Bite-Size Blog Post #37 - Dawlish
In this blog post I head to Dawlish to photograph something a little different but I'm not sure of the results.
And now for something completely different…
Over the last couple of years, I've spent a lot of time photographing Dartmoor. It feels like the only thing I've been photographing! Looking back at the list of blog posts I've published recently it's probably a fair assessment. Apart from the odd deviation, it’s all been Dartmoor, Dartmoor, Dartmoor!
Despite my need for a change of scenery I decided the best place for me to photograph with my next block of available free time would be Dartmoor! After such a good run photographing the heather on Dartmoor, I wanted to push my luck and go for one more shoot. However, while driving to Dartmoor I could clearly see the that the conditions weren't the same as what the weather forecast had predicated. The sky was looking very overcast. Glancing over to the coast however, there were patches of blue sky. A change of plan was needed!
It was already too late to go anywhere too far away like Dorset or Cornwall, so after pulling over to check my map, I settled on Dawlish. I had spotted a large stone groyne last time I was there, and I remember thinking it might make for a good long exposure photograph. I knew the tide was high, but as with any sunset shot there's always a risk that you get there to find the groyne populated with people or anglers.
I needn't have worried as to my surprise it was free of people, so I quickly got to work and captured this photograph.
Dawlish Groyne, South West Coast Path, Devon - Nikon Z8 with Nikkor Z 24-120mm f/4 S at 24mm, f/13, 15 secs at ISO 64, Kase Filters CPL and ND Grad.
Looking at the photograph now, I'm not convinced it works though. I like the tones, the cloud cover and the simplicity of the image. However, I think my main issue is that while the horizon is completely level, the groyne doesn’t appear level in the frame. There’s one simple reason for this and that's because it's not actually level. Well, not at that point on the groyne anyway. It does level of a bit further down, but that would require me to shot it at a lower tide. (Which would also allow the red marker post at the end to be larger in frame).
I think the groyne being unlevel unbalances the composition in a composition where I feel balance is everything. It's also possible that this view simply doesn't work as a photograph. Just because it's a simple composition, and a long exposure, doesn’t make it good. Time will tell. I'll look at it again in a few months and I'll either think it does work, or I wish I hadn't bothered. Well, that’s not true. I'm glad I tried something different. It's important that I did and perhaps I need to do so more often.
Dawn with Danks - A Mini Adventure with Gareth Danks
In the blog this week I share with you vlog I made when fellow photographer and YouTuber, Gareth Danks paid me a visit. We headed down to the south Devon coast for a bit a coastal photography and a chat.
Meeting Gareth Danks
I've been following Gareth Danks on YouTube for a while and we briefly met up at The Photography Show earlier this year. At the show, we discussed the idea of meeting up to do some photography but finding a date we could both do proved a little tricky.
As spring came around and the days got longer, the number of opportunities to get out with the camera also increased. So when Gareth announced he was going to be making a visit to Devon we thought it would be a great time to meet up. We agreed to shoot sunset on Thursday evening and then shoot sunrise the following day.
Our Adventures
The plan was set and the day soon came around. In the following videos, you can see exactly what we got up to.
The first and only video I made was of the Friday morning shoot at Dawlish Warren and Dawlish. You can see it here:
For an alternative take on the morning, check out Gareth's video from Friday morning:
And finally, if you want to see what we got up to on Thursday evening on Dartmoor, you can see Gareth's video here:
I hope you enjoyed all those videos. I think we both have a similar style when it comes to our vlogs so it was really easy to mix up the photography, shooting my video and appearing in his vlog. Though it was only a short meetup, it was a mini adventure to remember!
My Photographs
You will have seen my photographs from the Friday morning in the video, but as always I like to share them here on the blog as well.
Nikon D850, Nikkor 16-35 mm f/4 at 16mm, f/13, 240 secs at ISO 64, Lee Filters circular polariser and 10 stop ProGlass IRND.
Nikon D850, Nikkor 16-35 mm f/4 at 20mm, f/11, 80 secs at ISO 64, Lee Filters circular polariser, 2 stop hard edge grad and 10 stop ProGlass IRND.
I do hope you also watched Gareth's video. It's really interesting to see how another photographer shoots the same scene at the same time. It was beneficial for me as watching Gareth setup his compositions got me to think about my own compositions.
Do you meet up with other photographers? Do you find yourself learning from them or trying something new out? Let me know in the comments below.
Bad Weather Photography
In the blog this week I remember to "embrace the grey" and head out to Dawlish to get some photos in less than optimal conditions.
Time to Embrace the Grey
I once went on a Nikon School one day workshop with Jeremy Walker. I remember the weather not exactly being great but one thing stuck in my mind from that day. As Jeremy was laying out the plans for the day he already knew it was going to be an overcast day. His advice was to "embrace the grey".
I did just that with this photograph:
Banjo Pier, Swanage. Nikon D750, Nikkor 16-35mm f/4 at 28mm, f/11, 30 secs, ISO 100, Lee Filters Big Stopper.
Now I may have mentioned once or twice on the blog recently that the recent weather has been playing havoc with creativity. So when the weather forecast for the week was looking grim I decided enough was enough and I was going yet again embrace the grey!
I needed to find an appropriate location to make an image but when I remembered about the stone groynes at Dawlish my mind was set. So off I headed with a clear vision of what I wanted to capture.
Despite the weather. No hang on, because of the weather, I really enjoyed myself at Dawlish. It made me look at the location with different eyes.
Here's what I photographed:
Nikon D850, Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 VR at 31mm, ISO 64, 5 minutes at f/11, Lee Filters Circular Polariser and Big Stopper.
If you want to see how I went about capturing the image, here's a short video I shot while I was there...
So do you have a favourite bad weather location to take photographs? Is there really such thing as bad weather for photography? Let me know in the comments below.
PS.
On a little side note, I'm very happy to say that Adobe has now updated Lightroom to support the Nikon D850. This means I no longer have to convert the files to DNG format first. I can now import the NEF (raw) files straight from my memory card. I was so happy about this I posted a video on my YouTube channel.
Planning a Landscape Shoot at Dawlish Warren
In this video blog post I show you some of the planning tools I use to help increase the chances of a succesfull trip out with the camera. After that I take you on a trip to shoot seascapes at Dawlish Warren to see if all the planning was worth it!
Plan, Plan, Plan
I like a plan. Plans are good. Plans don't always go to plan, but I like having one none the less. As a private pilot I definitely like to have a plan when I head out to the skies. And though photography is arguably less risky than flying I still want my trips out with the camera to be worthwhile and successful. After all, there is no point in heading out for sunrise only to arrive at your location as the sun comes up. This has happened to me before and trust me, after the hour and half it took me to get there it was a painful lesson.
So to prevent missed sunrises, badly timed tides, and gale force winds, I like to plan my shoots so I can maximise my chances of success. In this video I will use:
These are the tools I use the most and I've found them to be very effective and accurate in the past. So let's see them in action along with my shoot down at Dawlish Warren beach:
Success
As you can see from the video, I had a successful trip and I've come away with an image I was very happy with. By checking out what the conditions were going to be like before I headed out I could be reasonably confident that my image would meet my vision for that location.
Not as calm as it looks. Nikon D750, Nikon 24-70 f/2.8 VR, 195 secs at f/11, Lee Filters ND Grad, Polariser, and Big Stopper. Processed in Lightroom CC.
Audio Quality
As I mentioned in the video, though the photography went well I had a few problems with the video. When I had the camera facing into the wind I lost all the audio of my voice over the wind noise so I had to ditch a lot of the clips. Being a landscape photographer this won't be the last time I will have to deal with this issue so I have purchased a Rode smartLav+ external mic (and some added furs for extra noise reduction). Though I will have to sync up the audio in post using Premiere Pro CC (my Sony RX100 M4 doesn't have a mic input), the improvement in audio quality will be worth it. So expect to hear my dulcet tones much improved in the next video!
Do you plan?
So do you plan your trips out with the camera? Or do you chuck the camera in the car and go for it? Let me know in the comments. And if you have a couple of minutes please like and share this blog post. Till next time....