Hi all,
Well many readers will know that I recently resigned from one of the sites I worked at doing IT and Network Administration. It was a tough decision, and one not made lightly. It's certainly made more time for myself, but had other negative impacts. On the plus note, I have a little more time to concentrate on my photography and starting to rebuild the relationships in my personal life which have been negatively affected due to my previous schedule.
I managed to head down the Bass Coast here in Victoria last Friday to have a bit more of a play with my B+W ND110 3.0 10-stop ND filter. It basically means that, paired with my Grad ND filters, I can produce long exposures, in the order of minutes, in the daytime, as long as the sky is a little overcast. It produces some strange results as far as motion and colour rendition are concerned.
Initially I was heading down to The Pinnacles at Cape Woolamai on Phillip Island, but decided last minute to try a new location, and turned off towards Corinella. At a not-so-clearly signed point in the road, I made a wrong turn and accidentally found myself in the township of Corinella, and not at Tenby Point as I'd planned. This is where the barge to French Island launches, and there's a rickety old landing point near the pier there which was a great find.
After a bit of a wander around the beaches and pier, I realized that photographically, Corinella has little more to offer, so I hopped in the car and drove down the road to Tenby Point. Now this little town literally has a handful of streets, a beach, a couple of farms, and that's it. I walked down the path to the beach to immediately find myself at high tide. This was great, as there's a bunch of trees which are on dry land at low tide, but are in the middle of the water at high tide. I took full advantage of the situation and grabbed a few long exposures. At this stage I noticed some old jetty pylons sticking out of the water further down the beach. Shooting with wide lenses a lot I think warps my perspective. This old jetty looked a lot closer than it actually was.
15 minutes later I was standing on a rocky promontory looking at these pylons several hundred metres out in the water, far too far away to shoot effectively with anything but a telephoto lens, which would destroy the depth of the shot. I should come back here at low tide to photograph the old jetty. I wandered back up the beach and grabbed another couple of exposures of the tidal trees and hit the road.
It's amazing the artifacts that creep into a shot when you're working with such heavy filters and long exposures. The purple in the sky is infrared pollution, as the Grad ND filters allow a little of this wavelength through over such a long exposure. Sometimes very cool, sometimes annoying to get rid of!!! It plays havoc with your white balance.
On another note, this Saturday I have my first wedding shoot of the season. I'll be photographing the wedding of Briony Gill and Sam Breese overlooking Port Phillip Bay from Oliver's Hill. Should be a bit of fun, and I'm looking forward to it. For this shoot my good friend Aidan Curtis has loaned me his Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 L glass, so it'll be nice to shoot with a good fast zoom. I've made sure this time to charge and take plenty of batteries... which past experience has taught me is a good thing. Flash guns use bucket loads of juice!!!
So until next time, Adios Muchachos :)
Sean.
