Great Saxham Landscape Photos.

Last weekend my parents were away and we went to look after their house. It gave me a great opportunity to get out and shoot some landscapes for the first time in ages. It was a beautiful afternoon but bitterly cold.

I set off across the muddy fields, walked round the end of a wood and came across a dip in the fields. The sun was setting behind a line of trees on the far side of this mini valley and it looked fantastic. I was in the middle of nowhere, it was peaceful and beautiful. A landscape photographer's dream!

 

Once the sun had set I walked back across the fields, boots covered in mud and fingers so cold that they couldn't grip my tripod to carry it home.

But the cold didn't worry me. After all, I'd seen a beautiful sunset and taken some (I hoped) nice photos. 

More than anything I was just really pleased to have been out shooting landscapes again. 

 

Crawley Edge Boatshed

During the City to Surf Marathon on Sunday in Perth we passed this lovely old boat shed. I decided, rather ambitiously, to head back there the next morning to take some photos as the morning light looked lovely at 6.30am as we ran past.

So I creaked out of bed at 6am and then hobbled for an hour before I reached the boat shed. I hadn't realised it was going to be quite so far and I missed the sunrise. Anyway I set up my tripod on the rocks and soon realised that a) the shot didn't work there and b) I was in danger of falling and breaking an ankle I was so unsteady on my feet after the previous day's 42km.

So I shifted to the end of the walkway and tried a few high and low angles. The wind was blowing a lot and it was pretty chilly sitting there timing the long exposures on my iPhone. I was using a Lee Big Stopper filter to try and ensure the sea was as smooth as possible despite the wind. This filter pushed the exposures out to between 40 to 120 seconds, which did the trick.

Anyway, here are my best two shots with shooting info. I especially like the cloud movement in the B&W shot. 

48 seconds at f22 ISO100    16-35mm lens at 16mm     Nikon D800     Lee Filters Big Stopper filter

120 seconds at f22 ISO50    16-35mm lens at 16mm     Nikon D800       Lee Filters Big Stopper filter

I still need to master the Lee Filter system as I seem to get a magenta haze across parts of the image on some exposures. I also really struggled to use the Big Stopper with the graduated filter. If I had managed to use the graduated filter I would have got a lot more detail in the sky which would have been nice. Always more to learn....

Anyway, it was great to get out there and take some post-marathon shots.