A second image from Salum. This time with a much simpler composition. Fewer clouds and trying to eliminate as much as possible expect the three bits of land above the sea. The right hand is sadly attached, I think the whole image would have worked better if it had been three separate distinct islands, but you have what you have.
North Berwick tidal pool
This image was made yesterday during a brief visit to North Berwick. I've been trying to capture this picture for ages and finally got the combination of my availability, weather, light and tide all together at one point. I waited three hours on the beach and this was the very last exposure I made. It was taken on a Nikon D700 with a 50mm F1.8 lens. 4 minutes at f11 with Lee 0.6 ND Hard Grad and Lee Big Stopper. The structure is a children's paddling pool which in itself is not of any photographic significance. However the tight composition serves to remove most extraneous detail and the long exposure reduces the detail in the water to a flat shape. The result is simplified to the geometric shapes. The icing on the cake is of course the Bass Rock in the far distance. This is a fantastic part of Scotland for coastal photography. This location was first brought to me by Colin Homes, the Edinburgh based landscape photographer.
Refining the process
This image was made three weeks ago. The revised workflow that I came back with has begun to change the nature of the output. The combination of CS5 and Silver Efex Pro has begun to allow me to produce the image that I had in my head.The initial RAW file came out of a Nikon D700, Nikon 16-35mm VR and Lee Big Stopper.
Workshop impact
They say the proof of the pudding is in the eating and I suppose the saying holds true. I enjoyed my time with Colin Homes enormously and would recomend it without hesitation. However in good management speak, what has been the impact and what did I learn?
Some aspects were reassuring in terms of my existing practice and my general camera craft stood up reasonably well. I've not long been using the Lee Big Stopper so some aspects of handling that were brushed up. The first part that Colin addressed with us was exposure. This came as a bit of a surprise as I'm reasonably adept at getting well exposed images with a good range of tones. However whether it is due to growing up with colour transparency film or not I have always feared over exposure. Colin pushed us to get our histogram as far to the right as possible I've seen this expressed as ETTR (Exposure to the right). I've never worked that way in the past but seeing files produced have converted. He also taught me to make use of RAW files. I've never been that bothered but working in RAW was a revelation. The final part of the technique slot was given to using Photoshop CS5. I've never gone beyond Elements before but now it has converted me completely.
Time and Tide
Time and tide, as they say, wait for no man. I’ve just made the effort to check times, got up early, made my way down to the sea to work on a particular image only to find I’ve made a mistake. Not only was the tide not high but it was virtually out and getting lower. I was there last night but ended up coming home after a very frustrating hour. The cold was so intense that the pain in my hands became unbearable. On top of this the wind was so strong that it was lifting the tripod (+D700, lens and bag hooked on below) to the extent that I had to hold on during the 2m45s exposures. One of those times when maybe the ultra thin, lightweight carbon fibre legs might have been better made of cast iron.There is a danger in pre-visualisation as today when I couldn’t make the image I had in my mind, nothing else would come and there was no flow.
Into the mist
Having snowed hard most of Sat the forecast for Sunday was thick mist. Time to take the camera up onto Sizergh Fell not far from our house. I set off to visit the boulders previously shown but caught the composition while looking around the area. Tree alone didn’t offer much, sheep alone were just, well- sheep. Together, for me, something works about this image. It almost seemed as though the two sheep had posed there deliberately to balance the image. I like this image a lot. The Fell is a very special place, full of ancient echoes and somehow this picture captures something of the mystery.
D700, 16-35mm, 0.6 Grad ND.
New Arrival
Thanks to exceptionally speedy dispatch and distribution from Park Cameras my new lens arrived this week. It had been part of the plan to partner the D700 with one of these. Have taken all expected photos of living room and back garden and now looking forward to taking it out to play for real.
Time for a change
The new body arrived today from Ffordes (www.ffordes.com). A nearly new (2900 actuations) Nikon D700 full frame camera body to replace the D300 that I sold recently. As always, it arrived well packed by Ffordes and in exactly the described condition. A full review will follow. Some would say it is an odd time to invest as the replacement model will be out soon. I’m going right out on a limb with a suggestion that when the new model hits the shops this one will still make just as good photographs…