Caption:
Commentary:
Early morning winter light often gives superb opportunities if you are in the right place and the right time; something which is a core-skill for photographers and where being photo-savvy comes in.
One such early January morn saw me out, before sun-rise, on
As the dawn lightened it was clear that my hunch had paid off and I was in the right place and the right time – result! But how to shoot the light-house? The moon was still up and could easily be incorporated into the shot if I worked quickly, its bright white form contrasting against the deep blue sky. The beach sand was heavily rippled and would provide great foreground interest when lit by low sunlight. Beach pools had been left by the retreating tide and were offering great reflections and more foreground interest as did a rock reef farther back up the beach. Finally, the light-house itself was stunning – its white paint job resplendent in the crisp light.
Staying back, so to avoid footprints in the sand, I started shooting with a 28-70. The contrast between land and sky was held back by using a grad grey. Moving closer, I switched to the 12-24 playing with the wide-angle distortion. The fish-eye was next up, angles now were well crazy. Except for the fish-eye, I shot sequences for pans as well as individual shots.
In about an hour and half I shot a couple of gigs worth of images and figured I’d better get back. However, just as I left the beach, I took one look back and saw that quite by coincidence, the rising sun was reflecting of the light-house windows. Out with the cam again! By under-exposing the shot and locating the light-house with the sun reflecting off the windows it looked as if the light-house was working again!
Breakfast tasted good that morning...
Capture Notes:
Nikon D300, 12-24mm AFS f4G, 1/50 secs @ f13, ISO 250, matrix metering
Keywords:
New Brighton, The Wirral, New Brighton light house, light hose, landscape, seascape, photography
