Sand, Sea and Cold Wet Feet

I’ve spent much of the winter months (weather permitting) working on my seascapes.  At this time of year getting up to photograph a sunrise isn’t too painful – currently sunrise is around 7:00 am.  Allowing for travel and setting up at about 30 minutes before the sun rises, that means getting up in the morning at around 5:00 am at the latest.  Still manageable.  With the mornings becoming lighter by the day, soon it will be a struggle so I’m making the most of the opportunity.  Of course, I do have a bit of a thing about watching the dawning of a new day over the sea.  It never gets tired for me especially when it’s quiet and nobody is about.

 

This weekend it nearly didn’t happen.  The forecast was for low cloud and possible snow but I was going to go out regardless but since I wasn’t going to see the sun I figured I could get there a bit later.  The overcast sky would still produce the kind of subdued lighting suitable for photography.  As it turned out on the morning, I woke up over an hour before my alarm was due to go off so I checked the latest forecast which had now changed to light cloud and so a possible sight of the sun.  This was motivation enough as these might be the last ‘ideal’ conditions, with the tide going out and at just the right time for sunrise. 

 

The first image is quite blue temptation and the first thought might be to ‘warm it up’ in post processing, but it is as I remember it, though maybe darker as it was about 20 minutes before the sun rose.  As the tide went out I moved along the beach where rocks were starting to reveal themselves, making for a more interesting foreground.  Anyone who has ever taken images of seascapes will know there are a few good reasons for doing so when the tide is going out, one of which are the waves themselves.  If the tide is coming in the waves are more forceful and you risk, literally, getting washed away.  With the tide going out the waves are more gentler, however every now and then a big wave will still come in and by positioning yourself a little distance from the tide line, this is the wave you photograph crashing over the rocks.

Unfortunately, on this morning's adventure, these ‘big waves’ seemed bigger than normal and it wasn’t long before I got my feet completely wet.  I couldn’t leave my camera on the tripod when one of these waves came in for fear it washing it away.  If I took my tripod and camera away then I would have missed the ideal shot (though still did this a few times).  The next two shots below I definitely got my feet wet!  Although initially I did try and move out of the way of one of these waves whilst keeping within grabbing distance of my camera, it didn’t ultimately make any difference and in the end I didn’t bother at all to get out of the way, though not before on one occasion when, surprised by one large wave I instinctively reacted, the weight of my camera back caused me to fall backwards into the wave, where I let off a stream of obscenities, not realising there were a couple of people nearby, beachcombing.

Despite my feet, legs up to my knees and now, back, were completely soaked and in temperatures around freezing, I persevered.  As sunrise was now due it was clear I was unlikely to have any kind of glowing spectacle as I could only see a slight orange horizon but the cloud formations were a spectacle in themselves and it wasn’t until I got home and could look at some of the images more closely that I could see in the distance some rain storms over the sea. Unfortunately these image, due to their size don’t do justice to scene and it’s best to look at a better sized image here where you can see the storms in the distance.

After a dozern freezing drenchings later and with the light becoming too bright and harsh I decided to call it a day.  Some attempt was made to dry my feet out.  When I took my boots off I could poor the water out!  Luckily I carry around a small hand towel in my camera bag, just in case so was able to dry my feet off.  Next time though I will remember to bring a spare set of socks.

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Poser

A rare day of forecasted, all day sunshine, so I went out to try and make the most of it.  Whenever I see Grey Squirrels I can’t help but compare them with Reds, the original inhabitants of the woods here.  Unfortunately its been years since I’ve seen one locally and they’re not likely to make a comeback as the Greys takeover.  However, with a low morning sunlight and the right posing, even a Grey Squirrel can be photogenic – along with the odd Pheasant making impromptu appearance.  Still, I can’t help but think how much nicer these images would have been if it could have been the more attractive, charismatic Red Squirrel.  I wonder if I’ll ever see one again never mind photograph one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Decisions

With the weather being so awful in recent months – rain, wind, dreary grey skies – when a day is forecasted for decent weather, particluarly at the weekend, it makes the choice of what to do hard since these opportunities have been so rare.  The choice usually comes down to wildlife or landscapes.  I don’t ‘specialise’ in either as I enjoy both, each having their advantages and particlular enjoyments.

I love photographing landscapes or seacapes because you can be at a location and capture a moment at a time of day or year which can be beautiful or dramatic.  I never get bored at seeing a sunrise over the sea and I’m amazed at how many people who live near the sea, have never seen one.  With wildlife it can be more of a challange but therefore a dissapointment if unsucessful, but the skill both technical and the fieldcraft, make it feel more satisfying if sucessful.  Even if unable to get an image of an anmimal (which is more often than not), simply seeing it can give me a buzz especially if it’s elusive.

I think with photography, sucess is as much down to regular attempts, but without the opportunity due to the rotten weather, there has been few attempts recently and certainly no images that have stood out from those times I have been out.  At least the decision as to choose between wildlife or land/seascapes has been a bit easier – mud.  Everywhere waterlogged, damp and mud, lots of it.  Below are some of my better attempts at both options despite the weather.

For months I’ve been trying to get a decent sunrise but it usually ends up grey skies for the clouds are in the wrong place to get the ideal colour.  Also because the tide was wrongly timed for the moment of sunrise, I was unable to find and ideal foreground to help make the image.

 

 

 

 

The wildlife have been particularly elusive not helped by my poor timing, often when I do see something it’s been too late or, like the Roe Deer below, too far away to get a good shot.  The Pheasant was a bit more obliging.

 

 

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End of Another Year

I suppose it’s that time of year again when you look back on how the last 12 months have been and, to be honest, 2015 wasn’t a great one for myself or my photography.  The weather in particular stand out as causing mayhem to my photographic plans. At the beginning of the year there were a number of plans that I had which I’d hoped to achieve – none of which have come about.  One was to photograph the Milky Way for which I took two weeks off work in June, apparently a good time to see it.  I had planned to go out somewhere with less light pollution make the most of the mild short nights and spend the whole night beneath the starry skies. The week before I was due to go off was lovely clear skies the whole week and perfect conditions.  Literally to the minute I finished work on the Friday, the skies clouded over and just about remained so until the Sunday, two weeks later, before my return when there was another week of clear skies followed!  During this same period I had also planned on visiting the Farne Islands, but again the weather intervened.  In the last two months we’ve had rain and regular 40-50 mph winds. I’d also hoped to get some lovely sunrise land or seascapes. So many times on the way to or at work I would see beautifully lit coloured skies but come the weekend, grey overcast and usually wet and windy.  Just after Christmas, a break in the weather was forecast.  One night and day of clear skies so not enough time to really plan anything but dark enough in the mornings still to maybe see the night skies, I decided to head for the coast where at least the light pollution would be limited. The night before clear skies where still forecast but by the time I got up in the morning (4:30 am) cloud was now expected until 6:00 am.  Still enough time I hoped as sunrise wasn’t until 8:30, allowing for an hour before that of the slow morning light appearing, I could still maybe achieve something.  On arriving on location however, it was completely overcast yet the forecast was showing clear!  Disappointed, I thought at least by sunrise, with the clearing of the clouds forecast, at least I would get that nice sunrise.  Nope. 8:30 and it was still overcast. In fact the clear skies didn’t show until after 10:00 6 ours after our lovely weather forecasters predicted – The can’t even get the weather right while it’s happening! The below seascapes are the best I could salvage out of the morning.

Above and below St Mary’s Lighthouse.  I had hoped for this to be framed by the Milky Way!  The foreground was ‘painted in’ with a torch.

Above. Looking southwards towards Whitley Bay

Whenever I take seascapes, I always try to be there when the tide is going out that way I don’t risk being caught and trapped with the tied behind me.  Also, the waves coming in are gentler – normally.  In photographing these two images I had to get close to the seaweed but wanted the water to show around it.  Usually the waves were only just reaching these clusters but the occasional one would just go past giving me the effect I wanted.  Unfortunately there would also be a much bigger wave that would also come which was hard to predict and on two occasions this resulted in my being up to my ankles in sea water, nervously hanging onto my tripod/camera in case it got swept away.

Above taken at 9:13 – Where’s the forecasted clear skies and sun!

I’ve been out a lot more times that I’ve managed to have anything to put in a post.  One of the few successes recently is a sight of a Short Eared Owl.  At this time of year they take winter resident locally and so a good time to see them and on this occasion, in rare sunshine.  I hadn’t planned on photographing it but caught a glimpse of it floating over the tall grasses and didn’t want to waste an opportunity.  Not great photos but sometimes it’s just enough to watch wildlife and owls are no exception.

One last event related to 2015 for me were regarding software.  The year saw the release of Affinity Photo – finally a real replacement for Photoshop, at least for those using a Mac.  Since getting my Mac I have still had to sometimes resort to going to my Windows PC to use an older version of Photoshop since I refuse to add another monthly bill and use Adobes CC.  I did buy Lightroom for the Mac and did do some editing using using Pixelmator but having used Photoshop since my early days in DTP and design, it’s hard to let go of it and I’ve tried numerous other software but was never really happy. Affinity Photo does everything Photoshop did as far as my photo editing and sometimes better and for the price of 4 months Creative Cloud subscription which asks the question why did Photoshop cost so much to begin with? The other news was Live Writer.  Microsoft unfortunately abandoned this little gem for writing blogs a few years ago and again, I’ve found nothing that comes even close to it either on the Mac or PC.  Recently it’s gone open source so is now being developed again with the hope if might even be ported over to OSX which would be great as currently I have to do all my photo editing on the Mac and then copy over images to my PC to do the blog.

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