Tag Archives: long exposure

Dublin Customs House at Night

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Canon 5D 26 mm, ISO 200, 5 sec @ f/16

This is a photo from the archives, taken way back in May 2008 whilst I was working in Dublin. According to the EXIF data this was taken at around 23:00 and I remember the thinking the reflection of the lights in the River Liffey may have made nice image.

Unfortunately I was wrong and this sat until very recently unloved and untouched in my Lightroom catalog. The lighting was vey warm and I just didn’t like the way it looked as it distracted from the architecture.

I decided to try converting to monochrome using the ever reliable Lenswork Warm Tone, then dodged and burned in a couple of locations. Finally, a tight crop to accentuate the width of the building and the job’s a good ‘un!

A Calming Presence

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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.

Cornish Coves and Cliffs

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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…

Floody McFloodface

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Canon EOD M6, 22 mm, ISO 800, 4 sec @ f/8

Late October 2019 saw a lot more rain than usual in the UK – so much so that on Tuesday 29th October saw a number of flood warnings (flooding is expected – immediate action required)  issued by the Environment Agency, including for the River Severn near to Upton-upon-Severn. Since this is now my local area I thought I would pop along to have a look, not having see the Severn in full flow before. Due to other commitments it was almost midnight by the time I was able to get there but needlesss to say the warning was justified and had previously built flood defences not been in place the town and my feet would have been very wet indeed.

Moored alongside the jetty is a large boat called Conway Castle. Normally most of this vessel is out of view, well below foot level. Tonight however the waterline was about two feet above foot level, held back by a wall that had just another inch or so before being breached. The flow rate was scarily fast too, with lots of boiling and swirling going on. Adding to the scary part was the fact that you could only see the immediate vicinity due to the lack of light, but you knew that out there in the dark was a river dooing its best to cause michief and mayhem.

Land of Lakes

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Canon EOS M6, 22 mm, ISO 100, 165 sec @ f/16

We recently decided to do battle with midges and expensive alcohol and booked a lake-side cabin in southern Sweden at Deralycke, near Linneryd. The place was fantastic – utterly unspoilt and once we found another route to bypass a rather large tree that was blocking the road we had a splendid week of BBQs, fishing, reading and generally feeling vey isolated. Oh and I even managed to take a couple of photos. However, not having been able to take my proper tripod was a bit annoying but I did take my Manfrotto PIXI Mini tripod along with the M6 and Canon’s EF-M 22mm f/2 STM as well as my bag of filters. I ended up using a couple of chairs stacked on top of one another which wasn’t ideal due to squidgy, uneven surface and a fairly strong wind but it was better than nothing.

The fishing wasn’t much to speak of but I did at least manage to read five books over the week.