light is in the photo. There is a flat area to the right, which tells us the picture is slightly under exposed. If we move the white slider to the left, to the end of the mound, this will have the effect of lightening the picture. I do this on the RGB channel (as shown in the drop down at the top of the window), which adjusts all colours at once. This is usually all we need in natural light, although sometimes under floodlights it can be beneficial to adjust the colours separately.

This often leaves shadows that still need to be lightened, and can leave some of the highlights over exposed. This can be adjusted using the shadows / highlights menu.

This makes for a lighter picture, with brighter colours, and a better view of the players' faces.

The purist could say that this is presenting a false image - if it was a grey and murky day, then the photo should reflect that.

I do not agree. Most cameras have their own quirks when relecting the natural light, I find the D5000 (and the D50) on a cloudy day makes a dark picture, and it is far easier to adjust the lighting when you can see the picture on a full sized screen. Enhancing the lighting also makes the action stand out - people looking at the website / programme / local paper want to see Cables' John Couch challenging for the ball, not a reminder that it was a bit dark.

The game was a superb defensive perfomance from Prescot,

who held off a strong Fylde attack for almost the whole game, only succumbing in the last minute of normal time, and taking home a point courtesy of a long range goal from James Thomas a few minutes previously.

The rest of the photos from the game can be seen here.