Although I've been relying on one lens of late I stuck a zoom on for flexibility. I almost put a wide one on the camera, but opted for a mid range. This proved to be my downfall. The shelters I was hoping to photograph require 24mm or wider to fit in the frame owing to the width of the path. With safety fencing erected around the perimeter something wider was required. 28mm allowed me to manage the shot above only because there is no roof on the shelter!
I got a few other shots of little interest beyond being a record of what is going on before realising that wall of rain was heading straight for me. rather than retrace my steps I took a route past the fairground, something that I have always liked photographing when it is deserted in winter but never managed to make much of. As I so often do when out with a camera I kept stopping to look back and for some reason took the shot below.
Recently I have become less precious about cropping pictures. So long as it isn't done in an attempt to make a silk purse out of the proverbial sow's ear then I give it a try. All that has gone in this picture is an orange post which was a distraction at the left of the frame. The underlying structure and rhythm of the picture hasn't been altered.
Walking along the beach I kept an eye on the approaching clouds and chose not to dawdle. There were few people about and not much to see that I haven't seen before. I'm not sure I need any more photographs of the blasted pier! I did come across a tennis ball. Making it ball number 193 in my ongoing series. In my bag was the fisheye. I swapped it onto the camera and took some snaps without looking through the viewfinder before the first spots of rain fell.
Back home I broke my rule of not 'correcting' fisheye shots. There were two reasons for this. Firstly it's not an 'important' picture, just one in a lighthearted series. Secondly it was all over the place because I hadn't used the viewfinder or screen to compose the shot. I suppose there was a third reason: I did it because I could!
All I did was remove the distortion and level the horizon, but doing that has added some blur to the edges (caused by the software 'stretching' pixels) reminiscent of that which occurs when a lens is zoomed during an exposure, making a pretty dull photograph a little more dramatic. The drama is enhanced by the contrast of the dark sky with the broken shells.
One great advantage of digital photography is that all the shooting information is embedded in each frame allowing analysis to be made of working practice. What this revealed to me was that despite having a zoom lens on the camera the majority of shots taken with it (and all the ones worth saving bar one) had been at its widest setting - 28mm. I might just as well have stuck with the 28 and thrown something longer in the bag alongside the fisheye!
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