Don't forget your batteries!

On my photography wish list for this second trip to the Isle of Wight I'd hoped for some striking wintery seascapes and a picturesque sunset and/or sunrise. Hopefully utilising some of new skills procured in the Dorset coast I'd lugged my tripod, filters and all the camera accoutrements with me over to the island to see how much I'd retained (forgive me Helen for all I haven't). Suitably clad in sparkly hiking boots (well, it is Christmas) I locate a spot on the beach that has a nice view of one of the distinctive red coastal hazard markers and set up.  

I'm crossing my fingers I might get some attractive shots at sunset but the sky doesn't look promising.  I am well prepared, I've even braved a long queue of locals in Boots buying last minute Christmas present perfumes and indigestion preparations in anticipation to procure a shiny new SD card for my camera.  I fire off a couple of test shots then screw on the filters to slow the crashing waves down.  

A couple of clicks and the inevitable slow shutter drains the camera battery almost immediately. But no fear, of course I've bought a spare with me.  However when I spot that it's upside down in the battery holder I know this one is flat also. And my third? Well that's fully charged and back up the hill again in my hotel room.  And typically, as I throw in the towel, wipe my tripod of sand and pack everything away the clouds clear slightly. And as the clouds become wispier the gold, yellow ochre and tangerine streaks start to emerge and I am camera-less. Most definitely a schoolboy error! Perhaps if I rush back up the hill, shake the beach off my boots and grab the last remaining battery from my other bag in my hotel room, there might a chance I preserve the Christmas Eve sunset. Around me everyone is holding their camera phones aloft and each time I turn around the sky has bruised further, and the indigo was merging with  the orange streaks. 

There wasn't time to return to the beach but I did manage to get a few hand held shots squeezing in between the parked cars and peering over the balustrades. Tomorrow, I will try again but with plenty of batteries!

Don't look down!

Tonight the Frui Social is on a boat, not a boat that sails up and down the Thames but one firmly anchored. I have packed some sensible shoes for exploring later but on arrival I'm wearing my new hot pink, bejewelled and befeathered and exceedingly skyscraper high shoes - no, I'm not sure why either! It was one of those good idea at the time situations. My first realisation of my epic fail in the shoe department was when I attempted to walk the extremely steep gang plank, so steep I had to be rescued. Fortunately once I'd arrived on relative terra firma, albeit a watery one, I could slip into something less fabulous!

This Social’s theme is surprisingly literal maybe due our not very well lit surroundings. We had to photograph water, wheel, street sign, statue, food, and as a curve ball, dog poo. I can only speculate what goes through Henry’s mind when concocting the night’s challenge. The pavements around here are wide and seemingly very dog free. Finally after spending a disproportionate part of our allotted hour scouring the immaculate pavements for the elusive substance and yes we managed it, and took quite an artistic shot considering but was pipped to the post by some soggy Mars Bar fakery.

However the real verses fake dog poo-gate aside I did score a ten out of ten for my statue picture. Result!

What wasn't such a result was changing back into my not-so-sensible shoes and then realising the tide had gone out and the angle of the boat's gang plank was considerably more perilous than my arrival. Doh!

The big pink ten!

Our sunset shoot is going to be a cluster of infamously photogenic stones at Kimmeridge. Our plan was to get there way before the sun was thinking of removing its hat and book the best tripod vantage points as space is limited. This turned out to be a wise decision as sunset approached other photographers arrived and loitered at the edge of the water hoping we’d just leave. But we didn't. We were on a mission.

The plan was to experiment with the magical ten stop filters in conjunction with neutral density grads (as the sky is invariably at least two stops lighter than the mid point (the sea or a handy rock). To make their mystical powers you need to pile in the filters and sloooow down the shutter speed, the challenge I have is 69 seconds is the maximum shutter speed my camera can muster and the desire to get the “milky water” can tend to make my photographs a little dark.

I managed to get the beloved by the landscape photography images in magazines - the smooth creamy sea And I discovered that my filters have a tendency to colour cast, luckily I like pink!

 

On the inside

After a full English breakfast we tried to sleep for a few hours. Helen had heard of a possible new location for us exercising those ten stop filters tomorrow so was way too excited to even try to sleep and went off for a rece. After managing to grab a few hours and recharging our batteries both ours and the camera’s we headed off for the Ghost village of Tyneham. When the sun is too high for our milky water shots Helen reverts to what she calls “inside landscapes”. Here we still slow things down by using our tripods but look for those little details for context. We have an old church, with a dilapidated organ and old school room with coat hooks and ink wells and the grounds to explore.

After finishing with some composition exercises after which my camera got the nickname “little red” we head off to chill and compare photos.

 

A sunrise, a ship and seaweed

My diary is seemingly stuffed with opportunities to weld my camera and it has made me yearn to learn some new techniques. I'm in Paris in a couple of weeks, followed by Croatia and then New York. And last week I was enjoying our little bank holiday photography trip to Cambridge, though to be fair the photography got pretty much superseded by drinking. I'd been toying with a coastal workshop and Helen Rushton’s See Life Through the Lens seemed the perfect choice. I’d seen a “reader improve my skills” piece in the June edition of Digital Photographer and I was definitely impressed with the images from the reader. Perhaps I could get a bit of that!

We chatted on the phone about how much I love hiking (not) and how I could get to Swanage when British Rail seem to stop their service, have a train-less gap and then a steam train kicks in to take you to the coast. Really? I love a steam train but as a vehicle for getting myself and my luggage from A to B it seemed far from efficient. Helen kindly suggested picking me up half way and a plan was formed. The plan is two dawn and two dusk shoots, which of course me an incredibly early start - yay!

On arrival last night I met the other two photographers (one had come from Australia, but not JUST for the workshop) and we settled down to pub dinner and some instruction in the fine art of neutral density filters and the lure of the ten stop. I'd furnished myself with this mythical filter (Lee don't do ones to fit my camera so I had gone for a Heliopan circular one, but I had no idea how to put it to use.

Just in case you're wondering where 'that' came from, to give Helen a shock I slipped in a graduated orange filter, just to er 'enhance' the sunrise a little. 

We assembled pre-dawn, really it’s still very much night but we want to have our tripods ready and waiting before the first glimmer of a sunlight tendril colours the sky. Helen had chosen a nice easy location for us, a nice flat beach with no slippery rocks to inevitably fall off. Sadly I was too sleep deprived to recall the location but I could always ask the ship that was there IN EVERY SINGLE PHOTOGRAPH!

Mother nature had been doing a little decorating so the foreground was strewn with ugly seaweed (and yes, there is pretty seaweed but this wasn't it) so some of my perfect compositions were besmirched that dark sludge. Helen explained that she's not adverse to a little gardening, relocating an errant branch or piece of litter but clearing a whole beach is really out of the question. As is slaving over a hot Photoshop is definitely not what this workshop is about, the clue is in the name “see life through the lens” see?

Red sky at night

Don't you just wish that when there's a beautiful sunset you have a more attractive foreground than the roof of the station as you step onto the crowded platform? But I just knew if I risked waiting for the a more picturesque location that I'd be thwarted as the last vestiges of the purpley magenta streaks would disappear tantalisingly out of view.





I tried desperately to snatch a shot through the murky window of a moving bus whilst crossing the bridge (definitely not my best work). This vantage may have been perfect if I was on foot as my miniature tripod is attached to my camera and the bridge balustrade would act as a suitable support for a long exposure but minutes later as I alighted the bus the moment had passed. Night had fallen. Barely a wispy pink trail remained.


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Everyone likes a sunset don't they?

Frui have decided to stir up a little healthy competition on World Photography Day by suggesting we post a favourite photograph on their Facebook page and then try and procure the most ‘likes’. But oh what to pick? I nearly plumped for a much loved artfully shot, Donna Hay-esque bunch of asparagus but wasn’t sure it had the requisite crowd pleasing qualities. Instead I reached for a stunning sunset that I captured ‘sans tripod’ on a railway embankment in Loudun in the Loire Valley after a heavy day shooting (images I hasten to add) in Doué Zoo in October last year. That’s a trip I desperately need to blog about – I have hundreds of photos to select from and so much to write about.
I managed to do quite well with my ‘likes’ for my lone telegraph pole and endless sky but the worthy winner was a beautiful bit of observed reportage of a girl dragging her Barbie on a metal chain – maybe you have got see it to get it! If I can link to the required Facebook page I will.

Happy World Photography Day one and all!


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