I’ll be spreading out my Scotland posts, with luck between posts from Hong Kong whilst I’m there but this first punctuation is from a little closer to home. Given the previous post was more a [nicely] illustrated travelogue, without the time to sit, set up and compose photographs carefully, the following posts I plan to return to the expected form! After a seeming insurmountable bout of rain a clear day appeared, seizing the chance I headed to somewhere I’d not yet visited; Portland Bill where a lighthouse sits and this particular feature; the Puplit Rock. Although this looks like an interesting geological feature, it was in fact created by quarry workers in the 1870’s. Portland is the ‘almost an island’ bit of land at the south eastern end of Chesil Beach and directly to the south of Weymouth, connected to the mainland by a spindly causeway with a road across it, which is great – until they decide to have road works on it (!). I sat in a queue of traffic for ages watching the sun sink lower in the sky as I remained motionless with that sinking feeling I’d miss the light entirely. Finally I got through and arrived to find I was the only one around! It pays to go places out of the tourist season – the vast car park gives an indication of quite how busy it can get…

I almost ran out of time getting here to create this image though curiously it shows the importance of time and its relation to photography in creating quite different images to those seen by our eyes. The period the shutter opened for in this image, a 15 second exposure, has given the water a smooth and misty appearance around the rocks where all its movements over the time period have been captured and compressed into a single image. The lack of detail in the water contrasts with the rocks around which it flows. I dare say an image taken over just a fraction of a second would not elicit any great response yet extend the reality beyond the natural view and the results can be stunning. Obviously this is quite unlike how our real-time vision would see it and although no photoshoppery has occurred it is a simple demonstration of how a photographer, whilst not expressly telling them how to feel about an image, may certainly influence or guide what the viewer sees steering them towards sympathetic responses. The following images range in exposure length from a couple of seconds through to 30 or more…can you guess which?