Is this bee expressing its views on the macro paparazzi, or just proud of its tongue? Taken this summer at the Seigneurie Gardens on Sark, in the Channel Islands.
Expressive bee
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Tag Archives: photography
Keeping it simple
Golden light at La Corbiere, Jersey.
Most photographers I know are always developing their art, changing and adapting to new subjects and new moods. They also tend to change in the way they see images, and this feeds into new images they make. When aesthetic changes are experienced by a large enough number of image-makers, they become fashion. Thus, a couple of years ago, in landscape work, so-called High Dynamic Range, or HDR, images were all the rage. Done subtly, HDR simply means properly exposing an image so you have detail in the shadows and the highlights, something that with few exceptions has always been a minimum standard for landscape work. The trouble with the HDR fashion as it emerged towards the end of the last decade was that the effect was exaggerated until the image came to look surreal. For me, many HDR images started to be about displaying the technique rather than the landscape as it was revealed by the light prevailing when the image was taken. Yet it is easy to see how this happened.
Blue hour, La Corbiere
The power of photoshop, and HDR plug-ins like Photomatix, is seductive. It is so easy to keep on editing, always seeking more impact, way beyond the point when perhaps, in the cold light of the next day, one should have stopped. I have done this myself, egged on by sites like Flickr and 500px where the ‘success’ of an image depends on its being immediately striking rather than any lasting appeal. Of late, however, I find myself seeking a more subdued aesthetic, one that I hope is truer to the moment as I experienced it when I took the image in the first place. These images of my lighthouse muse, La Corbière, are the case in point; simple, minimally-edited captures of brief moments when the light seemed to connect with the landscape in a way that pleased my eye. They are not clever and they will not win any awards but I begin to find myself more satisfied with this sort of image than any other.
Of course, as with any fashion, there eventually has to be a backlash, and the HDR pendulum seems to be swinging back the other way. So, perhaps in my love of the understated I am just another victim of fashion’s vagaries… Has your approach to image-making, or image-appreciation, changed recently? I would love to hear your thoughts.
Broken Light
I hope you will forgive me for reposting this image, which I first blogged last year. At that time, The Broken Light Collective asked me if I would allow them to use the image. Shame on me I have only just this week got around to sending it! The Collective is a group of photographers living with, or affected by, mental illness. I am honoured that Into the Mist is currently their featured image and I cannot think of a better use for it than as inspiration for anyone who might be struggling with illness.
Fort Grey
Fort Grey, in Roquaine Bay on Guernsey’s West coast, is one of the Channel Islands’ many ‘Martello’ towers.
It was built in 1804, during the Napoleonic Wars, for defence against the French.
During WW2, the occupying German forces used it as an anti-aircraft battery. The tower was restored in the 1970s and opened as a shipwreck museum in 1976.
Looking North towards WW2 tower
The area has seen plenty of shipwrecks over the centuries, as it is fringed with extensive reefs.
Looking North from Fort Grey
A canon on the roof of the fort points towards the Hanois reef, nemesis for many a vessel. According to the Guernsey Museums website, between 1734 and 1978 over 100 ships were wrecked in the Hanois area. The earliest known wreck dates back to 1309.
Looking West towards Hanois lighthouse
The museum, well worth a visit, displays relics, paintings and photographs of many of the local wrecks, together with their often tragic stories.
Encore La Corbière
I couldn’t very well spend another week on Jersey without visiting my favourite landscape photography location, yet again. And again. And again. Here is one of the images I made. A blend of three bracketed exposures.
Helicopter views
Our aircraft arrives
Last year I bought my husband a helicopter flight with The London Helicopter. We finally got around to booking it earlier this summer.
Westminster
I love helicopter flights. I love the change of point of view and the crazy angles you don’t get from an aircraft.
The City
Photography is challenging. Windows are not where you want them and never clean enough; viewpoints disappear before you have time to frame them; and then there’s those pesky reflections.
Battersea
It doesn’t stop me trying though.
Millenium Dome
We were blessed with a clear afternoon, luckily. It was so much fun seeing parts of London we know well from a whole new perspective.
Docklands
This was not my first helicopter sightseeing experience. We have taken a ‘copter over the Grand Canyon.
Can you see the other ‘copter below?
We have also enjoyed a flight over Kauai’s spectacular Na Pali coast.
A scene out of Jurassic Park
And, perhaps most spectacular of all, a flight over Volcanoes National Park on Hawaii’s Big Island.
Lava meets the Pacific
I kept the crazy angle in the next shot, to show that it was taken from a helicopter.
Lava + ocean = steam, and lots of it.
I was much happier seeing this from a helicopter than on foot!
Lava travelling underground vents through ‘skylights’ in the crust.
I would love to do a ‘doors-off’ flight next. I think I am hooked.
Infernal Eye
First contact
Borg Queen: Brave words. I’ve heard them before, from thousands of species across thousands of worlds, since long before you were created. But, now they are all Borg.
Lieutenant Commander Data: I am unlike any lifeform you have encountered before. The codes stored in my neural net cannot be forcibly removed.
–Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
Sunset at Grosnez
Sun sets behind the evocative ruins of Grosnez Castle on the Northwestern tip of Jersey, one of the British Channel Islands.
Ladybirds with attitude
Which way?
The bad tempered ladybird
This season, stylish ladybirds wear spots to match their flower.
And for my next trick…
I just want to be left alone
Sanity will return tomorrow. I promise.
La Coupée
Our trip to the Channel Islands this summer included a stay on Sark.
Under the effects of wind and water, Sark is becoming two islands, Great and Little Sark. They are joined by a narrow isthmus called La Coupée.
It’s a spectacular spot, the cliffs shearing off steeply from both sides of the narrow path. My photos don’t really do it justice.
La Coupée used to be so dangerous that people would crawl over it on their hands and knees. During the nineteenth century, the path eroded until it was only three feet wide. The present road dates from 1945 and was constructed by German prisoners of war. It can still be an eventful crossing even today; on busy days tourists pushing bikes, the principal means of transport on this car-free island, mingle with carts pulled by horses. The latter have right of way, but there’s not a lot of room when they pass! Sadly, I didn’t get a shot of a cart on La Coupée; I always seemed to be there at the wrong time.
I did, however, manage to take some photos of La Coupée at dusk. As the light dims, and the people leave, it becomes a spooky place and, not surprisingly, has had a reputation for being haunted. One story tells of a black dog, called the Tchico, who roams the cliffs around La Coupée at night. I didn’t see Tchico, which is probably just as well.
More about Sark next week.
Focused Moments 