Deal. It’s one of those places I keep going back to. I’m not sure if it’s because of the easy parking near to a very obvious subject, or whether it’s the hope of a free cuppa from my niece when I’m in the neighbourhood (wishful thinking most of the year when I’m there for sunrise!). Or maybe it’s because it gives me the opportunity to shoot both landscape and street photography in one go. Like Folkestone, it offers a good opportunity to go beyond the usual landscape shots, switch up my Nikon D7200 for the Fuji XT-3, and try to capture more of the town and its people.
As is so often the case, I got myself prepared the night before, charged my batteries, packed my camera gear and tried to make it as easy as possible to get up, grab my stuff and go. Unfortunately, things never quite work out to plan. My alarm goes off. I decide to snooze a bit longer. Get up, eat my breakfast and, fatally, start watching TikTok videos. I should have learnt by now…DO NOT WATCH TIKTOK VIDEOS IN THE MORNING BEFORE YOU NEED TO GO OUT.
Anyway, I eventually picked myself up and dragged myself to Deal. On the drive there I could already see the colours and I feared I was going to miss the best of it. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case. The rush did, however, mean I didn’t have much time to think about compositions, so I went for some fairly standard compositions I’ve got before. Nonetheless, it was a good morning, with great colours in the sky and whilst the compositions weren’t unique, I at least got something…so I can’t complain. And on top of all that, I got to meet another Instagram photographer. So all in all, I was glad to get out and about and get that sea air. As you can see below, the colours were pretty fantastic, and made a nice change from the usual stormy and overcast shots I often like and prefer on the coast.
10mm, f8, 0.4secs, ISO100
As I was in such a rush, I didn’t have time to work my L-bracket so that I had enough space to squeeze in the remote trigger, so I tried to predict the waves crashing using a two second timer - no easy feat. Nonetheless, I got some nice colour from the sky and in the water…it’s just, not the most exciting and innovative composition. But, well, I blame the TikTok Scroll for that.
As is typical when I get in the mode, I fired off countless shots without moving from that spot. Lightroom is just a seemingly endless stream of identical compositions, with just slightly different waves and slightly different colours in the sky. Trying to pick one favourite out of so many near identical images is a near impossible task. I’ll settle for the one above because I do like the way the water rushes out between the pebbles on the shore.
Eventually I did shift to a slightly different composition. This time, I kept it extra wide, but went for a landscape orientation and a smaller f-stop to get that sun star effect.
10mm, f13, 1/40, ISO100
Of course, the wide angle distorts the pier quite significantly, and the pierhead looks a bit weird as a result. But I quite like the sun shining through and catching the water droplets (reminiscent of another picture I’ve taken in Deal). Plus I like the way the light catches the legs of the pier on the right-hand side but, again, it’s not the most ambitious or unique photo I’ve taken.
After a few more shots in this position, I decided to move around and try at least one composition that was a bit different. This time I decided to try shooting as low as I could go. I always have mixed feelings about doing this on the coast. Sometimes it just doesn’t feel like it works for me, largely because it shrinks the amount of sea that’s visible, and it doesn’t seem much of a seascape without the sea. But sometimes it works, like the shots I got in The Warren last week. Once more, the shots I got were nothing special, but they are handy for me to refer to in future to try and see if I can make them work.
10mm, f13, 1/10, ISO100
After a few more shots here, the sun started to dip behind the clouds and that was pretty much it for those sunrise colours. At this point, I decided to put the D7200 away, grab the XT-3 and take a wander around Deal. As with the seascape shots, I wasn’t really doing well in terms of getting something original, but I tried to look out for details as I wondered around, textures and colours that could make for interesting abstracts, like this cracking paint on a shop sign…
33mm, f5.6, 1/500secs, ISO2500
And of course I couldn’t resist the classic shot looking up Farrier Street to the shelter on the promenade, probably one of the more obvious street photography compositions on Deal seafront but still, it’s difficult to resist.
33mm, f5.6, 1/1000secs, ISO160
And then I spotted this weird, big old yellow bus parked on the seafront. So I decided to go take a look and take a few shots. I was glad the owner didn’t spot me or walk past at any point, because I spent so long trying to find interesting compositions, I’m sure I looked extremely dodgy. I’m still not totally happy with the shots I took (try and guess which one I was least content with…). But at least it made for an interesting subject, even if I didn’t make the most of it.
After about an hour wandering around, I headed back home to Canterbury for a cup of tea and a (very nice) rhubarb and custard pastry at the excellent Fringe + Ginge, which seemed the perfect way to round off the trip and get back to the normal weekend routine (in this case, getting new school shoes for the youngest!).
I’ve put a gallery of some of my photos from the trip below. Will be interested to hear what you think. Does this really capture Deal? Do they feel reminiscent for people who know the town? Or do they give you a sense of what the town might actually be like for those who don’t? Would love to hear what you think.
ian
