Friday, 10 March 2017

A wasted week?

Although I've hit the beach four times this week I've not managed to come away with much of use for the project. It has been a case of bad timings. That's the drawback of trying to do documentary style photography in your spare time. On Monday rangers were putting the posts in to restrict the on-beach car parking which starts again in April as I arrived. Walking off dragging his buggy behind him was a kite buggy person. I'd lucked out there. The rangers I thought I'd approach on my way back but they knocked off early!


Tuesday the rangers were back in operation but I decided to walk north for a change. This was a waste of time in terms of activities but I did photograph some 'litter'. Where this stuff comes from I just don't know.


As I was about to give up I was approached by a boisterous Vizsla and got into conversation with Dave, his owner who was willing to be photographed. Somehow, although the camera was set to underexpose a little, I managed to slightly overexpose the picture. Baffling. It seems to have printed okay though.


Wednesday I was back again and although I asked nicely the Lone Ranger wasn't up for being photographed so I had to settle for photographing his van and post hole digger. The kite buggy guy was there, in action and more than happy to be photographed.


The sun is still low around three in the afternoon which makes shooting into the light a bother. It's no better for portraits with the light coming over my shoulder because it makes the subject squint. Give me bright but overcast days every time.




Thursday I went into Preston in what turned out to be a fools errand. The shop I was going to turned out to be an empty shell. I took the time on the parking ticket to wander round trying out another venture into non-DSLR camera ownership. The light was bright, the sky a vivid blue and I was seduced into trying to photograph this light. Maybe given more time I would have settled into a way of looking, but what felt like good pictures at the time I took them turned out to be pretty rubbish. I also mistimed what might have been a good 'steet' photograph. Using one of the clichéd tricks of that genre - the reflection in a shop window. A split second later and I'd have got the reflection.


Slightly better, but equally clichéd, was this architectural abstract. Although they aren't easy to find I find this sort of thing a bit lazy.


Despite technology having improved since I last tried to go mirrorless I'm still not convinced. The one thing I always liked about them is the way live view performs for taking low level shots. I put this to good use today on my late afternoon trip to the beach.


This might come in handy for the project. There were a couple of people out with bait pimps but one disappeared into the far distance while I was distracted by trying to photograph a shrimping tractor with some 'great' light behind it. A longer lens would have been useful to make the light over the turbines and Welsh mountains larger in relation to the tractor, but I was once more ill equipped.



Looking out towards the gas rig the light was strange. The sea almost calm with a haze over it made the horizon seem to float and shimmer.


Even when photographing vehicles 'gesture' is important. Their outline makes all the difference to how they are understood within the picture. With people and animals it's even more important. That's why the few pictures I took of the other bait digger, using his home made pump, didn't work out. That there were few lugworm around didn't help me with information type pictures either. The one worm picture I got might have worked if I'd got the worm sharp.


So I made do with yet another beachscape with person (and pup) small in the frame shot. How many more of these do I need?




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