Canon 5D, 25 mm, ISO 200, 150 sec @ f/11

Well it’s been a long time since my last post and it’s been for a number of reasons that I won’t bore myself let alone anyone else with! This is a morning shot of New Brighton Lighthouse – taken at around mid-morning so the sun was already pretty high and falling directly onto the lighthouse.

I had been thinking about the purpose of the lighthouse and how mariners would view it as a welcome sight, being guided and reassured by its calming presence. Of course there are no rocks to be dashed up at the mouth of the Mersey but there are shallows and sandbars all the same. To help enhance the feeling of calmness I chose a long exposure to smooth the clouds and water, and applied the good old Lenswork Warm Tone preset in Lightroom. I pushed the shadows slightly to reduce contrast and added a gentle vignette. Whilst the lighthouse is the main subject, I really like the presence of the huge cranes in the background; their brooding presence highlighting the solitary nature of the lighthouse…

I tried a new crop ratio with this image too and I have to say I like it.

Canon M6, 23 mm, ISO 200, 71 sec @ f/11

Having read about Kynance Cove and that it got incredibly busy during the day, I wanted to make sure I staked my spot, so one morning I arrived there at around 06:30 to find a couple of other people wandering around walking their dogs, another person with a camera who looked to be packing up already and a fisherman who was on his way home, apparently having caught four bass. Kynance Cove is a National Trust site that is absolutely stunning. From the car park it’s approached by walking down. steep path. I didn’t attempt that due to my choice of footwear. However, I wanted to get a high-level shot so that was fine by me. As usual the Big Stopper was brought out to play and it occurred to me that it might be worth trying a panoramic shot. The above image is made of three separate shots, stitched together in Photoshop. I wish I had thought about it a bit longer and taken a fourth as I feel the cottage on the right is too close to the edge of the image. Oh well. Once stitched together, the image had a bit of adjustment including the ever-reliable Lenswork LW Warm Tone treatment. A few days later I went back to the site but could hardly stand up thanks to Storm Ellen that was passing through, and any thoughts of setting up the tripod were instantly dismissed! Instead I retreated to the relative safety of my tent though there were times when I thought that would blow away too…

Canon EOS M6, 22 mm, ISO 100, 1/640 sec @ f/8

Over Christmas and New Year 2018/19 we spent time touring Thailand. We visted Bangkok before flying to Koh Tao for some diving, then getting the train from Surat Thani up to Chiang Mai before driving up to Chiang Rai, then returning to Bangkok for one last night. At the centre of the trip, wedged between time spent in Koh Tao and Chiang Mai was a five night stay on an island called Koh Yao Noi. On Christmas Eve we hired a couple of scooters and spent all day driving round. Stopping for lunch in a tiny fishing village I took a walk along a long pier where a haziness meant the view was was almost fog-like, whilst the sea was a similar shade of blue to the sky and everything appeared very flat. In the distance were some fishing boats whose relative proximity provided the only items of contrast against the background.

Canon 5D, 100 mm, ISO 200, 1/3 sec @ f/11

Last week my other half had to travel to Sunderland for a meeting so I thought I’d tag along and we stayed in nearby Roker. I was keen to visit as my friend Paul Mitchell had taken (as usual) a stunning photo of the pier there. I was also hoping for the opportunity to take some more long exposures as it’s a form I really enjoy but one I’m finding difficult to master.

Sunrise was  at 05:01 so fifteen minutes before I was set up but was immediately faced with two problems. First the tide was out and to take a shot that showed the curve of the pier nicely I would need to be quite elevated. Elevation wasn’t a problem thanks to the road that ran along the coast using my normal 17-40 mm lens would mean capturing a whole load of unnecessary foreground and lamp posts. Instead I tried my 100 mm lens which framed the image nicely. The real problem was that I then couldn’t attach any of my filters as I didn’t have a 58 mm adaptor ring.

Annoyingly the image, whilst nice, looks to be an attempted straight copy of Paul’s in terms of framing – something I was anxious to avoid! Photographers tend to develop an annoying habit of just copying what is perceived to be a good shot. I want to neither do, nor be accused of that but I think in this instance the shape of the pier and the plethora of encroaching objects meant there was only one obvious way to frame the shot.

Anyway it’s different enough from Paul’s in that it’s not a long exposure, and the cloud cover meant that a monochrome version looks far better than the colour one. Another conscious decision was to include some spray to further differentiate.

The learning for me here was to consider using a long lens for landscapes – something I’d not done in the past. Accordingly I now have an filter adaptor ring on order!