Tag: dune prints

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Dunes Landscapes Southport

Half Way Gone – Ainsdale Beach Sunset

Ainsdale Beach Sunset

Driving back from an appointment in Formby the sun was sinking fast as I approached the Pontins roundabout. After a long day I was keen to get home, and the light was weak, not stunning. I decided to give it a chance and headed for the Lido car park. The wind was blowing the sand off the top of the dunes, I had to walk backwards over the crest. The light was poor, there was no time to get the tripod, so I upped the ISO and took a few shots. A lot of the shots were too slow, and blurred, but I managed to grab a couple of nice images. This Ainsdale Beach sunset shot was just as the sun was half way gone. The colours can go a bit strange at this time of the day, but I like the results…

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Landscapes

A Soft and Gentle Sunset on the Southport Coast

Soft Light SunsetIn the hope of bagging a bright and colourful sunset full of spectacular reds and golds I tramped off along the big bank that runs from The Plough roudabout around the village of Banks and off towards Hesketh Bank. Running along the edge of this bank, in parts, is a low lying area that fills with water, mainly tidal as this area is all close to sea level. Although fairly small in terms of area, as a foreground element it works really well for my sort of minimal landscapes. I generally use a medium ND graduated filter to balance the sky, but in the case of this image I also took multiple exposures.

It’s an HDR, using 3 shots to slightly improve the dynamic range.  I’ve finally bitten the bullet and got CS6 to go with Lightroom, so I can merge to HDR in PS and then drop the 32 bit file back into LR for processing. Rather than ramp up the contrast on this image I’ve actually lowered the contrast significantly to try and produce a softer view of the sunset – this is probably more like what I actually saw than some of the other images that I will post later on… 😉

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Landscapes

Marshside Sunset, Southport

LightnessAlong the coast road that runs from the north of Southport right through to Ainsdale in the south and beyond runs a broad stretch of land that comprises marshland to the north, Marshside, and marram to the south towards Ainsdale. At the very top of this stretch of marshland lies a small pool of water alongside a fence. It’s quite bland in normal circumstances, but, with the right light reflecting off the water quite stunning results are possible.

This image was taken at sunset, through the fence, with the sunlight reflecting off the surface of the water. A long exposure was used to smooth the water.

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Landscapes

Through the Marram Grass, Ainsdale

Wide View of Ainsdale beach near Southport

The wide open spaces of the Southport to Ainsdale coast are wonderful for a brisk walk, or for horse riding, kite flying/racing and many other pursuits, but for the photographer it can present its own problems. How do you hide all the cars and vans parked along the beach? What do you use for foreground interest. How do you get close enough to the sea? Really, the tide goes out so far that it’s vital to know when the tide is in if you want water in shot!

One solution I have discovered is to use a slightly longer zoom and bring the grass to the sea…