Trawling the digital darkroom

Here's another from Felixstowe I finally got round to processing...

Huddled together

Beach Huts At Felixstowe Seafront

Just like penguins huddled together for warmth, these beach huts hunker down, over-wintering and dreaming of the summer to come.

comments / critique / feedback always welcome :)

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One from the beach

I made this capture a couple of summers back around this time of year. I thought it would be a good example of how there are shots everywhere—you just need the right frame of mind, to keep yourself open to suggestions coming from your environment ...and to have your camera with you :)

Footprints and a shed seagull feather

Temporary Canvas, Bantham, Devon, 2007

I was at Bantham beach (a gorgeous spot where the River Avon in Devon meets the sea) at the tail end of a fairly quiet mid-week day. Camera in hand I was just seeing what turned up.

It was heading towards the golden hour and the beach was getting deserted—one of the few folks I passed who wasn't either leaving or packing was another photographer, setting up his tripod amongst the receding waves. It had been a quiet enough day and that meant that the far and of the beach didn't really get much in the way of visitors, leaving the sand relatively undisturbed.

Concept

The sight of the ripples left by the retreating tide and the way they were overlaid by the footprints and other signs of passing, brought to my mind just how temporary human and even animal-kind are in relation to the enduring earth. No matter what 'footsteps' we imprint on this earth, the ebb and flow of mother nature will wipe the slate clean on the next cycle.

Composition

I searched for what I thought was the best composition to try to capture that concept and found the one you see, with the two footprints side-by-side and the happenstance of the feather.

Fairly common occurrences by themselves but the way they were all so neatly arranged on the temporary canvas, it resonated with the thoughts I'd just been experiencing and the shot was made.

As an aside, there is one of those compositional rules that says about using groupings in odd numbers. Someone might argue that its two things and one thing, well I say it's art and not science!

comments / feedback / critique always welcome :)

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Felixstowe visit over winter

Caught In The Surf

I was pleased with the way this shot turned out. Firstly, the sky was doing some wonderful things, with beams of sunlight breaking through the clouds. The surf looked good and I had a good, if unplanned subject. The lad was playing "chicken" with the surf and I knew there would be lots of opportunities if I was quick.

Because I was shooting into the sun, I knew that there would be a few challenges to overcome. Apart from catching the action, I knew lens flare could be a problem, even with the lens hood attached, and that exposure would have to be carefully controlled.

I shot in RAW, so I had leeway over the exposure and set aperture priority and a high f-number, so I woudn't have to worry about focus. Then, to get the exposure about right, I exposed for the sky and used exposure lock before re-composing for the lad, placing him close to one of the rule-of-thirds' power points.

In composing, I made sure I got the diagonal lead-in from the surf, taking the eye to the beach huts and headland. And then I took three or four shots, following the above plan each time.

It was all a bit quick, the lad was off somewhere else almost immediately, so I had to make do with what I'd captured. It had to wait until I got to the digital darkroom before I knew I'd got the shot - and only then after applying a graduated filter to the sky and tweaking the contrast and levels. (I did lose a couple through lens flare, and poor subject interaction / position.)

Ok, I admit it, it sounds like a 10 minute job, but actually I spent a couple of hours on it in the darkroom. Sad perfectionist that I am ;)

I was a bit put out that I got a few blown highlights, less detail around where the sun was breaking through. It's not too bad, though. What do you think?

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