Holiday Snap

Fishing boats in Whitby Harbour, Yorkshire, England. Such a simple shot, but one so easy to mess up for so many reasons. Note, the vertical pole is parallel to the side of the frame—this is not adjusted, I managed to get the camera actually level for once! There are no passers-by wandering in front of the lens, there’s no ubiquitous garbage can, no bird dipping suddenly into the shot, no sun glaring off a window somewhere. It all came together, probably by accident, but I remember taking my time, being patient, and waiting for the elements to gel. It’s a bit deceptive too, the river is so calm, generating those nice ripply reflections, and the blue sky looks warm, but this was the November of 2007 (during my second UK trip, when I did some field research at a cemetery in Leicester toward my PhD) and the Christmas decorations were already up. Out beyond the breakwaters there was surf running—I got pictures from the west cliff of white waves coming in, the same afternoon. Nearly twenty years ago—but like yesterday in my memories. Minor adjustments to colour, contrast and sharpness in Irfanview; Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

Horizontal Composition

Seeing what’s there and taking advantage of it is an element of photography that comes quite automatically. Suiting composition to the things one encounters is part of the art, and I found from the outset that using an automatic camera liberated me from the mechanics of photography itself and allowed me to concentrate on composition as never before. This is the river frontage at Goolwa, South Australia, looking west to the Hindmarsh Island bridge, captured on October 21^st, 2019. The weather was obviously very fare, that cloudless sky really contrasting with the spectacular, broody Southern Ocean skies one often finds down there on the coast. The framing was simple and the lines of the bridge, the water horizon and the structures in the foreground made a series of more or less parallel horizontal lines that demanded a wide composition. Emphasising the width of the material is as simple as cropping top and bottom, and I’ve included the second version. It’s your choice which you prefer! Minor adjustments to contrast, colour and sharpness in Irfanview; Fuji FinePix S5600. Image by Mike.

Bridge on the Esk

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This is an intensively reworked shot. The original was taken, with plenty of telephoto dialed up, in November, 2006, through a train window (note the marks), looking under the road bridge just inland of Whitby, alongside the River Esk in North Yorkshire. This perspective, framing the historic buildings on the East Cliff, is hard to obtain from anywhere else but the moving train. The image was squared up using fine rotation, then extraneous top and bottom areas were cropped. The softening effect of the window (due to shooting obliquely through it, rather than square-on) was ameliorated by sharpening around 15%, then the contrast and colour were adjusted. The final result is not up to the standard of shooting without that dirty window in front of the lens, but the unusual composition goes a long way to forgiving the shortcomings. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Big Bridge, Small Boat

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This is the lift bridge over the river at Port Adelaide, photographed in summer, 2008. It's almost visually humorous to see a gigantic bridge opened fully to allow through a tiny sailboat on account of the mast being a fraction too tall to pass under the closed bridge! It also nicely contrasts the weight of the industrial construction of the bridge against the relative delicacy of the boat: one built to work solidly through the generations, the other built for speed in a mobile element. The picture was taken from the Hart's Mill Waterfront area, at medium-high telephoto, and was simply a matter of composition, the bright day providing ideal conditions. Sharpened only. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Image by Mike.

Turner or Constable?

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Sometimes the light does strange things: it can ruin your shot or make it. This was the latter, the fine, soft light of evening with the sun low enough to throw much of the harbour into shadow, and flooding the image with short wavelengths. This is Whitby Harbour, photographed from the end of the west quay, about the base of the breakwater, on a cold and windy evening in mid-November 2006. The scene just begged to be photographed but it was not until I saw the image on a screen weeks later that the patterning of the clouds and water brought home the feeling of a seascape by Turner or a landscape by Constable. I've always said there's something unique and beautiful about the quality of the very light in England, perhaps the latitude has a lot to do with it, but here it shows how special it can make an everyday scene. Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Photo by Mike.

Grace, in Greened Bronze

A million photographers must have recorded this statue since it was unveiled in 1973. It's a fountain on the banks of the Thames, maybe fifty metres east of the north end of Tower Bridge. It's at least double-lifesize, maybe more, a near-realistic portrayal of a sea nymph in weightless play with a dolphin, a beautiful piece reflecting England's historic affinity with the sea. The lighting conditions were very difficult, as the early December sun was sinking fast behind the high-rises of London on that Sunday afternoon in 2007. I could play the sun for all it was worth and go for lens-flare, or de-emphasise the sun and try for some sort of dramatic backlighting. I shot many frames all around this fountain but somehow the severe silhouetting of both the statue and Tower Bridge itself has always struck me as the most dramatic. I hesitate to gamma-correct the image or enhance it any further: this is one of those cases when it really did look just like that on the day! Fuji FinePix S5600, automatic. Photo by Mike, 2007.

Evening on the Thames

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The famous Tower Bridge in London, taken from a vantage on the riverside outside the Tower of London, close by the Watergate. November 2007, late afternoon, with a lowering sun; part of an extensive shoot along the Tower waterfront. 5mp resolution, using Fuji FinePix S5600 on full automatic function. The camera's range of response is amazing, especially for older-generation technology. Photo by Mike.