I visited the Naze yesterday to begin to shoot images for assignment three. I’d planned to go again today but realised a) I hadn’t finished writing my research posts and b) I hadn’t had chance to properly review my images and therefore was in danger of simply repeating my mistakes from yesterday.
The day began cold and windy with some rain and then by midday had brightened up with intermittent bright sunshine. It also meant that there were hoards of people on the beach by early afternoon as the tide began going out. Many of them were fossil hunting.
My first consideration is my technical errors. In the morning, I slightly underexposed a lot of my images and by the afternoon, I was battling with the strong sunshine that was coming in and out of the clouds. Before my next trip, I need to find my light meter, I always shoot in manual but I’m being sloppy but relying on the camera for my settings. (I need to find out where the histogram is, and I have a loupe thingy somewhere). Also perhaps plan some specific images in relation to the position of the sun which rises directly out to sea on to the cliffs and disappears behind by the end of the day. In the Winter, when I first went down there, the early morning light was beautiful to illuminate the cliffs but at this time of year, actually it’s a bit strong and creates harsh shadows.
I managed however to get some decent shots of the cliffs.
What the images represent are the layers of time and the shifting of the landscape through various climatic events. My first thought for this assignment, was to pair geo-aesthetic images with images of the fossils found on Naze beach. However, I have also been observing the people who visit the beach. Whilst there’s the regular dog walkers, most people are looking for fossils. I took the image below having looked round whilst trying to photograph the second world war lookout post on the beach. I’m not sure how technically good it is but I like the fact that if you zoom in there is so much activity going on.
It looks as though I’ve over processed it but actually all I’ve done is lightened it a bit. I liked the fact that the people look small against the Landscape but really it needs to be viewed in large scale to see the various activities going on.
Another image I got including people was this:
I also came across a pile of litter which I may go back and photograph. Can you see the bottle in the grass?
My concern at this stage is whether I’m trying to cover too much ground. Hoping to go back tomorrow after spending the evening reading technical stuff.
UPDATE: I’ve accidentally switched my camera settings from RAW to JPEG halfway through the day. It’s happened before and after googling, now I know why. I thought there was something odd about the later images. Oh well, live and learn 🙂
Landscape, Place and Environment 