Beacon, North Bull Wall…after a dark after fashion

A new photograph by way of a change, taken today.

This is the 10007th photo taking with this camera which I have about a year. This is actually quite low by my standards; prior to 2009, I’d normally make 15000-20000 photos a year; it’s the price of sport. I’m finding that quite hard work now, and having reviewed an awful lot of them lately…it’s really hard work.

Anyway, I was wondering what sort of a photograph I’d like to make this evening. The weather never really gave me the light I was hoping for although one of my mates reckoned the sky was a stunning colour this morning; truth is not where I was. The clouds didn’t clear enough for a sunset either so I went and played with the reflections off the cumulo-nimbus. I still can’t focus for a a lottery win in the dark, particularly when the camera is on a tripod 3 feet below my eye level. ;-( Anyway while I was wandering around town, it occurred to me the tides might be nice for a long exposure without filters – given the grey sky and the fact that it was late and I was stuck in traffic – if I had some sort of a focal point. I chose the green beacon on Bull Island because I know it and feel safer there than I would were I to give Poolbeg Lighthouse a similar shot.

Exposure was basically guess work – camera reckons I over exposed about 4 stops but I’m not sure what it was metering off because frankly….yes, I think I got it more right than the camera did. It was post processed in Adobe RAW – the blackslider took a hit and that was about it. I may have upped the exposure another stop. I like it a lot. I’d like to give it a shot with a really clear star light sky some evening also – not going to happen today because there were too many clouds.

A few minutes later I took this also:

Those towers are ubiquitous. I have a lot of photographs of them now, and a couple of striking ones. I may push them together into a little ickle gallery page later on this evening. I like this though because – surprising as it may seem, no filters went near this either. I own a pile of NDs, a blue and green and a tobacco grad and I use them variously to create space age images or to really mess around with photos for post processing. Normally I’d swear that there most have been at least a light ND on this but no, nothing. Didn’t even have to consider it. Put simply, it’s worth going out shooting in the dark sometimes. But man, focussing in the dark is a hassle.

Only one link today and if you are interested in photography and lighting, you really should take the time to click on it. Yesterday evening, Mark Wallace did a lighting web seminar for Pocket Wizard. I thought it would be all about pocket wizard but it wasn’t. It was all about all your options with lighting and dealt with on and off camera flash. As a round up of lighting techniques it is by some distance the most useful link I have come across on the web. It was flagged to me by Strobist who is without any question the best known off camera lighting expert on the web.

So here it is. Mark Wallace’s lighting seminar for Pocket Wizard.

EDIT after the fact:

In the comments, Tommie suggested that I cut it slightly differently. I agree with him, so here’s the newer version.