#257 – Riverdance

I posted this photograph of the MS Riverdance a couple of years back, but seeing the recent posts on Geotopoi of the wreck of the MV Carrier brought back a few memories.

The story is well documented - storm force winds hit Britain at the end of January 2008, and overnight, the cargo ferry Riverdance was hit by a huge wave while trying to make it to the Lancashire port of Heysham. This cause the cargo to shift and the ship started to list at 60 degrees. Mayday was called, and the crew and passengers were airlifted off, before the ship ran aground on the beach at Cleveleys.

The next day, residents awoke to see this huge ship lying on the beach, just off the prom, and pictures of it were all over the news channels. The weather the following day remained wet and very windy, but overnight, it had become something of a tourist attraction.

I’d just returned from a holiday in sunny Australia, but despite being severely jetlagged, I decided that this wasn’t the kind of thing that happens everyday round these parts, so I made the short trip up to Cleveleys to see what was going on. The town centre somewhat overrun with cars, but I’d already got a photo in mind looking back down the coast towards neighbouring Blackpool, so I headed north for some easier parking and set off down the beach in the face of a strong, bitterly cold wind throwing rain and hail at me off the Irish Sea.

This being the first day of February, the light was very low in the sky and somewhat weak, and as I headed southwards down the beach into the sun, the light seemed to be constantly changing as the strong winds continued to blow dark clouds across the sky.

Seeing the ship lying on the beach at a jaunty angle was a strange sight. It’s hard to articulate why – maybe it’s because your typical image of a shipwreck is one you’d see on TV news of a ship at the bottom of a steep cliff being smashed apart by the waves, or of a ship taking in water at sea. But to see a completely intact ship on a flat beach, a few hundred yards from houses and shops, with lean so severe that it’s cargo of articulated lorries were falling into the sea, was somewhat surreal.

Part of the reason I’d headed north from the wreck was because the photo I had in mind was inspired by a great photo on the BBC news websites ‘Big Picture’ feature., and I wanted to capture something similar. Using the telephoto, I was able to achieve exactly the composition I had in mind, although I had to get the positioning just right so that I could get a recognisable Blackpool Tower in to give the picture some context. Without it, well it could have been anywhere really couldn’t it? But I suppose that’s the art of the photojournalist, to tell a story in one picture.

Having a picture in mind was one thing, but the execution of it was another matter, thankfully, I was using a 70-300 VR lens that I’d just picked up in Hong Kong, en route to Australia, and the stabilisation was a real boon when using the lens at 300mm in a strong wind with what felt like frostbite eating my gloved hands.

With my main planned shot in the can, I started to see what other opportunities presented themselves. Getting close to the ship wasn’t going to happen as the Coast Guard were actively enforcing a 400 metre exclusion zone, so I was forced to look from afar. Just then, a yellow Sea King clattered into view and made it’s way to the ship. Hovering above the superstructure, the winch descended and lowered a man onto the precariously angled deck. On board must have been like a 1960’s Adam West era episode of Batman, and he didn’t appear to hang around for very long, before ascending back into the Sea King.

As I got closer I began to realise just hoe many people had turned out to gawp at the spectacle. Like a giant steel beached whale, the ship became a magnet for thousands of people. And not just from the shore. Ignoring the exclusion zone, the local kite surfers took advantage of the strong winds to get some spectacular height on their jumps, much to the frustration of the Coast Guard who couldn’t do much about them as they had no access to boats.

Walking back along the beach close to the sea wall, I noticed something that I’d missed on the way down the beach – millions of chocolate biscuits! I neglected to get a photo unfortunately, but amongst the shingle and flotsam and jetsam washed ashore in the storm were piles of soggy chocolate digestives that had previously been in one of the storm damaged artics on the deck of the ship. I didn’t salvage any as I’m not a fan of pre-dunked biscuits with my brew!

What became of the ship? After several attempts to refloat it failed, it was declared a total loss. I suspect this was partially due to its age, as it looked substantially intact, however, I’ve also read somewhere that a ships structure will weaken after a prolonged period of time aground at an angle. This is because the forces acting on it are different to what it was designed for, and so stresses are caused which could be terminal. So the decision was taken to break up the ship where she laid. This was no small task as clearly the beach is subject to the tides and whatever weather the Irish sea could throw at it. And with gravity eventually kicking in, the ship toppled onto its side which I would imagine isn’t the optimum position for shipbreaking. Demolition was eventually completed in October 2010, and I’ll try to dig out a few images I took on later visits.

Since 2008 there have been no more shipwrecks on the Fylde, indeed, there were only actually three in the 20th century. Whether this is due to advances in navigation technology, improvements in the seaworthiness of ships, or a decline in coastal traffic I don’t know, but that wild night in January will stick in local memories for years to come.

# 253 – Return To Dinorwic – Film Shots

I’d promised myself that I’d shoot more film in 2012, so the first proper opportunity I had was Dinorwic. As described in previous posts, I took along a digital compact, and two film cameras. Not ideal, but at least the X10 is small enough to slip into a waist bag and is out of the way.  I hate neckstraps on cameras, so I have wrist straps on my SLR’s which is fine when you’re using one, but when you’ve got two, it become a pain in the arse. Still, you make your bed and you’ve got to sleep in it.

In the two cameras I used two different types of film – Kodak Ektar 100 in the F80 with a 28-105 lens, and Kodak BW400CN in the F100 with a 20mm lens. Ektar I’ve used before on my last visit and was quite pleased with the results, while I’ve been using chromogenic black and white films such as BW400CN, XP2 and the like for years, if nothing else for convenience as they are C41 process.

I’d originally though about using the colour film to bring out the colours in the scenes I shot, but the colour pallete of Dinorwic is so limited, that I wouldn’t have taken many shots if I’d have stuck to that plan. So, I ended up using them both side by side. In retrospect, Ektar was probably too slow a film for the conditions as it’s speed is 100 ISO, and at times I was struggling for light as I was not using a tripod. No such problems with the BW400, especially with the short focal length lens.

Would be nice to have had two F100′s, it’s just a nicer camera to handle than the F80, which arguably is a bit small for me. Not that I’ve got excessively large hands, just that the F100 fits better.

I do like the Colour shots, and was surprised at how well it managed to cope with how well it handled the light, although, colour negative film does have very good dynamic range.

Interestingly, the feedback I’ve had seems to favour the black and white ones.

# 250- Return To Dinorwic – Australia Level Part 2

Throwing caution to the not inconsiderable wind, I decided to continue wandering along the Australia level, if nothing else to see if there was a less difficult way down. Seeing some buidlings ahead, I wandered over to see what they were. Various bits of scrap littered the grass outside which piqued my curiousity, and inside I found some quite substantial machinery. This was a large industrial compressor that was used to generate compressed air for the upper levels of the quarry, to power penumatic drills for drilling the rock. All round the quarry was evidence of the steel pipes that took this air to where it was needed, and I hadn’t realised just what they were.

The machinery was quite substantial, and I did wonder why it hadn’t been broken up for scrap and shipped back down the incline when the quarry closed. Maybe the cost of doing that was more than the scrap value back in 1969, but the opportunity was missed and now it will likely be there forever.

Big compressor. I remember making a miniature version of this in the machine shop at college. It was only 6 inches high, whereas this thing was about 12 feet high.

Not a steam engine, but a compressor.

As I wandered, I noticed the shattered remains of some steps down to the gallery below. Carefully picking my way down what was now just a slope covered in slate rubble, I quickly realised that although there was another winding house and incline on this slope, I’d no idea where it went to, or if it would take me back to where I wanted to be. Erring on the side of caution, I decided to return the way I came.

Making my way back to the incline, I braved the slippery, near 45 degree incline, with it’s wet slate and grass. Using my two walking poles to reach ahead of me, I scrambled down with only one slip. Not sure if it was any slower coming down, but it was certainly less physically demanding.

A smaller inclined plane used to connect to an intermediate level.

Could I get back down in this direction? I found out later that yes I could, but the route down looked only marginally less precarious than the C3 incline.

# 247 – Return To Dinorwic

Industry has it’s own unique way of shaping the landscape, but mineral extraction is one industry that leaves the most permanent mark. From the slag heaps of the coalfields, to the huge holes in the ground that quarries leave, once operations have ended, it isn’t just a case of pulling the buildings down and building houses.

Dinorwic is a fine example of this. Huge galleries have been sculpted from the hillsides, vast chasms have been blown and chiselled away, leaving the most surreal of man-made landscapes.

My previous visit in 2009 was a great introduction, but I’d barely scratched the surface. Graham Stephen’s posts on his excellent geotopoi blog had whetted my appetite for another visit, but I struggled to find the time due to my work and family commitments. Finally though, a window of opportunity opened – my flexi time was running at a high level, so I had to take a day off. Not being able to face a long weekend of household chores, I made my excuses and slipped into the Friday rush hour M6 traffic and headed for the A55 into Wales.

Now I’m not sure if it’s just my choice of days, or the local meteorological conditions, but almost everyime I’ve been to North Wales, it’s been either raining, very cloudy, foggy, or all three at the same time. This day was no exception, but on the flip side, it does add a rather eerie atmosphere to the photographs. Parking my car by the ‘bus stop’ entrance, it felt like I was leaving a bright red marker buoy against a desaturated grey and green sea, such was the limited colour palette of the landscape.

The quarry is vast, and it is impossible to fully explore it in one visit, and I had specific things in mind that I wanted to see, so rather than wander round looking for an easier route, I opted for the hard option and headed for the C3 incline!

# 205 – Mobile Landscapes

I’m a member of a Flickr group called Mobile Landscapes which is for landscape photographs taken on mobile phones. In some respects this is a faintly ludicrous concept, as landscape photography is traditionally regarded as a contemplative art, where you take your time in choosing the optimum composition, wait for the best light, and often involves the use of a tripod, larger cameras, quite often medium or large format. But of course you can take landscapes on any camera, it’s as much about the right time and place as it is the equipment (unless of course you’re looking to sell prints or publish a book, etc).

However, sometimes you don’t have a thundering great camera, lens and tripod to hand. We’d popped out for a lovely meal at the superb Crab and Lobster pub in Bembridge on the Isle of Wight and as we were about to leave we decided to take a quick walk down to the adjacent seashore. The sun was setting and the sky was various pastel shades, so we sat and watched the flotilla of ships on the horizon, presumably having left Southampton on the tide and were now heading off into the Channel. Even thought hey were several miles away, we could hear a gentle thump-thump of their marine diesels on the deserted shore. Noticing that the battery on my phone was virtually dead, I decided to get as many photos as I could before it expired, as it seemed a shame to let the lovely scene in front of me be lost to my memory.

This is probably the pick of the bunch, inspired very much by the contemporary landscape genre seen in the photography magazines every month. I’d love to have had my 16-35 mm lens and my 70-300 to pick out the little rowing boat in one of the pools, but that’s life.

# 203 – ticket to ryde 1

As I drove onto the crunchy gravel car park of the swish, modern marina near Newport on the Isle of Wight, it occurred to me what an odd location this was for the beached, rusting paddle steamer PS Ryde. The futuristic harbour control centre, million pound yachts and motor cruisers seemed a world away from the 1930′s paddle steamer. Beached on a small creek on the wide River Medina, the long low hull and superstructure still look vaguely elegant, even though the rakish chimney collapsed 5 years ago, and now lies on the dock alongside her.

As I walked across the marina, a man carefully power washed the underside of his gleaming yacht, suspended from a boat lift, oblivious, ignorant, maybe of the rusting, fenced off hulk maybe only ten feet away from him. What a contrast it made, with patches of rust having eaten their way through the steel hull in places.

The Ryde has been moored here since 1970, when BR withdrew it from its regular Portsmouth to Ryde passenger service. Like several other old steam ships, it ended up as a nightclub, operating until the late 80′s. Since then it has seemingly been derelict and it’s condition has sadly deteriorated.

The current situation is unclear. There were plans to try to save her, but then demolition contractors moved in and cut a hole in the side to remove asbestos. Since then, nothing has happened, but I really can’t see a happy ending. What a shame.

# 201 – before and after – articulating your vision photographically

“It is impossible for a photographic print to duplicate the range of brightnesses (luminances) of most subjects, and thus photographs are to some degree interpretations of the original subject values. Much of the creativity of photography lies in the infinite range of choices open to the photographer between attempting a nearly literal representation of the subject and freely interpreting it in highly subjective ‘departures from reality’ My work for example is frequently regarded is ‘realistic’, while in fact the value relationships within most of my photographs are far from a literal transcription of actuality. I employ numerous photographic controls to create an image that represents ‘the equivalent of what I saw and felt’ (to paraphrase a statement I heard on a number of occasions from Alfred Stieglitz – the great photographer of the early twentieth century). If I succeed, the viewer accepts the image as its own fact, and responds emotionally and aesthetically to it. It is safe to assume that no two individuals see the world about them in the same way.”

Ansel Adams, The Negative

Ansel Adam’s trilogy of books The Camera, The Negative and The Print are now decades old but while the darkroom techniques are now largely irrelevant to anyone using digital, the principles behind the creation of creative black and white images remain true.

For Ansel, the negative was just the starting point. In his book ‘The Print’ he describes how he printed his famous ‘Clearing Winter Storm’;

“During the main printing exposure of 10 second,, I hold back the shadowed cliff area near the right edge for 2 seconds, and the two trees in the right hand corner for 2 seconds…..After the basic exposure, I burn the bottom edge for 1 second and the lower left corner for 3 seconds. I then burn the left edge of the print for 2 seconds and the right edge for 2 seconds, in each case tilting the card to favour the sky.

Burning is required from the base of the sun lit forest areas, near the waterfall, to the top of the image, with three up and down passages of 3 seconds each. I then burn the sky along the top for 10 seconds, continuing with the 2 and 4 seconds at the upper left corner. Then using a hole 1 inch wide, I burn the central area (between the two cliffs and the clouds above) for 10 seconds, and then bring the hole closer and burn the smaller area of cloud for an additional 10 seconds.”

Phew!!! a testament not only to his vision (and being in the right place at the right time), but also his ability to translate that vision, using his knowledge of exposure, film, paper and developer properties and of course his printing expertise.

But the parallels are starting to become clear with the digital darkroom. Where before there was a negative, there is now a raw (or possibly a jpeg) file, while the variables of development and printing are practically eliminated.

The images of The Duke Of Lancaster that I’m using are ones I’ve used several times before in this blog, and I’ve even gone into my thought processes, but here I want to explore them a bit deeper, more the why than the how.

I started with some research – the internet is a godsend for this kind of thing! I looked at the location on Google Earth to get an idea of the topography, as well as look at loads of photos on flickr and Geograph http://www.geograph.org.uk/gridref/SJ1779. Photos on Geograph are rubbish from a creative perspective, but do give a good idea of the surroundings, whereas the flickr ones are more variable. While good from an inspiration perspective, none of them really moved me, although some of the night photographs are superb! However, on this occasion, night photography wasn’t what I was doing. While it would have been nice to have chosen the optimum time of day, light and weather conditions, I didn’t have that luxury as I don’t exactly live on the doorstep, neither do I have unlimited opportunities to go out and photograph.

So what did I have in mind? I wanted to interpret the scene as I felt it. How do you ‘feel’ a visual scene that you have no emotional attachment to? To me a scene is not just the sum of the elements you see before you, that’s just composition. So what did I see and feel? I saw a sad scene before me, a proud old liner slowly rotting away in a forgotten old dock. The paint was rusting, the flags weren’t flying and the happy travellers had been replaced with the occasional urban explorer. It’s future is uncertain, but whatever happens the old ship isn’t likely to be sailing very far, or to a happy ending.I felt quite sad that this graceful old liner was marooned here so I wanted to portray something dark and dramatic, that had a sense of place. This brings me to the coastal landscape – I’ve always found estuaries a bit weird. There’s something about places where the land fades into the sea that is slightly surreal. Maybe it’s because they’re the only landscape that is constantly changing, or the lack of people and buildings, I don’t know.

Creative choices started at the location – lens choice (16-35 to get foreground, 28-70 to get the wider scene) composition (placement of the ship in the frame, how much sky to include, how much foreground) and exposure (underexposed to capture some detail in the sky). I then took 30 or so different images of slightly different compositions to give myself plenty of choice later on.

When I got back, I uploaded them to Lightroom and viewed them all sequentially in a slide show, ranking them 1-5 as I went on, and then just viewed the ones with 4 and 5 stars. I then switched the computer off and left them for a few days and came back to take another look. It’s surprising how you see things differently once you come back later. I then made my final selections, based on what ‘looked right’.

As someone far wiser than I once said, every image contains a hundred others. I now had my starting point, but I now wanted to transform it into something which communicated what I had in my head. As the image was a raw file, it all looked a bit dreary and flat, so I had to start the processing in Lightroom. I had in my head a high contrast black and white with a dramatic sky, so I needed to recover some detail in the sky first of all. Thankfully, I’d underexposed so there were no burnt out highlights.

This left a muddy looking image, but you can only do global adjustments in Lightroom, so I had to move to Photoshop to start the buggering about with layers and making local adjustments to curves, sharpening, etc.

Once in Photoshop, I converted to black and white using Nik Silver Efex. There are loads of ways of converting in Photoshop, none of which I can be bothered with as I foind the Nik plug in both easier to use and provides a better result. In Photoshop proper, I made separate selections for the sky, foreground and ship, which are the three key compositional elements. The sky was adjusted using curves, as was the foreground. I also created a duplicate layer of the foreground and changed it’s layer type to multiply to give it the contrast I was looking for. I also adjusted the brightness of the ship slightly to make it stand out against the dark backgrounds, as well as giving it some extra sharpening.

Result: well if you read this blog regularly, you’ll have seen it before, but I’m most pleased with it, and recently got it put on a 30 x 20 canvas by Vista Digital in Longridge near Preston, who I can highly recommend, as inkjet printing of monochrome images is difficult and they did a superb job of it! My own print of it also came second in the Brownedge Arts Festival Photographic Competition, the prize money more than off setting the cost of the canvas!

So what are the lessons I learnt from this?

1) Think about how the scene in front of you moves you.

2) Think ahead when choosing your exposure.

3) Where possible, do some research in advance. Some photographers prefer not to view other images of the scene as they want the photograph to be theirs, not influenced by someone else. I can understand this point of view, but you’re missing out on potentially some great ideas for compositions. You don’t have to copy, the creative choices will always be your own!

#174 – Astley Hall

Been busy recently with family and suchlike, so although I’ve taken plenty of photos of my 8 month old daughter, not much indutrial has been in front ofmy lenses. I’m busy writing various blog posts but have found that I’ve not got the photos I need to illustrate them online, grrr. So, here’s one from a trip to my local park, Astley Park in Chorley. I’d not bothered to take a proper camera, so it was cameraphone to the rescue again. I now think of it as a ‘mobile device’, something that slips into my pocket and can make phone calls, take photos and video, browse the internet, send email and text messages, and even act as a sat nav / google maps viewer. How did we manage without them………………..

#166 – pre-visualising an image

In the words of one of my personal heroes, don’t you just love it when a plan comes together? I’d been planning to go and have a look at the Duke Of Lancaster for ages as I had an image in my mind. And it was exactly like the one at the top of the post that you’ve just seen. It’s very rare that I do this, as more often than not when I’m out exploring or taking railway photographs, I tend to be spontaneous and react to what I see. However, I’d spent quite a bit of time beforehand looking at photos of the ship on Flickr, so compositions were forming in my head. However, the finished image needed to be high contrast with an ominous sky, as is my style.

Meanwhile, back on the beach, I took lots of different photos from different perspectives, at different distances and with different focal lengths. I don’t normally machine gun a subject, but I wanted to give myself plenty of options when I was selecting an image for processing.

My black and white workflow involves Nik Silver Efex to convert to monochrome, and in this I also use the ‘Wet Rocks’ Effect, and add a Tri-X filter to up the contrast. But any effects added in this are applied to the whole image (I can’t get on with the control points in Silver Efex), so In Photoshop, I selected the sky and tinkered with the levels then changed the blending mode to ‘Multiply’, then did the same with the foreground, albeit changing the blending mode to ‘Color Dodge’. There’s no rationale behind the blending mode choices, they just looked good. I then selected the ship and tweaked the contrast slightly as by now it was looking a bit flat in comparison.

The net result was this, something which exactly matched the image in my head. It’s something I’ve never managed to pull off before, and probably won’t ever do again due to the somewhat dynamic way in which I photograph, but it’s good to get an insight into how proper landscape photographers work.

#165 – Square Format

While I’ve never shot a square format camera, I’ve found myself on a number of occasions recently, cropping to a square format. While of course this is retrospective re-composition, as opposed to deliberate in-camera composition, the square format is an interesting one that for some reason is difficult to use. Maybe it’s to do with unfamiliarity, as we are so used to seeing rectangular images, or maybe it’s an unnatural composition, as our field of view is not square.

While it’s difficult to compose square on an SLR (unless you’ve got a decent live view option), it is easier on a compact camera by cutting a square template out of card and attaching it to the screen on the back of the camera. Of course the images will still be recorded square on the sensor and so will have to be cropped in the computer, but it’s a good starting point.

So what should we consider when composing square? David Prakel (Composition, AVA Publishing, 2006) writes:

Square images are symmetrical about both the horizontal and vertical axes, which lends solidity and stability. The resulting quarters are also squares, and the whole form is strongly directed around the centre, which can lack dynamism. The diagonals however, can be used to dramatic compositional effect.

Having parts of the subject radically break through the square frame can add dynamism. Intentional compositional imbalances between contrasting areas, jagged lines, and edges that extend beyond the visible frame can unsettle the square format and be used to great creative effect.

While not truly symmetrical, I chose to crop this square as the reflection does give an element of symmetry, while the diaganols add a sense of dynamism that can be absent from a square due to it’s inherently solid, static shape.The other key reason was that there was too much in the frame simply not adding anything – empty sky and puddle. The fact that I used a 28mm lens may have been a disadvantage in this instance as it simply gave me too much I didn’t want in the frame.  As discussed before on this blog, a good rule of thumb for cropping is to look at what you are thinking of removing and thinking about whether it is adding anything to the image.