When things don't go according to plan...

Ever have one of those mornings where you look around you and think “why didn’t I stay in bed rather than come out in these conditions and try to take photos”? Well, I certainly had one of those occasions walking past the Turner Contemporary in Margate last weekend. Not that I really looked around much. I was too busy trying to walk into the blustery winds to get back to the car. But, you know, the thought crossed my mind.

Like pretty much all other amateur photographers (I’m sure there are exceptions), the weekends are my one opportunity to get out with the camera and shoot some scenes. Normally this means spending all week checking the weather apps, hoping that there is an opportunity at some point. Maybe more than one. Let’s not get carried away though…

Sometimes this means buckling down and just going out no matter what to no matter where. It just so happens that last weekend that no matter where was Margate. Car packed, layers on, off I went on a 45 minute drive to the North Kent coast hoping that there might be a decent sunrise. Hmm…yes.

Margate is another one of those East Kent towns with a strong-ish connection to my past. Back in the day I worked in Cliftonville, just outside the town. There are a lot of things I could say about Cliftonville back then. Deprived and forgotten about would be two such things. I have a weird mixture of feelings when I go to Margate now. Great it’s been redeveloped, sad that (as per usual with such redevelopments) the locals find themselves priced out of the town as the middle class move in, buying up their second homes and turning the town into a “creative hub”, or whatever. But anyway, there is no denying that Margate has some amazing skylines. As I recall, some painter dude was quite keen on it too.

Sadly there was no glorious sunrise. There was cloud. There was wind. There was sleet. There was ice cold air. This is not what I came to Margate for. So I wandered around. Headed back to the car. Moved to another car park and waited. Then the rain stopped. Sort of. I mean, it was less of a sting on the face than it had been about 45mins earlier. Seemed like that meant it was a sign that maybe I should leave the increasingly misted up car, and head back to the coastline.

It was still cold and still windy, but I persevered. I also nearly lost my tripod and camera on two occasions as the wind lashed across the beach. So that was fun. Needless to say, I also fancied my chances of getting some nice long exposure shots with my 10 stop. Spoiler alert: 30 second exposures in strong winds are not wholly successful. That’s definitely being written in all caps in my photo notebook…

I snapped a few shots, none of which I was particularly happy about. I found I struggled for inspiration, as I often seem to do in Margate. I find the obvious shots, the obvious scenes, but I always feel I am missing something a bit special. Perhaps I need to spend more time there on a day where I don’t feel like I’ve been thrown into a washing maching on a real cold wash. I mean, that can’t hurt, right?

And lo…some two hours after sunrise, the sun…appeared. Too late for some good low light fun, but at least there was some interest in the sky. You cling to what you can get.

I’ve not quite figured out Margate, despite those connections. I guess I’ll get there in time. Definitely when it’s not as cold and miserable.

And so, with feelings of disappointment, I headed back home. Mind filled with what might have been had the conditions been right. Well, that and the dude who walked up next to me on Fulsom Rock wearing jeans and a hoodie, gave me a cheery “morning”!, produced their smartphone, took a snap and walked off. I looked at my tripod, my multiple layers and thought… ”yeah, I should have stayed in bed”.

St Margaret's Bay

Last weekend I took a trip down to St Margaret’s Bay, just outside Dover. It’s a place that I’ve long had some sort of connection with. Of course it’s nextdoor to the town I grew up in, but I also have happy memories of spending time there in my twenties (ok, more in the way of hazy pub memories than scenics, but still…). It’s a place I keep finding myself going back to, taking in the views and enjoying the sea air.

There’s only a short promenade running along the Bay with either side cut off at high tide (checking tide times is essential if you are planning a visit). But it doesn’t really matter. With views of the White Cliffs either side of the Bay and the vast expanse of the Channel in front of you, the scenary is pretty spectacular. And when the light is right, it really is on another level altogether.

At this time of year, the sunrises are stunning when the clouds allow it (and fortunately, the car park behind the Bay is free in the winter!). The photo at the top of this post was taken just after sunrise on a cold January morning. The conditions were spot on. The tide was coming in, there was interest in the sky, and the light on the cliffs themselves was perfect and ever-changing - from pink to yellow to white.

With the waves crashing down ever nearer, and growing louder with each crash onto the shore, I set up my tripod and went for a long exposure shot with my 10 step ND filter (a Christmas gift). I was pretty pleased with the results. Needless to say, with the busiest shipping lane in the world in the scene, it was difficult to avoid getting blurry shapes on the horizon as the various ferries and cargo ships slid from left to right, or from right to left. But the timing was just right and I managed to get a good clean shot. Even looking at it now, I can feel the cold wind brushing my face and the sound of the waves getting more frantic, more aggressive.

A few more shots later, and I packed my things, munched on a flapjack and made my way back up the narrow, windy road away from the Bay and back into the village, through the streets that I hazily recall stumbling through in my youth, before heading back up the A2 to Canterbury. My trips to St Margaret’s may not be as frequent as I would like, but unlike the hazy memories of my youth, they are certainly memorable.

How do I decide where to go?

Now there’s a big philosophical question to headline a blog. Tempting though it is to launch into a bout of critical self-reflection about my life choices, this is less about the paths I have taken in life and much more about how I make decisions about what location I am going to on any given day. How do I organise the locations I go to? What things do I consider before deciding where to head? How do I organise all the information to help me make those decisions? Well, that’s what this post is about. So, not quite mid-life crisis levels yet…

I haven’t got a huge selection of locations that I regularly visit, but there are a few recurring places that I head to that I am slowly getting to know. Each time I head to one of these locations I notice something new. Whether it’s the positioning of the sun, the different opportunities the tide brings or individual trees in woodland, there is always something different to remember for future trips. There are two main methods for recording these details, one a bit old school and one a bit more…21st century.

Something I have found incredibly useful is a Google Map i’ve put together highlighting some key scenes around Kent where i have found good compositions. The map features good sunrise and sunset locations, particularly good views and good spots for trees and woodland photography and also indicates the options for high and low tides. I find this really useful as at a glance it can really help me choose where to go on any given day (particularly if I can’t be bothered to explore new locations). This helps to make going out with the camera as painless as possible as I don’t have to waste huge time and energy trying to think of places to go to.

Photo location Google Map

The old school method is a notebook that I have scrawled similar details into. The notebook itself is divided up into a number of sections: seasons, sunrise, sunset and locations. Within each section there are several blank pages of spaces to enable me to note down good locations for each of the seasons, good sunrise/sunset spots and good locations in general. For each I note a load of details (again, compositions with tides, specific elements) so that it makes it quick and easy for me to find locations and I identify potential compositions quickly and easily.

My notebook with handy tabs!

Of course, the problem with these things is actually updating them (full disclosure: I soon realised upon writing this post that I hadn’t updated either in a while…d’oh). But when up-to-date, they provide a valuable resources that saves me time and frustration.

There are a number of other things I use as well to help me make decisions as to where I should go:

• BBC Weather app - for the obvious information on the…er…weather, as well as sunrise/sunset times.

• Photopills - a great app for sunrise and sunset, could not do without this app, it’s invaluable in plotting compositions.

• MeteoEarth - this one is great for cloud cover (it also has a website as well as an app). It gives me a good indication as to what the cloud wil be like in any given location (if it indicates heavy low cloud, then I know sunrise/sunset shots are probably a write-off).

I suppose I could split these things into two groups: the recorded information to choose locations I know about, the apps etc help with new locations (as well as the familiar ones).

What about you? How do you decide where you are going to go? Do you keep notes on locations? Share your tips below!

Printing and keeping in 2019

One of the things I promised myself to do more in 2019 was to print and keep more of my images, preferably in some kind of dedicated scrap book. So after Christmas I took myself off to Paperchase (now there’s a dangerous place to shop), bought myself a scrapbook, some photo corners, a nice pen and made the commitment to print and keep more over the coming year.

Fresh, untouched scrapbook…THE DREAM.

A pen.

Last year I was fortunate enough to get a Canon Selphy CP1300. It’s not a professional standard printer, but it prints fairly decent 6x4 prints and is handy for printing out shots on my smartphone as well as the odd camera photo. The prints aren’t perfect, and on close inspection they don’t appear as sharp as you might like, but it’s still handy for quick and dirty printing. I probably ought to review it at some point. Let’s face it, I’m never going to get round to that, but it’s a nice thought…

Page 1: done.

So I have the gear, I just need to do it. No excuses. Print those photos, add some notes, look back on them over the course of a year and see how I’ve progressed as a photographer. Let’s see how I get on…

What are your commitments for 2019 photography-wise? Be interested to hear what you are intending to do for 2019!

How I take seascape photos

One of the benefits living in my part of the country (and god knows there are a lot of negatives…) is that I have got easy access to the coast. From my house it’s relatively easy to head to coastland to the north, the east and the south, giving me plenty of options for some seascape photography. Given we are not blessed with many spectacular land features, the coast provides a wealth of options for interesting photography. Given the coastline is ever changing, subject to the flows of nature, it also has the benefit of never being dull. No matter how many times you go to the same location, the seasons and the currents always seem to offer up something new.

Having spent this morning on the east Kent coast (in Folkestone), I thought maybe the first blog as part of my renewed commitment to blogging, should be something on how I do seascape photos. What follows shouldn’t be considered the advice of an expert, just a rundown of the things I do. If you have any tips, please chuck them in the comments at the end! Right, let’s go…

Tide Times - This is crucial. Checking tides is fundamental to your safety and cannot be underestimated. As I can’t swim, this is doubly important for me. I don’t want to find myself stranded due to the tides. When planning a trip to the coast I always ensure I do a quick check on tidetimes.org.uk. It’s a pretty basic website, but at a glance you can see the tides for up to seven days, which is all I need really.

Scouting The Scene - By and large it takes me several trips to get shots I am happy with. On my initial trip I like to get an idea of what the scene would look like at high and low tides. I then plan future trips according to what I think will work. Sometimes a low tide will give me the best composition, sometimes a high tide. Scouting the area is crucial to determining what will work.

Items Of Interest - I always try to look for foreground and background interest in a seascape to try to ensure the image holds the viewer’s gaze. It could be a pier or some distance building for the background, ideally finding some curve in the coastline to lead the eye. For the foreground it could be rocks or sea defences. I think seascapes work well if there are a couple of items of interest in the image leading the eye around the scene.

Sunsets And Sunrises - I use PhotoPills to check sunsets and sunrises and see how they will suit the compositions I’ve identified. In Kent, some locations are great at sunrise (Dover, Folkestone for example) and some are great for both (Herne Bay, Reculver and Whitstable spring to mind). Given the geography of Kent, I’m not sure there is somewhere great for sunsets only in the county and not sunrises, but I may be missing something. Also, I try to match the tides with the sunrise/sunset. For example, sometimes a low-tide at sunrise can help with a composition to the east with an item of interest on the horizon (see the photo of Reculver below for example).

Sunrise in Reculver at low tide. Only at low tide is it possible to get a clear shot of the towers looking east.

Going Long But Not Too Long - Long exposures are always an obvious thing to go for when water comes into the composition, but I find it works best not to go too long. The photo at the top of this post, for example, was shot at 0.6 or 1/6. For me this seems to work best in capturing the sea without smoothing it out too much that it loses that sense of motion and interaction between land and sea.

Timing The Shot - I really like to capture the moment when the wave loses momentum and starts to retreat back out to sea. That movement really captures the shape of items on the beach and, for me, makes an image really work (especially with an interesting foreground subject). I tend to fire the shutter at this precise moment and I find the lines of the water as it recedes really helps add interest to the image.

Tripod Maintenance - Ok, not really related to composition etc, but I always make sure I clean my tripod after a trip to the beach. What with the salt water and sand, there’s a lot of damage that can be done. So I always make sure I wash my tripod down afterwards to get rid of any unwanted stuff doing damage to it.

What about you? Do you take seascapes? What are your top tips? I’d love to hear them in the comments!

Goodbye 2018, Hello 2019

So I decided to write a blog post. I’ve not been doing too well on that recently. A quick look back shows that I kinda abandoned my posts on a trip to Spain after Part I. That’s not the best is it? It begs the question what is the point of having a blog if I don’t ever use it. So, I’m going to use it more. There. Straight off the bat. One New Year’s resolution established and committed to. I will blog more regularly.

This year I have been doing a lot of looking back. With my mother passing away in February, it’s only natural to spend a lot of time reflecting on the past. I don’t want to do that too much here. I’ve spoken about my mother and life and so on elsewhere, but it is important to acknowledge the sheer weight of the loss upon all aspects of my life, and the extent to which it continues to have an impact.

Looking back over the year in terms of my photography and I really feel like I’ve taken some big leaps forwards. Investing in some new gear (like, filters and stuff) has certainly helped to a degree, but the biggest impact has been the various YouTube channels I subscribe to. I’ve learnt so much from Thomas Heaton and Nigel Danson (for starters) that I feel like I have really come on in terms of technique and skills over the course of the year. I’m thinking about my compositions far more than I was in 2017. Now it’s much less a case of pointing and clicking, and far more thought around the composition of images (I still have some way to go obvs).

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Samphire How at sunset…with strategically placed sheep. Good work, sheep.

I’ve also pushed myself to try out things that I would never have been comfortable with in the past. Street portraits, for a start, were something I’d never have considered before, either because of the sheer fear of approaching strangers, or because of my concerns around privacy (which is a bit of a thing for me). Ok the results weren’t spectacular, but I was fairly happy with the images I got and I’ve learnt a bit more about taking portraits, something that isn’t something I’m generally that into.

I’ve also been getting my head around using an ultra wide-angle lens and thinking more about how I can put together interesting compositions using it. Alongside investment in some graduated neutral density filters, I feel like my landscape photos are getting better, I’m much happier with the images I’ve produced in 2018. I guess the fact I’ve printed some out, slapped them into framwes and chucked them on a couple of walls in the house says it all. My technique has definitely improved too. Rather than just flicking it onto auto-focus, I’m getting used to manual focus with live view to ensure photos are as sharp as they can be (or sometimes relying on auto-focus but also using live view to get the focus just right).

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Reculver Towers at sunrise…one of two slapped in a frame during 2018 and hung in our house.

So, what next…?

I was fortunate to get a 10 stop Cokin filter, which I’m looking forward to chucking in front of my wide-angle lens and capturing some smooth long exposure coastal scenes, as well as a polariser (also for the wide-angle lens) for that glare suppression and blue sky popping.

I’ve also been mulling over more broadly some things I should look into doing in 2019 to take things a step further. Here are a few things floating around my head…

1) Do more video work - I have mixed thoughts about this. I have a (currently dormant) YouTube channel that I’d like to start using more of, but I’m conscious I don’t have the equipment (or confidence!) that many YouTube photographers have at their disposal. So jury is out on whether I will actually do anything on this in 2019. That said, one of the things I was looking forward to once I bagged the new iPhone XR was to play with video. We’ll see…

2) More street photography - I definitely want to do more of this after dipping my toes in the water in 2018. I feel I’ve got a bit more confidence now in tackling this kind of photography, I need to hone my skills quite a bit more, so I guess that means pushing myself out into the streets with a camera in hand…

3) Print more - I have a small Canon Selphy CP1300 at home which I’ve used fairly frequently (mainly for casual family pictures). But I’ve rarely printed and framed. I want to do more printing, chucking stuff in frames, small albums, little scrapbook type things…more physical, not just throwing everything online and being done with it.

4) Blog more - So if the video thing doesn’t happen (SPOILER ALERT: it won’t), the other thing I’ve been intending to do this year is to post more regularly, like…once a week. A weekly blog. On a specific day. A bit like all those great vlogs I watch that are released on a weekly/bi-weekly schedule. I’m going to do the same. I’m going to go out on photo trips at weekends, do a write-up, post it. Job done. I figure it’ll help me learn, bit of reflective writing and all that. And maybe it will be useful to others that are thinking of picking up a camera and start playing around with it. I think I might just do that. BLOGGING. IT’S BACK.

5) Discover new locations - I need to do this. Try out a few new places. Now I have a phone with a GPS thingy that actually works (SAY WHAT NOW?!), I might go out and explore a little more. Go beyond my usual locations. Try something new. Keep it fresh. Because, you know, same locations time after time after time after time after time after time after time after time after time after time…well, you know…

6) Oh yeah, 365 Project type stuff - Ok, normally this kind of thing isn’t really my bag. I’m not hugely into commitments over a long period of time (well, there are exceptions…)…routine gets a bit tiresome for me. But I have been persuaded to the 365 photo project the year. I’m having a crack at it, but don’t hold your breath I’ll last more than a month (tbh a week will be quite something). You can find my half-arsed 365 effort on Instagram at captureyield365 (yeah, imaginative innit).

So yeah, let’s see how this all goes. One thing is for certain, I don’t want to stand still. Well, unless that works for the composition anyway…

Happy 2019!

The Trip to Spain – Part I

I originally planned to write about our trip to Spain in one blog post, but the more I thought about it, the more I realised it would probably be a mammoth post. So instead I am going to break this down into parts. I have no idea as I type this paragraph how many parts there will be, but this is definitely part one of…a few. 

Let’s start with some background… 

Way back in 2002, in a former pre-library life, I met and fell in love with a Spanish colleague at work. We started dating and, after a couple of years, got married. For a long time, before we started having kids, we would holiday around Europe, visiting different countries and major cities (Lisbon, Prague and Berlin being particular highlights – I proposed in Prague so it’s a special place for us both), but also frequently going back to Spain and, in particular, Sevilla (which is where my wife is from, and where her family still live today). 

Fast forward a few years and we have a couple of daughters, one well established in school, one just started. As you might expect, holidays now are restricted to school holidays and, to make matters worse, my wife and I barely have enough leave to cover all the holidays between us. Consequently, we have one holiday a year now where we all go away as a family and just chill out. For the kids, this is an extended holiday in Spain as the trip also doubles up as part of our childcare arrangements (they stay out there for most if not all of the summer holidays, before my in-laws bring them back towards the end of the summer). This is undoubtedly great for them as they get fully immersed in the culture and really develop their language skills.

Anyway, these holidays are a chance to chill out but also, of course, provide me with an opportunity to go out with my camera and visit some fresh locations (instead of restricting myself to the usual places in Kent at the weekends). Of course, this has to be balanced off with time with the family in Spain and the kids, but it affords me opportunities I rarely have and it’s a chance for me to test my skills and try to take my photography further. Inevitably I come back with loads of photos to wade through, process and share. And, well, this holiday was no different.

On this particular trip we decided to go away for a couple of nights, leaving the kids with their grandparents and getting some quality time alone and some time to just…relax. As well as overnight stays in Ronda and Zahara de la Sierra, we also made a trip to Cadiz (don’t tell my wife, but this is actually my favourite city in Andalucia - if not Spain) and had an extended stay in the middle of the Andalucian countryside. I’ll fill in more about our trips away across the next few blog posts (I’m thinking there might be, like, three more?). I guess we’ll call this “the context” post. Now for fleshing out the detail…

Street Portraits

A little while ago I had some business cards made up and delivered. The intention was to use these to help with taking street portraits when I went to Spain (nothing like a challenge, eh?!). Needless to say, I didn’t end up taking any street portraits or giving out any cards during my trip. But I was determined to have a go and figured that maybe a trip to London might be the best way to dip my toes in these waters.

As I mentioned in my previous post, part of the process of managing my mental health has been going out alone with the camera and taking some photos. With this in mind I took myself off to the South Bank (my favourite part of London and one of my favourite places to potter around and chill out) to spend some time alone. After a bit of a difficult period trying to avoid people and keep myself to myself, I figured maybe giving myself a target of street portraits might help me to get interacting with people again and grow my confidence (interacting with people is a large part of my job).

Now, aside from my personal issues at present, I’m quite a shy person. I’m not great at approaching and talking to strangers. If I can avoid doing so I will (which is great when you want peace and quiet). So I was pretty nervous about doing this, but I also felt that if I can do it, I might be in a better place to return to work and get back into interacting and working with people.

After a short walk from London Bridge station to Tower Bridge I came across a couple that I figured might be good subjects for a portrait and they seemed like they might be happy to have their photo taken by a stranger. Fortunately they were lovely people and more than happy to oblige. Not only were they happy to have their photo taken, they also made me feel instantly at ease (I guess technically it should have been the other way around but still…). To the extent that I gained a lot of confidence from our brief interaction, and felt emboldened to approach more strangers on the street.

In the end, discounting friends, I managed to photograph five people as I wondered around the South Bank. All happy to have their photo taken. I felt increasingly confident with each portrait and by the fifth portrait I was beginning to really get into it. I kinda knew that London might be a good place to experiment with this kind of photography but nonetheless, capturing some street portraits felt like quite an achievement for me on a number of levels.

There are a few things that I took away from the experience that I thought I’d share in case anyone else out there is thinking of experimenting with taking portraits of strangers on the streets. These aren’t so much a “top tips”, more of a “things I reflected on during and after”.

Who not to approach – I made a decision early on not to approach people eating or wearing headphones. It felt like something of an intrusion on private space and I didn’t think it would be welcome (I did approach one woman drinking a glass of wine, but I spent a long time weighing it up before I did so). As someone who puts a premium on personal space, I had no wish whatsoever to be seen to be invading anyone’s space.

Aperture priority – keep your camera in aperture priority mode. Settle on the depth of field you wish to use in your portraits (obviously the wider the shallower, the smaller and the more your subject will be placed in context) and let the camera do the rest. As someone who has avoided shutter or aperture priority since learning full manual, I found switching to a mode where the camera shares the workload a massive help. You don’t want to be messing around with settings when you are taking photos of people on the street. You need to be relatively quick and unfussy.

Previsualisation – I found with some of my portraits that maybe I could have thought more about the composition before I took the shot. I think I was mainy nervous about taking up their time and generally tried to fire the shots off fairly quickly. As a result, some of the compositions are not quite right so I think I need to consider this a bit more when I next take street portraits.

Natural, posed or looking at the camera? - I also took a mixture of shots of the subject looking at the camera, away from the camera and natural. I didn’t really settle on which kind of look I prefer, but I think I maybe need to be clearer on this before I take the photo.

Business cards helped – When I approached each subject, I asked if I could take their photograph and produced a card with my details on it to make them feel at ease that this isn’t just a random person taking photos for no real reason. I also offered to send them a copy of the photo if they dropped me an email. I don’t think my shots were particularly great, but I figured the offer of sending them a copy might help.

Why are you doing this? – One person queried why I wanted to take their photo, which caught me out a little, but I explained that I was a photographer and it was my first attempt at taking portrait photos. Although that satisfied the subject, I guess I need to think this through a bit more. Why exactly am I taking their photo? What is the purpose?

There’s nothing to fear – as I said, I was really nervous beforehand, but I needn’t have been. London is a great place to try out this type of photography. People are generally pretty relaxed. It’s a city that has long got used to cameras being everywhere (in one way or another…). People generally seem open to such approaches. Some people will say no, but just put that aside and move on (easy for me to say when I was fortunate enough not to have been rejected on this occasion, but seriously, there are plenty of people happy to be the subject of your photo!).

Have you had a go at street portraits? How did you find it? What worked for you/what didn’t work? What would you do differently in future? And if you haven’t, what is it that’s making you nervous about trying it? I’d love to hear your thoughts!