Guiding Light

My last outing with my camera had been to a local woodland where I photographed fungi, which was very relaxing. A week later I found myself on the beach at New Brighton photographing the lighthouse and sea defences, which was also fun and relaxing. I didn't have a lot of time but fortunately despite a couple of light showers the weather and the light was very kind to me so I was able to get some nice shots.

I have photographed this lighthouse a few times in stormy weather and it really looks magnificent with waves crashing around it. However, this was the first time I had been down to see it with the tide at its lowest and on such a nice day. Whatever the weather I think it must be a welcome beacon to the shipping that comes into the River Mersey.

I experimented a little with a variable ND filter and longer exposures for some of these shots to  get the most out of the reflections and the sky. I have also mixed up some colour and black and white images for contrast.

Walking on the beach was pretty safe, but I often like to make things difficult for myself; (in the past I have waded into the middle of streams to get a better angle on a waterfall, or set up close to the edge of a cliff for a particular view), so why should this outing be any different. I wanted to get some shots of the sea defences which involved a bit of scrambling over some slippery rocks and it was a bit fiddly setting up my tripod and finding a safe foothold at the same time. I think the effort paid off. I have shot these in black and white because I think it creates a better image. In colour images the green seaweed coating on the concrete groynes is a bit too much and doesn't give as much definition or depth. I think the shot of the groynes which includes the lighthouse (the penultimate image) would have been better using my 17 - 40mm lens instead of the 24-105mm because 24mm just wasn't wide enough to get it all in as I had wanted. However, swapping lenses at that point was a risk too far. There is always next time...

Enjoy, and feel free to comment.

Set Sail...

 Living close to the beach I have been lucky enough to see various activities; kite surfing, surfing, windsurfing, kite buggies and land/sand yachting. When the conditions are right these must be really exhilarating to take part in but they are also a great spectacle and provide some excellent photo opportunities.

Last weekend there was a Sand Yacht Regatta at St Annes on the Fylde coast and so I pooped along briefly to take a look. I only managed to watch one complete race and part of a second but even so I managed to get some really great shots. Freezing the action in a photograph does not always give a true indication of just how fast these chaps are going however when they go through water and create a big splash you can get more of an idea of how quick they are moving and perhaps how hard they work to stay on course. 

Dead Calm

 

                                                                                                                                                   

So yesterday I said I would be posting the last of my shots from my walk on the beach and that I would post multiple images, and that is what I have done...

I was a little surprised to see so many boats on the water at the marine lake because it was almost completely dead calm, with barely a breath of wind at all. Progress on the water was incredibly slow and by the time the first group of boats was coming back the crews were having to stand up in their boats and flap the sails back and forth in order to create enough momentum to get back to the jetty. I was really surprised then when a second group of boats went out as in the last image and they were standing up, flapping for all they were worth to get out onto the lake.

All the same I thought the colourful sails reflected in the still water of the lake made for some great images, I particularly like the first image with the three boats line astern with the sails tilted at different angles.

I really wanted to add a link to some music to go with todays post and I was trying to find something that fit with the sailing motif, however I didn't actually think what I observed and photographed could fairly be described as sailing (and I thought Sailing by Rod Stewart would be a bit cheesy) so I have gone a little outside the box on this one. The song is  "Nothing Is Easy" (click the link) by Jethro Tull, it is track 1 side 2 from the classic album Stand UP (1969). I think it is definitely worth a listen and I think both the album title and song title fit well with the images. Enjoy!

Gliding By

 Here is one more shot from my recent walk on the beach, this was actually from the path around the marine lake; I had been photographing some sailing boats when this young herring gull flew by.

I have adjusted the white balance slightly to give greater depth to the blue.

I love the glossy surface of the water and the shiny reflection of the gull. I am also really pleased with the detail which you can see if you view the image at 100% (you can see a little glint in the birds' eye and a flash of red on its' beak).

Tomorrow I will share the last selection from the day at the beach (probably several colourful shots) so look out for those.

Buoy on the Beach

 I know this is a pretty mundane object and most of the time I would just walk past without a second glance however on this particular day it caught my eye and I took a couple of experimental shots. 

I think the lighting and reflection combine to create an interesting image. The bold yellow against the layers of blue work really well together.

There's No One Home

 

A walk on the beach will invariably result in finding lots of seashells and along the shore between Hoylake and West Kirby there are millions upon millions of them. Each shell host to a creature (clam, mussel, oyster, cockle, whelk, razor clam etc) which in turn is a source of food for the many wading birds and gulls that can be found along the coastline here.

I thought this was quite a magnificent specimen, once home to a whelk (a type of sea snail) but now abandoned and exposed by the tide. I liked the way the light caught it and the reflection it cast in the shallow puddle in the sand.

Light The Way

 

In the first of today's images you can see the lighthouse which stands at the end of Stanley Road in Hoylake, it overlooks Liverpool Bay, the Dee Estuary and the Royal Liverpool Golf Course. It is not an active lighthouse but is a replica of one of the four lighthouses that were built along the Wirral coastline to guide shipping into Liverpool (two were in Hoylake and two in Leasowe) none of which are  now active.

There is a small slipway onto the beach near Red Rocks which on a summer day (or any day for that matter) is a nice spot for a walk or to relax and enjoy the scenery. It is also a good spot on a clear night to observe, or even photograph the night sky, looking west out into the Irish Sea or south along the Dee estuary (although that direction does suffer with light pollution from the towns along the river's edge) there are so many stars to be seen..

The second image shows Hilbre Island, there is a small,  functioning lighthouse on the island but it is a simple white tower with a red LED beacon that can be seen up to 5 miles away.

The island has an interesting history and as a nature reserve it is designated a  Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). Cut off by the high tide it is possible to walk across to the island when the tide goes out, to explore rock pools, observe the flocks of wading birds and watch the grey seals that live on a nearby sand bank and swim around the island. 

The island has been occupied on and off since the stone age, it has been a site of pilgrimage with a monastic cell established there between 1080 and 1550. The monks were responsible for maintaining a beacon for shipping and on the island in the late 1600's rock salt was produced on the island.

The two images were taken on the same day. The shot of Hilbre island was taken first and then a short while later as the weather conditions improved the second shot of the lighthouse and the reflections on the beach things appear so much brighter because of the low winter sun.

Beach Life (Stranger on the Shore)

 I have a little more time on my hands right now and one of the things I aim to do is give a lot more attention to my photography and hopefully make this blog a more regular feature. When I started it, way back in September 2014 I intended to make it a daily thing and for some time I managed that. But then other things got in the way and to some extent the pressure of blogging every day, finding something to post actually became counter productive. I wasn't always happy with the pictures I shared and over time the gaps between posts got longer.

I want to post more regularly but I also want the images I share to be worth sharing and I want to see a progression in my photography and editing skills. So let's see how that goes... One of the things I also did in the early days of this blog was to post links to music that somehow connected to the images and I think I will revive that (although not every time I post something), it won't necessarily reflect my tastes in music but hopefully will have some relevance to the post.

A few weeks ago I went for a walk out to the waters edge on the beach at Hoylake and then I followed the beach around to West Kirby. I took lots of pictures of people and things, in all I walked about 8 miles. It was nice to watch other people out on the beach, dog walkers, couples out for a stroll and families having fun. 

The couple in the first image caught my eye, they were sat for ages just looking out across the beach from Red Rocks (this area is normally covered by the tide), towards Hilbre Island; I wondered what their story was, I walked closer to get the shot, but I did not intrude.  

As I was preparing this post I thought about the following tune that I remember as a child (it was released before I was born and was the biggest selling single in the UK in 1962 (how times have changed)) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTl-iAF6KsE it is a very mellow tune that fits with the atmosphere of this first picture.

The second shot shows some of the people walking around the marine lake silhouetted against the "warm" winter sky. It is good to walk around the lake, and when the tide is in it is quite an experience to be surrounded on all sides by water.

I love living so close to the sea and having the opportunity to enjoy this wonderful coastline. 

Hen Borth

 

Just one picture today, it is an image I have worked on this afternoon, trying hard to get it right.

I collected these pebbles from the beach at Hen Borth in Anglesey and originally I photographed them in the boot of my car while I was camping nearby on Friday night. I took the original photo using my mobile phone and I thought it looked really cool. I wanted to print it and hang it on  my wall but no matter how I cropped it or tried to resize it I couldn't get it to fit properly. It was so frustrating and after a while I had to give up. 

That's when I decided to recreate the image, this time using my DSLR and framing the stones a little better. I had to clean out the boot of the car from some of the dirt and grass left over from the camping trip and then referring to the original picture on my phone I organised the stones as closely as possible to how they were first time round, I took three shots using different settings and then selected this one. I had to do some spot removal in lightroom to tidy up the image. I then adjusted the shadows and brought out the blue tones to match with the colour theme of the other pictures this will hang with. I am really pleased with the result and I hope you will agree this picture is a real winner and so worth the effort I went through to create it. It is definitely too good not to share!

Race For The Prize

 I wouldn't normally post some many pictures in one go but as i have added an album of pictures already to my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/chipster63photography I thought I would go for a selection of my favourites and let you follow the link above to see the rest of the shots that go with this selection.

This weekend has seen the National Sand yacht regatta hosted at Hoylake. I was at a bit of a loss trying to think of something to do, the weather wasn't too great and I also didn't want to travel too far so I walked down to the local beach. I could see the yachts way out on the beach and warning notices everywhere that racing was in progress so I marched off across the sand to see what was what.

I could tell as I approached that there were no spectators and started to worry that I would be in the way. I am not a normally outgoing person so I was also a little nervous about how I would approach a bunch of strangers focused on their sport. I needn't have worried. 

I was greeted warmly and the participants were happy to talk about the sport, the rules, the speeds, the risks and some of the international events they have been to. They were happy to let me photograph the event and even offered to take me down to different spots where I could get some good shots. I couldn't have felt more welcome and I am so glad I made the effort to go see.

I was amazed that the competitors were not young men, there were men and women mostly around my age but some of them were much older, one guy a several time champion in his class and running second in this years championship was 78 years old. That is pretty impressive when you think these craft will travel over 60mph and in places they will even completely leave the ground. It is definitely not for the faint hearted.

This was also my first proper attempt to photograph a sporting event, I am pleased with the results so if you do like the images above please click the link to my facebook page to see more.