Saturday walk along the River Thames and we finally had some clement weather, albeit not balmy.
I was trying out my new 25mm lens with a Firecrest 3.0 HD this weekend. Not the classic streaking clouds shot but was quite interesting. I have started to do more HDR images (this is not one of them) as I have seem some great YouTube videos on how to combine images subtly.
For the last couple of weeks before Christmas, I was in China on business. I spent my time in Shanghai and Qingdao. Unfortunately, in Qingdao, I did not have the chance to take any shots. However, I was fortunate enough whilst staying in Shanghai to have a day when the smog was not too heavy and the sun was out, albeit briefly.
After taking lots of shot of the river and Pudong, from the boulevard on The Bund, I spotted a raised platform and included the foreground Christmas bustle. To make the image more interesting, I used a combination of filters including a Polariser, Big Stopper and 0.9ND. I was fortunate that the lady in the yellow jacket hardly moved whilst I took this long exposure, which really anchors the shot for me.
After waking up early for a dawn shoot, I was a little dejected by the lackluster weather. However, using a Lee Filter Big Stopper to slow the scene down and generate movement in the clouds, whilst making the sea turn more glassy.
The delicate orange glow below the morning clouds, behind the pillar of land at Ladram Bay in Devon made for a rather haunting scene.
Walking between Exmouth and Budleigh Salterton over the weekend, in south Devon, I spotted this interesting rocky outcrop. The sun was beginning to drop to my right and threw an captivating shaft of light across the scene. The tide was washing close to the top of my Wellington boots and I had a camera bag full of kit precariously balanced on the rocks next to me. I had just enough time to grab a couple of shots before having to clamber up the rocks. Definitely worth it.
West Witterings – Shot 2
Following on from my last entry, here is another shot from the sequence I shot in West Sussex, at West Witterings beach in December 2015. This shot was taken using a Lee Filter Big Stopper about 10 minutes after the previous shot. You can see the rain falling in the distance, beneath the cloud. Quite a surreal scene.
West Witterings – Shot 3
Shortly afterwards, the sun climbed high enough in the sky and started to light the clouds above the main bank. I had to wait another half an hour until the sun had completely cleared the main bank of cloud in the scene and that created a completely new view of Witterings. Truly a stunning morning.
On a walk along Exmouth beach, the light was not particularly interesting, so I decided to play with my Lee Big Stopper, so blur the waves behind the lifebuoy. The colour cast of the filter and the strong red of the lifebuoy made up for the flat skies.
Still getting used to mixing light levels between graduate ND filters and a Big Stopper. This was a 2 minute exposure on the Devonshire coastline, as the afterglow of the sunset dwindled just long enough to be captured on film. To the naked eye, the scene was almost devoid of colour, verging on the black and white.
Another early rise shot on Dawlish Warren. The clouds had meant the sunrise was not as spectacular as I had hoped, so I tried my Lee Big Stopper. This created the pleasant softening of the clouds and water. It also added a blue cast to the image, which I chose to preserve.
All Terrain Photography 