Chalk and sea

Posted on December 20, 2015 by Rachael

One of the clients on my most recent workshop pointed out to me that it has been a long time since the last post on this blog! Shame on me! So here’s a little summary of what I have been up to in the last few weeks, and some of my latest images.

Priory Bay, Isle of Wight

In my last post, I shared some pictures from Birling Gap, and I have been back there, as well as other locations nearby, a few times since. My eye seems to be particularly drawn to chalk cliffs at the moment. Having been brought up on the south coast, they are very much the landscape of my youth and I now enjoy rediscovering them with my camera.

Seven sisters at dusk

While beguilingly beautiful, the South coast can also be dangerous, as I was reminded on one of my recent trips to Birling Gap. I was, fortunately, standing out on the sand at low tide, when a huge chunk of the cliff came crashing down. No-one was hurt although there was a group of very shocked foreign students on the beach at the time. It was a sobering sight and, from now on, I will be more careful about heeding warnings not to stray too close to the cliffs.

Seven Sisters

Last week, I spent a few days in another chalky place, the Isle of Wight. Although the weather was trying, to say the least, there were some moments of good light and, let’s face it, it’s hard not to get a picture when at the coast. It will take me a while to get through all the images I took, but here are a few ‘tasters’.

Pink glow at Freshwater Bay, Isle of Wight

In other news, I was delighted to find out that one of my pictures has been selected for inclusion in the Outdoor Photographer of the Year book. It is a year since I first submitted work to Outdoor Photography Magazine, easily my favourite photography publication. Since then, the magazine has published several of my images and commissioned a short article. I have been bowled over by the enthusiasm and support I have received from them.

Fistral beach – selected for Outdoor Photographer of the Year book

Regular readers will already be familiar with the work of my friend Jenifer Bunnett, who continues to be a great pal and enthusiastic companion on our photographic expeditions. If you haven’t seen her work before, you can access her website by clicking on her name above. I have also recently enjoyed outings with two other photographers, Sarah Medway and Lorraine Heaysmon, both committed landscape shooters with impressive portfolios. Photography can be a solitary activity and, while I really enjoy that solitude, it is also nice sometimes to share the adventure.

A capture of Jen capturing a seascape on the Isle of Wight

My spare time (what spare time?) continues to be filled with judging at Surrey camera clubs and giving talks. I recently presented a new talk, ‘From Canal to Coast’ to Guildford Photographic Society which was well-received. As a judge I am obliged also to compete in camera club competitions, which is fair enough when you think about it. So, last month, I was pleased to win the Best Image trophy at Surrey Photographic Association’s 2015 Open Print competition. I have shared the picture here before but I think a second airing is justified.

seascape

Of course, this is also the main season for f11 Workshops and we have had some great days out with our clients. Our last workshop of the year was in West Sussex and, although the weather seemed determined to be gloomy, our persistence was eventually rewarded with some really special light. My business partner, Tony Antoniou, and I will not make our own images when leading workshops, so I have no picture to share, but I have seen a few of our clients’ shots and am glad to say they did it justice.

The location of our workshop, but taken on another occasion.

Finally, Jen and I have had a couple of productive meetings about our pro bono project with the Basingstoke Canal and there will hopefully be some big developments on that front in the near future.

Phew! What a busy few weeks it has been! What has been your best photographic adventure so far this winter? Feel free to share in the comments below. 🙂

Birling Gap

Posted on November 5, 2015 by Rachael

I have spent the last two Tuesdays at Birling Gap in the South Downs National Park.

Although I love discovering new locations, there is also a joy in revisiting known places.The light is always different, the seasons and weather change and, at the coast there is always the added variable of tides. The first Tuesday, a low tide revealed sand that reflected the cliffs and interesting sky:On my return this week, the tide was shallow, never uncovering the sand. This created a very different mood:
I grew up in this part of the country so photography trips to the South Downs National Park always feel like a coming home.
The chalk-based landscape is really quite special and, at Birling Gap, I love the way grey rocks sit on the chalky base below the white cliffs…
…and the chalk makes the sea bright against a stormy sky. I am heading down to Sussex again tomorrow. As always, I hope for interesting light. But I know that I will enjoy this beautiful place no matter what the weather brings.

Ephemeral beauty

Posted on July 3, 2015 by Rachael

For the last three years, June/July has seen me out searching for that ephemeral wonder, the wild poppy field. This year, together with my photo-buddy Jenifer Bunnett, I went out looking for poppies on four separate occasions. Out first safari was disappointing; we found poppies galore but couldn’t get close to them thanks to some determined fencing. The second was much more successful, thanks to a generous tip from another photographer, Malcolm Oakley, on Twitter.Much hiking and a pair of binoculars were needed but we found them, in three patches, against the flank of Black Patch Hill near Storrington in the South Downs National Park. We were able to return a few days later for some gentler evening light.Poppy season is now mostly over down here in the South. Poppies do not reliably flower in the same place year after year. Their seeds need rough handling to germinate but then the ground must be left fallow to allow them to bloom, although they do well at the edges of rape fields where the rape seed has not taken hold (or it has been eaten by birds). But not knowing where they’ll be next year is all part of the adventure, and their ephemerality only adds to their allure.If you fancy joining the poppy hunt next year, there is now a group on Facebook dedicated to sharing locations for poppies and other seasonal wildflower displays: Poppy and Flower Site Finder 2015.

A rare picture of me in action, thanks to Jen.

Fields of scarlet

Posted on July 5, 2014 by Rachael

A week ago, I heard via my shooting buddy, Jen that there was a field of wild poppies on the South Downs, about an hour and a half away from here. The trip was more than rewarded. Perched high up on the South Downs overlooking the Solent, the poppies basked in the evening sun. We stood in that field for more than three hours and it felt like minutes.

We have a few varieties of field poppies in this country. Poppy fields that spring up on fallow ground tend mostly to comprise the common poppy, papaver rheas. The prickly poppy, papaver argemone, has smaller flowers and prefers lighter, sandy soils. The rough poppy, papaver hybridum, is rarer, but its habitat is the chalky soils of the South Downs. I must confess that I didn’t inspect the individual flowers very closely but looking at my pictures, the poppies we stood among were mostly common poppies.

An individual poppy flower lasts only one day but a single plant can produce as many as 400 flowers. That’s a lot of poppies. I would guess ‘our’ field was only about half way through its flowering life – there were plenty of seed heads but also plenty of buds yet to open.

Another name for the common poppy is the corn rose. Ceres, the Roman goddess of corn was depicted wearing a wreath of common poppies. Poppies used to be a common sight in cornfields but selective herbicides and other modern farming practices have made this rarer. They do still pop up on land left fallow, but not in the same place two years running, which keeps landscape photographers on their toes!

Of course, this year the poppy is very topical, with the WW1 centenary. These tough little plants, whose seeds needs rough handling to germinate, became the emblem of remembrance because they grew in such abundance on the disturbed soil of the battlefields. I must confess, however, that standing surrounded by the flowers as they nodded gently in the evening breeze, war and death couldn’t have been further from my mind.

Mad Patsy said, he said to me,
That every morning he could see
An angel walking on the sky;
Across the sunny skies of morn
He threw great handfuls far and nigh
Of poppy seed among the corn;
And then, he said, the angels run
To see the poppies in the sun.

A poppy is a devil weed,
I said to him – he disagreed;
He said the devil had no hand
In spreading flowers tall and fair
Through corn and rye and meadow land,
by garth and barrow everywhere:
The devil has not any flower,
But only money in his power.

And then he stretched out in the sun
And rolled upon his back for fun:
He kicked his legs and roared for joy
Because the sun was shining down:
He said he was a little boy
And would not work for any clown:
He ran and laughed behind a bee,
And danced for very ecstasy.

– James Stephens In the poppy field

Eastbourne sunset

Posted on April 17, 2014 by Rachael

I recently enjoyed a day out capturing images in the South Downs National Park, with my friend, Asmita Kapadia. Asmita runs photography workshops in the area and showed me some marvellous locations. More information about her tours can be found on her website. She also has a page on Facebook

Focused Moments

A professional photographer's life

Tag Archives: South Downs