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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Sunrises, Moon eclipse and a Deer…sort of

This is my favourite time of year for taking land and seascapes.  It’s getting darker later in the mornings so you can catch the ‘golden hour’ without having to get up at some ungodly hour and yet it’s still mild enough that when you do, your fingers aren't going numb when setting the camera’s controls and you can appreciate the moment in comfort. The one thing I can’t completely plan for is the weather (even if the forecasting was remotely correct).  I wanted to get a typical red sky sunrise, with my first outing forecasting ‘light’ cloud which could give me a decent chance of ideal conditions.  As I approached the coast and the first signs of light appeared in the sky, I could see that it was in fact thick clouds with the exception of a small clear opening.  This was heading westward to where the sun would rise so I was hoping the timing would be just right and the rising sun would shine through this gap, lighting up the rest of the clouds. Unfortunately, as I set up my camera it was clear it wasn’t going to arrive in time and it looked like the morning would be a dull event.  Fortunately the distant horizon must have been clear because as the sun started to rise the sky lit up a glowing red, followed by orange, the sun peaked over the horizon and, for barely a few minutes, it was gone, hidden under the blanket of clouds.

06:54 – for a few minutes there were various shades of red as if a great fire was in the distance

06:58 – followed by the horizon lit up by a glowing orange

07:01 – the sun appeared

07:04 – and then it was gone

As I walked up the beach I noticed that the now larger gap in the clouds, now looked like it might offer a picturesque image yet as rays of light started to shine through.  Unfortunately, I didn’t really have anywhere along this part of the beach that had an interesting foreground so couldn’t really get the kind of image I had hoped for.

The following week on every week day, there was clear skies but fog which gave some amazing light – but I was working so couldn’t take any photographs.  The weekend was forecast as cloudy but light cloud and the continued fog, so I ventured out in hopefulness again, in search of a spectacular mornings light. But it wasn’t to be.  It was heavy cloud and not a sign of the promised fog.  No sun, no red or orange light in the sky, so I took what images I could under the circumstances but nothing of any real interest.  Monday, back to work and the sunrise was again, a spectacular sight!

In between the two weekends was an event many would have slept through.  The earth eclipsing the moon, giving it an eerie orange glow.  I hadn’t really planned anything for this so ended up taking these images from the back of my house, starting just after 2:00am for an hour.  I know when you take pictures of the moon you expose for its brightness which in this case was around 1/500th of a second. As I said, I hadn’t planned on photographing this so didn’t know what to expect or researched any techniques.  As the moon slowly disappeared under the eclipse, is seemed from the naked eye that the moon was gone but through the lens I could still see the moons outline and shape which slowly turned a faint orange colour, slowly becoming brighter and with a slight white crescent.  Taking a picture of this proved to be difficult as now the moon needed a longer exposure, no longer being its typical bright white.  It’s very deceptive how quick the moon arks across the sky so even an exposure of a few seconds resulted in a slightly blurred image as the moon had moved during that time.  The other thing I hadn’t anticipated was the houses opposite and the moon not only moving high across the sky but dipping down.  I managed one photograph of it before the houses started to obstruct my view, so I couldn’t get a few practice shots off to get the best results. It was very disappointing that I couldn’t see the event all the way through and see the moon return again to it’s full, brightness, but it was still an amazing thing to see, watching the moon be eclipsed and then turn orange.  It’s an event that’s not supposed to happen again until another 18 years I believe.

Prior to all the above events, a trip to the woods produced little luck.  Plenty of sightings but the above image being the only thing caught on camera and not really a ‘keeper’. Whist the first morning rays hit the woodland floor, a small patch lit up along a path.  I set my lens on this spot, sat there looking through the viewfinder and thought to myself wouldn’t it be great if a Rod Deer just walked into this spot right now.  No sooner had I finished thinking that, then a Roe Deer ran right across that exact spot!  Even if I had been quick enough to take a photo, it was moving so fast it would have been blurred.  Why it ran across there instead of walking, I don’t know. It couldn’t have known of my presents as I would have been hidden from it and there was no wind for it to pick up my scent.  It does seem typical of my luck in recent months when it comes to my photography – just not getting the breaks at the moment. You can plan, be at the right place when you believe something might happen, research and gain knowledge about your subject, but at the end of the day luck can play a big part.  That special moment, the lighting just right, something you didn’t expect.  Having some good fortune helps.

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A Slow Summer

I don’t seem to be getting many breaks with my photography this summer.  I had planned a number of projects, starting with taking two weeks off in June to follow up a couple of those – a visit to the Farne Islands which I haven’t returned to for a couple of years, and something I’ve wanted to try out for a while, photographing the Milky Way, including a time elapse.  Unfortunately both of these required some decent weather particularly the latter of which clear night skies with little wind was a must. The week leading up to the start of my holiday was perfect.  Warm weather, clear skies, then my time off.  A drop in temperature, cloudy, unsettled weather and windy.  No chance of a night shoot and even the visit to the Farnes was continually postponed as every time I prepared to go, the forecast changed to rain.  The last chance of a night shoot was the final Friday of my time off and even that then changed to forecasted over cast last minute!  Of course the very week I went back to work, was back to being perfect, sunny warm weather. Since then the weather has been a mixed bag though remained warm but photo opportunities seem to be few and I have been going through a bit of a slump.  Below are the best of what I have taken.

The Roe Deer above was taken just before I went on holiday.  Since then the weather has warmed up and added rain has meant mosquitoes are out in force now and a visit here now would mean being eaten alive by the little vampires!

The warm weather and rain has also dramatically increased the length of grass.  The week before my holiday the grass at the location was short.  Two weeks later and it was over waist high in places.  I paid a number of visits to a place I will often see Foxes and on each occasion I new they were there due to the noise the Magpies were making but only caught a few glimpses of them due to the ‘jungle’ of grass.  On one occasion a Fox went pass me with metres but I didn’t even bother trying to track it with my camera as I wouldn’t have even have got a focus lock on it.  Most of the time though there could have been one there and I wouldn’t have even known due to the undergrowth. I don’t know if the long grass was an advantage or disadvantage for the number of Rabbits about.  Obviously it was a food supply but whether it made them less easier to find by the Foxes in the same area, I don’t know.  I never saw a situation where both could be seen at the same time.

A few other visits around, including Jesmond Dene and the river Derwent produced mediocre results for landscape opportunities.  I also hoped to catch some Kingfisher images but didn’t even catch sight of one, which is unusual.

A visit to the coast at this time of year can be a nice walk but the harsh light leaves little photo opportunities unless you get up very early for a sunrise on these short summer days. The first image is an example of harsh light on a bright day but the clouds help make for an interesting shot.  For the final two images I did get up quite early in the morning, unfortunately the tide was still low which, although I was expecting, what I wasn’t expecting was just how slippery the rocks were and didn’t want to risk walking the distance to the tidal edge and so had to wait for the tide to come to me, by which time the best of the light was lost.

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