Heimat is the German word for homeland or home-region and we spent Christmas with my parents in Somerset after picking the kids up
en route. Although I've chosen to live in Bavaria and have lived here longer than I ever did in the UK (approx. 30:20 years), I still feel a deep connection to rural Britain. There's something in the rocks and countriside that just resonates with my soul and I find it relatively easy to find images when I'm walking around. I've discovered over the last few years that particularly the semi-managed wooded gardens of National Trust properties can provide some great pictures, depending on the season.
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| Surf at Sunset, Lyme Regis // f22, 1/2 s, ISO 64 |
Photographing on the coast is also very therapeutic, it's like watching a fire - you never have the same scene twice when you're shooting the sea. Whether you're looking at the tidal state, the clouds or the waves, every few seconds the composition changes. Again, Olympus IBIS for the win, I could easily shoot 1 s exposures free standing and didn't need to resort to a cumbersome tripod. It's so much fun. Throw a low-speed continuous capture mode into the ring and we're dancing!
The Saturday before Christmas took us to Tarr Steps on Exmoor. There are some great images to be had here and being able to take slower exposures without the tripod was as good as a home run, except I didn't come away with an image that I was 100% happy with. Once again I made the mistake of checking the kids' Instagram feeds after we got home only to see that they'd got better compositions than I had. There's a gimme shot of the slab bridge leading up to Tarr Steps Farm (WELL worth checking out for food and drink!) but I screwed it up by taking it straight on.
In the end I opted for one black and white and one partially desaturated image of the steps:
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| Mixed Textures at Tarr Steps // f11, 1/2 s, ISO 200 |
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| Tarr Steps // f16, 1/2 s, ISO 200 |
The second image was my favourite from the set, but I should have had a lower perspective to let the bridge head into infintiy. I was particularly happy with the ON1 monochrome conversion of the first picture though. Previously I've found the ON1 black and whites too muddy, but there's a contrast and coarseness here that really fits the complex textures.
Here's my son's take on the bridge and pub. I've got a similar one, but the bridge is straight on. Joshua's diagnonal makes it a much more interesting image. I was too focussed on the length of exposure, correct framing and cropping out the construction crane on top of the pub.
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Lyme Regis is our default beach when we're back in the UK. It's probably the closest bit of coast to my parents in central Somerset, it's picturesque, has a thriving art scene, a fantastic second-hand book shop that'd justify its own post and the best clotted cream teas. Given a high-ish tide and any moderate sea state and you get some great wave action on The Cobb, Lyme's tiny protected harbour.
It had just finished raining as we arrived and it showed up beautifully against the dark clouds as we walked along the pastel beach huts - just visible on the left here.
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| Rainbow over Lyme Regis // f8, 1/200 s, ISO 640 |
The sea defences are regularly closed if the waves get too strong as they can be extremely dangerous.
These photos were taken just below the castle. The low sunlight and grey clouds gave these next two images almost a monochrome flavour without any tinkering.
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| f22, 1/2 s, ISO 100 |
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| f22, 1/2 s, ISO 80 |
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By this time, the sky was developing a bit of colour and the spume was beginning to break over The Cobb so we headed back to see what we could catch. It's thrilling to see the waves crashing over the sea defences. Swapping the exposure from 1/2 s for the surf to 1/250 s to freeze the wave action was the right call and I was able to catch a series of waves crashing into The Cobb. The best of the series was this shot where the wave bouncing off The Cobb back into an incoming wave.
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| Backwash at The Cobb // f4.5, 1/250 s, ISO 200 |
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We also managed to catch the last rays of the sun for the day, shining through the clouds as they departed. The golden light is real. I caught a couple with the spray shooting up the rocks, but this was my favourite with the gull just crossing the light.
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| Sunset on The Cobb // f8, 1/250 s, ISO 200 |
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