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Dunes Landscapes

Past the Post – Ainsdale

One of the few features among the marram grass on Ainsdale dunes is the fencing. This selective focus shot puts the fence post in the frame.

 

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Categories
Landscapes

Another Place Sunset

Another Sunset - Diptych

On my first visit to Crosby beach, last month I struck lucky with a wonderful sunset. The tide was out, which meant that I had wet sand for the foreground rather than water, but the results were pleasing nonetheless. I’ve put a couple of images together so that the scale of the installation can be seen better.

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Southport Pier

High Tide, Southport Pier

High Tide, Southport PierIt’s not often that the tide comes right in on Southport Beach. It’s less often that high tide is really high. Once in a while it is possible to see the pier completely over water from the breakwater outwards. Yesterday was on such day. The light wasn’t great, but it was better than we’ve had for some time. Of course, high tide’s not of itself a pretty scene. The water is so shallow that the waves are small and choppy and the sand is stirred up along with the waves. The best solution is to take a long exposure of many seconds to smooth out the sea. This shot is a 50 second exposure which gives the sea a smooth texture, with whorls and patterns caused by the movement of the waves and tide.

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Southport

Ramada Sunset

Evening LightDriving home along the coast road a little bit earlier than usual, just as dusk was settling I stopped off in the car park on the coast side of the Marine Lake. The sun was setting behind the Marine Way Bridge providing a warm tone to the bridge and the Ramada hotel. The other end of the lake was a colder bluer tone. I love the split of colour in this shot. There was no heroic sunset, just the gentle softening and warming of the light as the sun dropped below the horizon.

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Dunes

Minimal Marram

Minimal Marram Sometimes a particular view or style can become an obsession. Perhaps it’s a range of tones, or maybe it’s a minimal point of view, or a particular point of view, or possibly it’s a combination of many things, perhaps not even consciously understood that all come together to produce the one thing that photographers want – a distinctive – something that is recognisably you.

For me the focus on marram, sea and sky has been impressed on me by the nature of the Sefton English coastline. The entire stretch of coast from Liverpool to Preston is straight, flat and featureless. In order to make an interesting shot certain attitudes have developed: a relentless compositional minimalism, removing even more features in order to produce a clean aesthetic; this minimalism extends to reducing the palette to simple blues and greens with a hint of muted yellows in the sand; a low point of view is probably a result of the compositional needs, but in itself produces a distinct viewpoint on the marram and sky of the Southport coast.

The result is simple, clean images with a muted palette of tones. These aren’t dynamic images in the sense that they produce an immediate ‘wow’, but they are the kind of restful, easy on the eye, hang on your wall and enjoy for years to come type of images, timeless in a sense – timeless in the way that the marramscapes of grass, sand, sea and sky will always be.

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Dunes

Before the Rain

Before the Rain

Driving along the coast road in the beautiful autumn sunshine I got to Ainsdale beach with time for a 15 minute break before moving on to meet a client. I parked up just as the clouds covered the sun. As I wandered and hunted out a good viewpoint the sky darkened, then came the drops, then the camera went back in the bag to keep it dry, and then I went back in the car to keep dry. Of course, as soon as I had to move on to make my appointment the sun came out again!

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Landscapes

At the Water’s Edge

At the EdgeThe Sefton coast is a vast space, and once the autumn chill sets in the beach is largely deserted. On an overcast but warm autumn day you will see the occasional visitor loitering along the water’s edge. The tide comes in so gently on this gently sloping beach that it’s a rather tranquil experience standing and watching the water lap gently closer and closer to the tide line.

With the flat light on the surface of the water the sky and sea blend almost seamlessly into one vast bright plane of soft colour and light. The couple standing at the water bring a sense of scale and perspective to the image.

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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.

Categories
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…