The Cobb - Lyme Regis

There was an almost deafening whistling sound as the south-westerly wind howled through the masts of the moored boats to my right. The waves crashed with a loud bass note as they made contact with the old harbour wall, followed by the glistening sound of the sea spray as it attempted to demolish any camera equipment that got in its way.













After a few long exposures looking east towards the Dorset border, I gave up hope of there being any other colour than the cool blue light of dusk, as the sun began to dip below the horizon. I turned around and decided to take a shot of The Cobb towards the un-impressive sunset in the distance. In a matter of seconds the sky turned from cool blue to a fire- like red and illuminated the entire landscape like a red flare on the battlefield. The walkers around me just stopped and stared in awe at what they were seeing, so blown away in fact they decided to gaze gormlessly up at the sky directly in front of my camera. I did not intend to miss this moment as I probably would have given up photography then and there and I guided the gormless old couple behind my camera and began taking the shot.










I had to change lenses and filters twice as the sea spray covered my first lens, I wasn't going to miss this shot!
After taking the shot, the preview screen from my camera illuminated the people's faces who huddled behind my tripod and all we could say was....Wow!

P.S There has been no computer manipulation in this shot.... I promise!

Autumn Colours in Dartmoor

River Dart - Dartmoor National Park

John Alexander Photography 2011 Calendars

John Alexander Photography 2011 Calendars

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WILD PONIES OF DARTMOOR

There are wild ponies in Dartmoor, however this was not one of them.

I commando crawled up to this pony as if stalking a deer, but instead of the crosshairs fixed onto its heart, my focus-point was tracked in between its eyes like a hunter poised for the perfect time to attack. However, unlike a hunter I looked for the striking shadows and best directional light to show off the subject. On this occasion the hunter became the hunted.

He ate his way closer and closer until my vision became dominated by a set of nasal passages. In my attempt to be get the shot I kept my finger on the shutter. Unknown to me this particular vegetarian also dabbles as a carnivore, I know this because he sunk his teeth into the back of my arm. It hurt like hell, and I ran away before the rest of his mates chose the same lifestyle choice.
When I got into the safety of the car, against which the other ponies were rubbing their various body parts, I checked my camera and got the dramatic scene I had hoped for and only a complete set of dental impressions on the back of my arm for my troubles.

JOHN ALEXANDER WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY

FINISHED MY NEW WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY WEBSITE!

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A DAY IN THE SMOKE - LONDON PHOTOGRAPHY

"After hitting a small child and her mother with my tripod, I came to conclusion that London isn't made for a photographer".

The Tube/Underground/Subway

The empty train stopped at Oxford Circus. There, every working man and woman in London clambered onto the train shoving as many people as possible. Within the waves of pushes, I managed to turn around and inadvertently hit both the mother and her once beautiful daughter in the face with the head of my tripod. I felt terrible at first and apologised profusely, but was shortly comforted by the extended space I gained as fellow Tube go-ers backed away not wanting their eyes to be impaled by a Manfrotto Swivel Head Tripod.

After an uncomfortable few stops for both the inflicted and myself I headed towards Embankment to shoot The Houses of Parliament. You may think this as a straight forward shot, but the "Tripod Police" arrive as soon as your tripod is mounted up, telling you to kindly bugger off, as they claim it can be used as a weapon of some sort? In the past I have ridiculed them at such an idea but after today's Tube incident I thought it was fairly close to the mark.

So...I set-up under a bridge out of the way of the tripod police and positioned myself so the entrance of the tunnel would frame The Houses of Parliament in the background. After some waiting for a clean picture without a gormless tourist in the photograph, I decided to use them to my advantage. I waited until some cyclists came into my picture and used a 1/2 second shutter speed to give the photograph some movement.





St. Pauls and the Millennium bridge

It had rained all day. One speck of rain on the lens can ruin an entire photograph. I set up on the "beach" of the Thames and with a little help from my friend James Hodgson and a rusty, diseased ridden umbrella found in the "surf" we managed to get a rain-free image.






Two more images of the day

Game-shooting Photography, Pheasant-Shooting Photography, Rural Sport Photography by John Alexander Photography www.jeaphotography.co.uk

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John Alexander Rural Shoot photography is the fashion!

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3RD VIEW OF CORFE CASTLE

7:20am

Corfe Castle - Dorset - 7:05am

Portland - Dorset

Portland - Dorset

I am collecting a wide range of subjects for my calendar this year. I will be taking orders in late November but if you would like to purchase one Please contact me on info@johnalexander.me.uk and I will place you down for an order.

I decided to get some shots of Portland on Dorset's Jurassic coast. I arrived late, I had approximately 10 minutes until the sun dipped below the horizon. After paying the car park my entire life's savings, I ran to position myself in hoping to capture the last golden rays of the setting sun side-lighting the Portland Limetone of Pulpit Rock. As I caught sight of the English Channel, the wind immediately nearly knocked me off my feet, the sea spray aslo made it difficult as one speck of spray on the lens compromises the entire photograph (not forgetting the life of my camera)!

The hardest shots to get are always the best, I said this to myself, as I clambered down the cliff, tripod and camera over my shoulder. I needed to get as close to the action as possible to deliver the most impact in the image. I huddled behind a boulder attempting to shade myself from the howling wind and spray to get a clean, blur free image. Tripod, remote release, and camera in position. I took off the lens cap at the last moment. I managed to take this photograph and as soon as the 1/2 second exposure ended, a tsunami of all waves smashed the rocks in front of me and drenched my camera, filters, lenses, tripod and of least importantly, myself.

This part of taking photographs I really love. The excitement of climbing on slippery rocks, the gamble of having thousands of pounds worth of equipment on my shoulder and having the possibility of destroying it by just one wave makes it all the more exciting. There is a time for waiting for the light to come over the horizon on a misty morning, the spectacle provides you with that excitement, but then there is that other dimension of adrenaline that also makes my landscape photography really exciting to shoot.

I quickly took off my jacket, and rubbed my camera, filters and lenses with my jumper attempting to get as much of the salt and water off the camera. For the next few minutes the camera didn't turn on but eventually after drying it with every layer of clothing I had on my body it came back to life.

The night shot of Portland Bill lighthouse doesn't have such a dramatic story, but hopefully the images does! The shot is a 10 minutes exposure with still a little light in the sky. The foreground was pitch black, so I used my flash gun to illuminate the foreground during the exposure.

CORFE CASTLE - DORSET

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JOHN ALEXANDER LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY - Sully Sur Loire en France

In the last few months, or even the last year I have neglected my landscape photography. Most of my work now involves weddings and rural sports photography, portraiture with a few parties in the mix. I find this sad, and thought I would blog of why landscape photography is one of my favourite aspects of my business.

Yes, one contemplates suicide as the alarm sounds, which you have set on the highest volume so you definitely wake-up, even though you have woken up intermittently every hour worrying that you won't. With blurred eyes you see the clock reads 03:45. You are reminded that a 45 minute drive, half an hour walk in the dark, and an hour wait for that perfect light, which most likely will never appear, is on the cards and it's probably a lot easier to stay where you are. These negative thoughts always run through my mind as I read the minuscule numbers presented on my alarm clock.

I constantly have to force myself to think positive and in the words of Nike "just do it". To personalise it, I recommend adding a selection of strong adjectives within the phrase somewhere. Then, when your alarm sounds at 4am, shout it, while leaping up out of bed in an offensive manner. It really works (if your single that is), it also works if you want to become single!

Once some sort of un-nutritous item of consumption has been semi-digested, I get in the car drive towards my destination. In this case 'Sully sur Loire' en France.

I reached the exact position of where I thought the photograph should be taken from, which I had decided the previous afternoon. I varied it slightly as there was a little wind, blurring the reflection of the castle. I moved until the castle was reflected in the sheltered part of the river where the reflection was near perfect. A couple of otters swam past me as I was setting up my tripod, unfortunately it was still too dark to take any convincing photographs of them, I tried of course with my wide angle lens on manual focus but a blue blur with 2 blobs couldn't even pass as an abstract.

I waited for the first of the sun's rays to cast a subtle orange hue onto the east side of Sully Chateau, using the linear perspective of the trees running along the river to lead the viewer into the photograph. As the sun's rays began to get stronger and more contrasty, the clouds had moved and it had lost the atmosphere of earlier in the morning, after taking a few more compositions I packed up pour manger une baguette.