Dunstanburgh Castle, Alnwick

"When bales bail" - King Sutton, Oxfordshire.

 Photographers out there who are dedicated to capturing great landscape photographs will know that driving around aimlessly, hoping to find a nice location before the sun goes down won't work. You must have found your location, composition and the angle of the sun on your subject before setting out on a shoot. You can't just drive around and hope to stumble on the perfect scene. I have done my fair share of this, before realising it is very stressful and un-rewarding. However, saying this, I found myself in this situation yesterday.

The previous afternoon I had attempted to take a shot of King Sutton, Oxfordshire from the top of a hill (standing on top of a hay bale - see photo).

Taken with Camera Phone

That afternoon I waited, like a true landscape photographer, for the sun to break through the clouds, bathing the scene in front of me with the warm, golden, late afternoon light. Of course I was also willing on the clouds to part and the sun to beam across the landscape. This didn't happen.

The sun never reached the foreground bales so the shot was a write-off instantly. I waited until after sunset, when the blue light of twilight contrasted with the artificial light of King Sutton church and this is the scene that presented itself.

Shutter-speed: 30secs
Aperture: f13
Iso: 200
0.6 graduated filter

I was fairly happy but I wanted the golden sunlight to side-light the trees and bales. I asked the farmer of the field how long the bales would be there for. He replied "oh....they'll be there for a while yet". The next day I went back only to find they had been removed and my chance had gone. Great. I had abandoned my chances for a steak in the pub for this and now I will go completely steak-less AND not get the shot. The light was becoming better and better as the sun neared the horizon. I had no location to shoot.

I then drove around King Sutton attempting to stumble across the perfect scene, preferably containing bales. I drove into this field on the other side of King Sutton and asked the farmer who was baling round bales if I could take some photographs on his field.

After shutting his door to the tractor I literally ran around the field trying to find a composition that would work before the sun merged into the grey skies on the western horizon. I found this track, made from a tractor, which acted as a great lead-in-line to the photograph.

As I say on my landscape workshops, "Remove the clutter, anything un-deserving in the picture, and "keep it simple, stupid". Leonardo Da Vinci coined the phrase "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication" but I like the other one better!

Shutter-speed: 2secs

Aperture: f11

Iso: 50

0.9 graduated filter + Polariser.
Shot with red filter to convert blue sky into black when converted into black & white.

Simple lines, dramatic sky. Job done...just.

John

Nurbergring, Germany

Every year My dad, my brother and I go to the Nurburgring, Germany.

It is a public racetrack where you pitch up, pay 24 Euros and drive as fast as you can around 137 corners.

I thought I would post on my blog as it is vaguely photography related.

(Click on photograph for larger version)

My brother watches a sequence of BMW M5s being tested on the track before the track opened.

(Click on photograph for larger version)

Panning gives a great impression of speed. I used a shutter-speed of 1/40 of a second and followed the car as it screeched around the alpine roads surrounding the race track.

(Click on photograph for larger version)

(Click on photograph for larger version)

The trick to panning is to use a slow shutter-speed and follow your subject throughout the exposure. In this instance, I used a 1/40 second

Houses of Parliament - London

Houses of Parliament - London

(Click on photograph for larger version)

I waited for the sun to dip below the horizon when the natural blue twilight complements perfectly the artificial light of The Houses of Parliament. There is about a 5 minute window when the light is at its best. If you are too late, the sky renders completely black and the photograph loses its impact and colour; too early and the blue will not be vivid enough.

You are probably thinking... 5 minutes? That is loads of time to take a photograph. 'Its a very piece of cake', as my French skiing instructor used to say.

However, with the hustle and bustle of London and a popular spot with photographers, couples, and the Spanish out in force, there was a very small window when there was nothing obstructing my view. In fact, even in this photograph people were walking past my camera. Why can't you see them? As long as they keep moving they have been registered as non-existent. Unfortunately it seems to be impossible to make someone disappear in real life in 30 seconds unless you are Houdini.