I set an early alarm for a drive to the coast last weekend and tried to shoot some new views of the beach at Felixstowe, getting some nice shots of a groyne as the sun rose and some pictures at the pier. Felixstowe continues to offer new photography challenges to me and is nearest coastline to where I live, and I needed a coastal fix.
In this video I use my Fujifilm X-T3 with a 10-24mm and an 18-55mm zoom lens to shoot minimal seascape photographs of a seawater inlet/outlet for the nuclear power-station at Sizewell, Suffolk, UK. For longer exposures I use a Lee Filters 6 Stop ND filter on my wider lens and a K&F Concept variable ND filter on the 18-55mm lens which is the only ND filter I have for the that lens. There is very little on the beach to create compositions so the seawater inlet/outlet sanction is serves as a simple focus for some minimal images.
During August I was lucky enough to spend some time in Cornwall, and used a sunrise shoot to take some wave movement shots. For some I used a long lens, got down low to capture the rising son on the waves, pre-focused and shot at a fast aperture. For another set, I chose a wide lens, set the aperture to half a second and moved the camera as I shot for these evocations of the beach.
Can a single body, a single lens and a single film simulation drive your creativity? In this video I picked my FUJIFILM X-T20, a single FUJINON 27mm f2.8 lens and the MONOCHROME+R film simulation to tell the story of a day out in London at the end of June 2021 as the city began to come out of lockdown and personal restrictions were beginning to be lifted. The choice to restrict my gear meant that only choices I had to make were those of subject, composition, and aperture (I was shooting in aperture priority with ISO set at 400).
Last week I had a holiday in South Wales and Cornwall with my lovely wife, and new puppy. Most of the time was spent chasing the puppy around, visiting friends and relations, and strolling on the beach and there was not much time for photography. However, on the advice of a taxi driver that the evening was going to be exceptionally clear, that there would be no moonlight (which stymies astrophotography), I went out for a sunset shoot at Cape Cornwall (I’ll post separately), and then moved onto the Crown Mines at Botallack. Now, given that I went out on this shoot on a whim, I didn’t have a torch and my phone was nearly dead, so when I got to the base of the cliffs to set up a shot of the mines on the cliff face, I realised that the 300 ft drop I had struggled to make my way down would be in total darkness on the way back up. I was not confident that I could make the climb in the dark and felt I might fall, so I packed up and climbed back up the cliff in last light. Walking back towards the car, fairly disgruntled, I saw the pump house and mine chimney silhouetted against the darkening night sky filled with stars. Confident that I could now get back to the car safely, I set up and took this shot. I hope you think it was worth it. Best, Keith
I got up ridiculously early to head down to Porthcurno to capture sunrise. I got there early enough that I caught some stars before the sun rose. Below is some of the images I captured on a beautiful morning of photography, peace and tranquility.
At the beginning of April 2021, as UK lockdown#3 began to lift, I headed for the nearest coastline from my home for a grey, pre-dawn photoshoot, with my FujiFilm X-T3, and shooting b-roll with my brand new DJI Pocket 2. I made some long exposures of Cobbold’s Point at high tide, some ICM (Intentional Camera Movement) studies of the beach, and some beach hut “street” photography.
We had quite a heavy fall of snow at the weekend. I loved the juxtaposition of the daffodils breaking through heralding the break of spring with the wintery conditions in our local park.
A new video about what I learned in 2020 about landscape photography. Please go and have a look.
I was pleased to get to Cornwall after a busy few weeks or work. I went down to Marazion and tried my hand at intention camera movement for the first time. I also captured some classic St Michael’s Mount images as the sunset over Penzance.
Sphericity by KeithMasonPhotography 