Up early for sunrise over the Marshwood Vale on the south western edge of Dorset to witness the rising mist over the surrounding levels. The first day of September and it true feels as though summer has been and gone…
Posts Tagged ‘Dorset’
Blue Balance at Kimmeridge, Dorset
02 Feb 2010 | Dorset, Intimate, Landscape | No comments added... »
I headed down to Kimmeridge the other day in the hopes of a great sunset with the low tide. Upon arrival the tide was certainly low, as low as any of the locals I met could ever remember unfortunately large grey clouds rolled in and all but obscured the sunlight. So much for a wonderful sunset, the rest of the day had been bright with just the right amount of clouds and had the potential to build into a spectacular display. Alas not, I tried a few compositions but settled with a gentle reflection of the last bit of light on the wet rock slabs…maybe next time…
Dorset Coast; Durdle Door
05 Dec 2009 | Coast, Dorset, Landscape | No comments added... »
A few weekends ago I met up with a few other brave souls on one very windy morning and ventured out to Durdle Door, the destination for many school geography day trips and tourists alike thanks to the unique geology and resulting shapes carved out of the rocks over thousands of years. If you perform a search you’ll find thousands of shots from this popular location so it is a bit of a challenge to avoid the cliches and come up with something a bit different…Personally I found it’s the bay the other side of the spit of land from ‘the door’ is on that’s much more interesting. A semi-circular cove protected by a bank of sharp rocks some 100m out, at the time huge waves were crashing over the tops of their dark peaks creating a big swell in the bay. Each wash up the shore was followed by long fingers as the surf was dragged back down the beach again, rather mesmeric if you watched it for too long! We stayed until the sun was too high and contrasty – and all our filters had become completely gummed up with salt spray and smears – I broke off from shooting the crashing waves and headed off for lunch with everyone. Later on we braved the waves yet again down at Portland Bill where I had been before, and how different it was. Being some way off the mainland the seas carried much more power in their waves, as deep waves slammed into the straight sided slabs of Portland Bill huge plumes of spray doused the entire headland in a fine – and sometimes heavy! – spray. One miscalculated wave almost soaked all my gear but thankfully it was still safe in the bag…though it filled my wellies somewhat!
Lessons learned this time: take a good cleaning cloth with you into the field and don’t underestimate the size of the wave approaching…
Blown Away (almost)
20 Nov 2009 | Coast, Dorset, Landscape | 1 Comment »
I nipped down to the Dorset coast to see what’s what at Lyme Regis. The light was superb, the movement of the water was brilliant for what I wanted, the clouds were all lining up ready for the final bit of colour in the day…but the wind was unbelievably strong. The camera almost toppled over on the tripod a few times, between me frantically trying to wipe off the salt water from my filters – which incidentally I failed spectacularly at, succeeding in only smearing the salty residue round the filter to make a misty view – and trying to sort out a cable release that, well, kept releasing itself from the connection port… very helpful.
I tried a few into the sun, as it really was something spectacular but that was also where the spray was coming from so despite my best efforts, waiting for the right moment and so on, there was just too much spray. It was just in the air all around me, everything got a fine coating of salt. It reminded me of the sort of salt covering you might find on a cross-channel ferry where the decks glisten and the handrails seem sticky with the stuff, it builds up and seems never to dry. You couldn’t see it, or feel it (unless a big wave hit = soaking!) but my filter was steadily getting spattered by salty droplets and I noticed a fine build-up accumulating around the joins of my tripod. I gave up on the filter, I turned my back to the spray and sun and what you see is above ‘vanilla’, just the processed raw, smidge of burning in places but no filters. Included below show everything I didn’t bin. So, not an entire disaster but not the sort of conditions I was expecting!
Portland Bill, Not without time
21 Oct 2009 | Coast, Dorset, Landscape | No comments added... »
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?
Down at the River Cottage…
09 Sep 2009 | Dorset, Garden, Plant-life, Weddings | 1 Comment »
Last weekend I was invited to attend the wedding of Viktoria and Joel at the River Cottage, of Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall organic/green/sustainable cookery fame. It wasn’t my ‘gig so to speak but I took the camera along and took the odd shot during my socializing. The hosts at the River Cottage were absolutely brilliant and allowed us to wander quite freely around the vegetable gardens. I didn’t want too miss out on the opportunity and was amazed by the array of wonderful sounding plants I found growing in the quite orderly beds, from herbs through to fruit it was all there, even some pears and raspberries… (more…)
Pink Drag
13 Aug 2009 | Coast, Dorset, Landscape | 1 Comment »
Occasionally the clouds clear away and the UK does get some blue skies. Hasn’t happened much this summer though! I was immediately drawn to the band of pink that fades to blue just across the horizon but for lack of any foreground interest (being a rather open and pebbled beach) I settled for the dynamic approach and shot the movement of the water and thus create some foreground for me. With a moderately high depth of field I was able to strike a nice balance and capture the movement of the water around the stationary rocks, creating white trails as it receded back into the surf. This was taken down on the Dorset coastline not far from Lyme Regis and proves once in a while a nice evenings do roll by…I’m just hoping for a little more consistency in the weather to make photographic trips that bit more reliable rather than merely ‘trips’! I’ve also just revised, and in the process of updating, my wedding package(s) to keep it all simple, I’m hoping to have it up in place in the next week or so.
Dorset Coast: The start of something…
13 Jul 2009 | B&W, Coast, Dorset, Landscape, Long Exposure | 1 Comment »
Well, I’m finally getting down to posting everything that’s been going on in the recent weeks. Not a great deal in one way and some good in another…building works, removal/moving and general heavy lifting has been hampering my time online – no bad thing really but then I’ve not been posting as much recently…um, at all! So, to kick things off anew here’s one from just the other day taken down on the Dorset coastline just next to the dramatic rock formation of Durdle Door. Quite a remarkable feature that really must be seen if ever in the area, and just around the corner (in opposite directions) are Bat’s hole and the famous Lulworth Cove. Geography field-trips abound with geological changes between rock types to enable such interesting creations, and it’s all here in the UK folks. Honestly, there’s no need to travel around the globe to see amazing landscapes – there’s so much just down the road to be found. On another trip I found the highest point in Dorset…some way from where this image was taken but still, found it I did and climb up it too, all 100 or so meters(!) but the views are unprecedented…I will return on a brighter day to create some images…
On another note it occurred to me this image (above) whilst perhaps not my most amazing shot ever does allude towards the direction I feel I’m heading, or at least find personally more rewarding and what I find moves me in terms of subject and style. I shall see what more develops as I explore my own findings and feelings towards this and report back later…
Stillness of things
26 Apr 2009 | Coast, Dorset, Landscape | No comments added... »
Take a moment to compose before the rush hits you. Or get out of the way to let it pass!
