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Shot for the Day (17 August 2016)

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I was almost at the hotel after a long drive to Death Valley from Los Angeles,when I spotted this scene.  It was insanely hot, well over 40 degrees Celsius but Death Valley is such a fascinating place, I had to stop and grab a couple of shots before sunset.

The shot above was moments before the sun dropped behind a cloud.  The one below was a little later, as the sky was lit up with the afterglow.

I heartily recommend a trip to Death Valley to anyone.  Just a word of warning.  Make sure you have a car with air conditioning and that you can handle temperatures of over 50 degrees Celsius as it hit 125 degrees Fahrenheit (51.7 degrees Celsius the following day).

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Shot for the Day (06 January 2016)

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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.

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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.

Shot for the Day (04 January 2016)

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West Witterings – Shot 1

Before leaving the UK for Christmas with my family in Singapore, I headed down to West Witterings, one of my favourite childhood beaches.  The morning was cold, wind lashed and stormy.  All of which made for fantastic clouds and changes in light.

The image for today’s shot of the day is one of a series of five shots I took that morning, that I will publish over the next few entries.  This was the moment the overhead storm relented momentarily, giving the sun a brief reprieve to broke through the cloud and washed the beach in golden light.

Warning, if you head to Witterings, remember to take £1 coin or change with you as you have to pay to drive into the car park behind the beach.  Otherwise, it is a long walk.

Shot for the Day (23 June 2015)

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Dawn on Vancouver Island

Dawn on a stretch of beach a few miles south of Tofino on the west coast of Vancouver Island, Canada.  No another person around for miles, just the gentle lapping of the Pacific ocean against the shore.  Mist was rising from the land, creating a very other-worldly effect.

Holiday season was well over and the temperature was only a just in double digits. Still, one of my favourite beaches in Canada.

Shot for the Day (16 June 2015)

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Langkawi end of days

Bit of eye candy for today’s image.  End of my first day on Langkawi, I was wondering along the beach with my camera and tripod.  The scene was beautiful but it was the delicate hues of different colours that I recall.  The faint orange juxtaposed next to the pale yellow.

I wish I were there right now…

Shot for the Day (29 April 2014)

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Exmouth end of day

After several months based in Singapore, I miss certain things about the UK. A quiet beach and a cool breeze are definitely two of them. This was shot at one of my favour beaches, Exmouth, on a Spring evening. The large beach was devoid of any movement as the opalescent sky and previous inclement weather had chased all the fair weather beach combers. When I took this shot, the sun was almost gone, giving the sea an eerie hew on long exposure.

Shot for the Day (24 April 2014)

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Bantham Bay sunset

Dreaming of the summer nights at Bantham Bay in Devon, looking into the sun with no one around.   Actually, the reason there was no one around was because it was Easter 2013 and it was bloody freezing.  Still, one way to get such a beautiful beach all to oneself.

Shot for the Day (28 August 2013)

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Sometimes, squaring off against the elements for the shot can be worth the wait.

I sat on Exmouth beach as a storm front rolled in over the English Channel.  The orange afternoon hues were soon extinguished by the choking, omnipresent clouds.  Day was transformed to night as the wind suddenly picked up.  Moments later, the heavens opened and I realised how exposed I was, sat alone on the stretch of sand.

A perfect afternoon as I recall.

A day in Death Valley, USA

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Recently, after being on a film shoot in California, I had a couple of days spare at the end of my trip and decided to capture some images in Death Valley.  I made the classic tourist error of hiring a convertible car, which in the desert, is a bad idea.  You want, no, you need to have air conditioning.  Being stoic, I chose discomfort and sunburn instead, which turned out well for me.

Anyhow, here are a few shots I took in a day long photography shoot in Death Valley.  It effectively documents the arrival of a fierce thunder-storm, gale force winds and a torrential downpour that flooded the roads in multiple places.

The fluffy white clouds formed the perfect backdrop to this ghost town

Thick, heavy cloud was blowing into Death Valley from Nevada to the east.

The sky seemed to lose colour as the heavy, grey clouds gathered overheat, blocking out the intense sun and dropping the temperature some 20 degrees Celsius.

Rain began to fall and there were two separate rainbows in the desert.  It was magnificent.

For these last two images, the wind was blowing a gale and I had to cling on to my camera gear to fear that it would be snatched away by the wind.

Forks of lightening spread 180 degrees sideways through the sky as I drove back to my hotel after taking the final session of shots on Zabriskie Point.