A Trip to Bruges

I recently enjoyed a very pleasant trip to Bruges and thought that I would share this iconic view of the city.

Reflections 4

Now that I have completed and posted my second assignment to my tutor it is time for some reflection.  How are things going.  It seems a while since I completed my first assignment and received comments on it.  I have to say that I was delighted.  The work was overall very well received and I had no argument with any of the comments and have made my response to them.  The two criticisms centred around some cropping, which I have done, and and adjusting the white balance in one or two to warm them up.  I have enjoyed working on my second assignment but have spent a long, long time reflecting on the list of possible images before I finally edited them down to 12.  They have gone off today and I look forward to my tutor's comments.

As the course progresses I find a great deal of my thoughts are spent on planning and looking for images for my seasons portfolio.  Spring has been and gone and I have a selection of photographs to choose from when the time comes.  Summer or what passes for it is still with us and I am still seeking out potential shots.  I have my poppy and ox-eye daisy images and soon it will be time for harvest.  I need to think about a visit to Cleethorpes or other seaside resorts for some summer holiday type images.

I notice in my last Reflection I mentioned putting in place printer profiles.  I have experimented with this with only limited success.  When I used the profile I downloaded for my permajet paper, the images had a horrible magenta cast.  I have an old Epson 1290 and find the if I turn the magenta down to -10 I produce images with colours that please me and seem to be lifelike.  I have used this setting for some time now after being given advice from a local camera shop.  My printer is coming to the end of its life I think though and I am considering replacing it.  I may try the use of profiles again then.  I have however, calibrated my monitor successfully.  The problem with my printer is that I get faint lines down each edge of the print unless I clean the heads after each print so if anybody reads this and can make a suggestion I would be grateful.

Looking towards Assignment 3 I am considering working on the theme of water which really appeals to me. I have also thought of churches in the landscape or lines in the landscape: hedge lines, tree lines, crop lines, drains, rivers etc.  If I do opt for water I envisage shots of the sea in clam and rough conditions.  I would love images of the sea crashing over Whitby harbour wall so I shall be watching the weather forecast and tide times.  I also would include upland rivers and streams, including rapids and waterfalls as well as more placid stretches. Ponds with lily pads also comes to mind, possibly with early morning mist.  Puddles are another thought possible in the rain and reflections could feature in any body of water.  I would also experiment with fast and slow shutter speed techniques.

I have been continuing my reading and currently have a book by Ansel Adams and have just been given the latest Landscape Photographer of the Year book - very inspirational.  Although more research is needed before I commit myself to a photographer for Assignment 4, I am leaning towards Fay Godwin.  As much as I am a fan of Galen Rowel and Ansel Adams I feel that more ready access to mountains might be needed for assignment 5.  Fay often uses such features as pill boxes and other such buildings in her work.  I think that many of her shots are reminiscent of Lincolnshire and I am perhaps considering looking for derelict farm building and attempting to represent them in her style.  There is much thought to be done before then though.

Progress on the projects:

Project 11
This was a theoretical project which I enjoyed reading about but it didn't actually involve any photography.

Project 12
I completed this exercise on the dynamic range of films but found it somewhat difficult to come to any conclusions.  I think that this is because I am using digital cameras and to a large extent post processing in Adobe Lightroom overcomes a number of the problems that photographers used to face.  Another technique is that of HDR photography which I have experimented with but haven't really got into.

Projects 13 and 14
The weather this summer has made these two projects difficult as have the long daylight hours.  I have to say I have blanched at the thought of photographing every hour from 3.00 am till 10.00 pm.  Having sourced a location I have decided to leave them until later in the year.

Project 15
I have enjoyed researching a range of locations for this project and have secured both winter and spring shots.  I shall soon need to revisit for summer images.

Project 25
This fell neatly into my lap this year and I thoroughly enjoyed taking pictures of both snow and fog.

Overall I am still thoroughly enjoying the course.

Portfolio: summer

Despite the weather we have been enjoying, or not enjoying, lately my thoughts have been turning to summer for suitable photographs for my portfolio.  Summer to me means poppies in the cereal crops, swarms of oxeye daisies in fields and on roadsides, harvest and summer days on the coast.  As I have been out and about I have been looking out for these and any other opportunities that speak of summer.  As summer progresses I shall add images to the list of possibilities below.

Poppies seem to have been harder to come by this year but at last late one evening after I been out photographing hares I came across this wonderful field out in the Wolds.

 Using my 100-400 lens I picked out one flower from the field and isolated it with differential focussing.

The same poppy but here I have changed the view point slightly.  Initial thoughts are that this is the one I prefer.

 Same flower and another slightly lower view point.

 As it was late evening I was able to position myself in such a way that the flowers were backlit providing some pleasing rim lighting.

Again backlighting used.

 This image and the next four were taken early one morning with fewer blooms so perhaps less impressive.  I am pleased though with the detail in the barley.

 This and the next images show a summer hedgerow on a local nature reserve.  Wild roses, for me are another sign of summer.

 A field of oxeye daisies and summer grasses.

 It's a pity I have clipped the top of the dead teasel head on the right.

 The next two shots are summer views of a path through a small flower meadow.

 I am a sucker for oxeye daisy and may use a close up for one of my portfolio images.  I have used a macro lens here to give differential focussing.

 This and the image below show cornflowers in amongst a field of scented mayweed.  We rarely see cornfield flowers in this age of herbicides.  The only places are where they are protected.

Assignment 2: one acre

For this assignment I elected to photograph Flamborough Head and particularly North Landing and the lighthouse area. Although larger than an acre, this is a very discrete area and hopefully it is in the spirit of the brief.  I have not strayed beyond the bounds of the head itself and have concentrated on the small cove of North Landing.  It is an area that I have known well for many years having been scuba diving there, made visits with my family and for bird watching/photography and have also taken many groups of school children there for geography and science field trips.  I spent a long weekend there early in May just as we changed from a poor spell of weather to an excellent one.  

After much deliberation here are the images for my final submission for this assignment.

I believe that as photographers we make our own luck - if you are not there, you cannot take the picture, but occasionally 'Lady Luck' also has a hand.  We had arrived at our chosen campsite on a very showery Friday afternoon and managed to set up between periods of heavy rain.  The north westerly air stream brought with it regular heavy showers, interspersed with sunny periods and these provided the conditions for wonderful rainbows.  As a whole rainbow is difficult to portray I decided to zoom in on this section which frames North Landing (the white buildings) and also a ship out at sea.

I was up early the next morning and walked down to the cliff top for a dawn shoot.  I had hoped that the sun would rise along the line of the cliffs but this was not to be.  I have chosen this image because of the warm early morning light on the cliffs leading to North Landing, which is tucked in just before the end of the line of cliffs.  Also in the picture is the iconic lighthouse top right.

At North Landing itself now.  I have used the old fishing cobble to lead the eye down to the beach.  It also mirrors the line of cliffs and caves in the background.  I thought about cloning out the figures on the beach but on reflection left them in as it is a tourist destination and so I felt that people in some shots would illustrate this fact.

Many opportunities for close ups at this small location.  I took lots of images of the old rusty chains that are used to secure the cobbles to the steep slope of the slip. I selected this one as it has plenty of texture in the chain and a pleasing diagonal line through the shot.

Another close up, this time of part of the side of one of the old abandoned cobbles.  I wasn't sure about the original image because some parts were out of focus (see notes on original short list).  I kept coming back to it, however, and eventually made a slight crop to arrive at this final picture.

I wanted a picture down on the beach showing its pebbly nature.  There were quite a few people on the beach at the time and initially I was waiting for them all to move out of the way when I saw this mother with her young child start throwing stones in the sea.  I took the shot when they were the only two people in it.  Initially I wasn't happy with the picture as I have missed off a little bit of the kelp in the foreground but I decided to include it as the kelp leads the eye to the couple and makes a pleasing s-shaped curve with the cliffs and tideline.

I felt that it was important to feature some of the wonderful seaweeds exposed at low tide.  I really like the colours in this and have chosen a vertical format to emphasise the way that the seaweeds are leading into the frame.

One of the features of North Landing are the arches and caves.  I took several shots of these but this is my favourite.  It looks back to the beach and its enclosing cliffs.

I wanted to show the rocky nature of the beach and chose this view as the rope leads the eye towards the old jetty and the cliffs in the background.

The fishing cobbles are an important feature of North Landing and I took many images.  I finally chose this one.  I wonder if it would have been better if I had included the top of the mast but zooming out to include this removed some of the intimacy of the picture.

It is impossible to visit Flamborough Head and, particularly North Landing, without noticing the seabirds, especially in spring and summer. I was originally going to use an image of the waves with a gannet flying through them but I just wasn't happy with any of the shots.  I just felt they were too 'nothingy' (see notes on short list).  I had, however, done a lot of bird photography during the weekend and I have chosen this shot of  gannet courtship.  I like the diagonal line it forms and hope that it fits a landscape brief with its background of cliff and sea.

No set of images of Flamborough head would be complete without on of the lighthouse.  I chose this low viewpoint wide angle shot to give the impression of it towering above the observer.  I included the patch of red campions in the foreground to give some perspective.

Assignment 2: short list

I have now narrowed the previous images down to a short list of 22 pictures which I will print and from these choose my final submission of 12 images.