I Missed Spring but Hello Summer!
In the blog this week, I share with you my disappointing experience of photographing spring this year. However, I remain in a positive mood as the first shoot of summer goes a little better.
Spring, My Favourite Season
As a landscape photographer and general fan of the outdoors, I like all of the seasons. Each one has its own unique characteristics and they can transform how you view and photograph locations. For me though, there is something special about spring. It could be the improving weather, the changing colour of the landscape, or simply the longer hours of daylight.
Spring officially started on the 20th of March this year and I was determined to make the most of it. The short days of winter were at an end and it would soon be possible to start heading out weekday evenings. I was hoping to spend a few months being busy with the camera.
Now that the spring season has officially ended (21st June), I'm looking back on the photographs I have taken and I can't help but feel a little disappointed. It's not that I didn't get out with the camera, it's just that I can't really pick out a photo and say "I nailed it". Somehow, it seems that spring has passed me by this year.
The problem doesn't appear to be lack of commitment on my part, it's just I haven't been out when the conditions have been at their best. As a photographer with a full-time job and a young family, time is very much at a premium. The times I get to go out with the camera aren't dictated by the weather conditions, but when I have spare time between my other commitments. So if Tuesday evening is the time I am able to go out with the camera, but the conditions will be better on Wednesday, I either go out on Tuesday or not all.
It's not been all bad. Spring at Venford Falls (Dartmoor, Devon) is always worth a visit.
Don't get me wrong, spring hasn't been a total disaster. I managed to create a bunch of videos for my YouTube channel:
I have been busy but I just haven't created an image that has captured the essence of spring. One of the key shots I wanted to get was of the coastal thrift in Cornwall. While I did capture an image of the thrift, the conditions were far from ideal. Unfortunately, the thrift is only at its best for a couple of weeks, and I simply didn't get a chance to get back and try again.
I created this image for my Focus Stacking with the D850 video. If only the light had been better. (Bedruthan Steps, Cornwall)
However, I need to put things into perspective. While I didn't get my "spring" image, I did get out with the camera. For me, anytime out with the camera is a good time, and being able to practice will mean my camera skills will be sharp the next time to conditions are better.
Summer is Here!
Anyway, spring has gone, and summer is here so time to start capturing the delights of a new season. For one of my first shoots of summer, I decided to head to The Rumps in Cornwall with my friend (who is also a photographer and a bit of a lucky charm!).
It was a tricky decision to head out that evening or not. I was already very, very tired after a 3 am start that morning for a dawn shoot, but even though the forecast was for clear skies, we could see enough clouds in the sky to justify giving it a punt. To help us on our way we had some fish and chips, and a coke, and we instantly felt more optimistic.
It was a really nice evening at The Rumps. Unfortunately, there was only a little cloud in the sky, and what cloud there was, was difficult to frame effectively. It was however, a good start to a summer of photography and I captured this image:
Summer at The Rumps #3 - Nikon D850, Nikkor 16-35 mm f/4 at 18mm, 0.8 seconds at ISO 64, f/13, Lee Filters Circular Polariser. (The Rumps, Cornwall)
As the sun dipped below the horizon a band of deep orange appeared along the horizon. It was spectacular to look at but it was one of those views that was best looked at than photographed. Sometimes you just need to sit there and soak up mother natures show with your own eyes.
Did you manage to capture any good photos from spring? Are you looking forward to photographing summer? Let me know in the comments below.
Not All Shoots Are Successful Shoots
In this blog I discuss the challenges of shooting on a beach and I give my own image a critique.
The Best Laid Plans
As a photographer you always want to put your best images out there. If you practice enough your technique will improve and your style develop, hopefully resulting in a gradual but noticeable improvement to your images. While this is generally true, it doesn't necessarily mean that every trip out with the camera will result in an image that was better than the last one. When I started this blog one of my key goals was to discuss my success and my failures. As I said in my first blog post, landscape photography isn't all about 5 star images captured on epic international trips.
In this blog post I'm going to take you through one of my less successful trips out with the camera. I had it all planned out. I would finish work bang on time, drive to West Bay in Dorset, and photograph the sea and evening light as it gloriously reflected off sea and cliffs. Well, that was my vision anyway. I went through all my normal planning steps, weather, cloud, tide, bearing of sunset and it all looked good.
Challenging Conditions
I've visited West Bay a couple of times, but never to photograph it. The east beach there, recently made more famous by the TV series Broadchurch, is long and sandy with dramatic cliffs running as far as the eye can see. However, when I arrived the reality of actually shooting there became apparent.
Firstly was the tide. After checking the tide tables I knew it was coming in, but what you can't tell from the tables is how long of a reach those waves have. The waves weren't tall, but their reach up the beach was long. Now I don't mind getting my feet wet, but it becomes really difficult to frame your shot if your camera sinks a little with each wave. If I moved further away from the waves I lost a lot of the sea in the frame. Normally this would be less of an issue if the beach has a natural curve.
The other challenge was the weather. While it wasn't raining nor the wind as strong as I expected it to be, the light was very flat. The forecast had indicated lots of high cloud and no low cloud. This I hoped would give me a spectacular evening sky to add to my composition. However, there was a lot of low cloud and the chances of there being any evening light bouncing off the cliff seemed very unlikely.
Change of Plan
Spare time to do photography is at a premium for me. While I like to do some location scouting when I can, it's not always possible, and so sometimes I just have to wing it. So with the very real sense that I might have just wasted a 2 hour round trip in the car, I put my thinking hat on and tried to think of a different composition. This approach of looking around and not getting focused on one thing had worked well on a recent trip to Dartmoor, so I picked up my tripod and got walking.
It wasn't long before I had the idea of doing a long exposure of the beach, looking straight out to see, and including a few well-placed rocks or stones in the foreground. This composition would probably deliver better results. I would have better visibility of the waves and the quality of the light was less of a dependency.
An Ever Changing Beach
Though I had a new vision on what my photograph would be my challenges weren't over. I would find an interesting composition, setup, grab a frame, maybe two at the most, and then a wave would come in wash my composition away! Even some of the larger stones in my composition weren't big enough to resist the pull of the waves. So this left me with very little time to grab a frame for each composition I found along the beach. I had to make sure the camera was level, focused, and correctly exposed in very short time or I might not get another go at it.
After only a few compositions the light had faded and I decided to take my very sandy tripod and wet feet back home for a nice meal and glass of wine.
Critiquing My Own Image
I only took a handful of frames that evening but here is the image that I think turned out the best.
Nikon D750 with Nikon 16-35mm f/4, 1.3 secs, f11 at 20mm, Lee Filters Polariser and 3 Stop ND
Now I'll be the first to admit this isn't an image for my portfolio. Though I like the mood and style of the image it does have a number of issues. If I'd had more time at the location I might have worked out these issues but as I said at the start of the blog, not all shoots are successful shoots.
The main issues I have with the image are around the rocks I have used in the foreground. The rock in the lower right of the frame for me is just a little too close to the edge of frame. I would like to have had just a little bit more space as there is with the rock on the left.. Given a bit more time between waves, I might have setup my tripod in a slightly different location to give me that space.
While the image roughly follows the rule of thirds, it doesn't follow the rule of odds. Now, I know that these rules are more like guidelines, but quite often they do make sense and I do think following the rule of odds in this scene would have helped with the overall composition.
Rocks at Porth Nanven - Nikon D750, Nikon 16-34 f/4 at f/16, 1.6 secs at 20mm.
I learnt about the rule of odds in the book, The Art of Landscape Photography by Mark Bauer and Ross Hoddinott (it's a fantastic book and well worth picking up). In the book Ross and Mark discuss how having an odd number of objects helps create visual stability or symmetry.
In this image I took of Porth Naven a couple of years ago you can see how I've composed with three rocks in the foreground. The balance and implied triangle in this image is something I would have liked to have seen in my West Bay image.
Always Good to Be Out With The Camera
Despite the fact that my shoes are still drying off and I had to strip down my tripod to get rid of the sand, I still felt it was time well spent with the camera. I'm also not going to win any awards for the image, but that really isn't the point. I was outdoors with my camera on a beautiful beach taking images and for a person that spends most his time sitting at a desk it's just nice be outside. Yes, conditions were challenging but it's through these challenges that you learn to progress as a photographer.
Actually I'm going to change my mind, it was a successful shoot. Just successful in a different way.
So what do you think of the image? How would you have shot the scene? Have you got any tips for photographing beach scenes? Please let me know in the comments.