Daily Archives: March 7, 2015

The beauty of the Jurassic

07 Saturday Mar 2015

Posted by in courses, Learning, Practice

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In the Photography 101 course for this weekend there were no themes, but the task was to capture some wide angle shots, what could be better than landscapes. After shooting it was suggested we create a gallery of our photos (see above). I do not usually upload my photos to WordPress, instead choosing to link to my Flickr account where I have unlimited storage, so I am not sure I will do that many galleries on my blog due to the limited storage on the free accounts.

I just love the Jurassic Coastline in Dorset and East Devon it is England’s first natural World Heritage Site. It is a unique stretch of coastline which sits amongst the ranks of the Great Barrier Reef and the Grand Canyon as one of the wonders of the natural world! The site was granted its status for its outstanding geology, which represents 185 million years of earth history in just 95 miles, covering from Exmouth in East Devon to Old Harry Rocks at Studland Bay on the Dorset coast. Over the many years that I have visited I have walked much of this coastline now though I am going to start photographing it too. Whilst visiting this time we walked from Burton Bradstock to West Bay along the beach and then back along the cliffs. Burton Bradstock acts as one of the main gateways to the Jurassic Coast and the South West Coastal Path. Hive Beach and the famous Hive Beach Cafe (if you like fish or ice-creams it is a wonderful place to have a rest), is a hugely popular family destination, made up of shingle, surrounded by spectacular sandstone cliffs. It forms part of the larger Chesil Beach; which is the largest shingle ridge in the world. Burton Cliffs offer one of the finest examples of the distinctive, alternate hard and soft layered geology of this Bridport Sands area, which make it appear to glow bright gold in the sunlight. Regular rock falls often expose some important and fascinating fossils, such as ammonites, recognised by their ribbed spiral-formed shell, my kids have found a few ammonites and sharks teeth here during our many visits, although the best ones and most well preserved can be found at Charmouth. (They just love the kids playground at West Bay after the long walk too!). There is a faultline at Hive Beach and the cliffs to the east of the fault change to the grey cliffs made up of clay and Fullers Earth. Burton Cliff though is similar to East Cliff at West Bay and the central part the Bridport Sands are topped by Inferior Oolite which is capped with a layer of Fuller’s Earth. The beach at Burton Bradstock is near the western end of the Chesil Beach and is made up of fine shingle. There has though been substantial loss of beach at Burton Cliffs as the fine shingle is moved from west to east by the long shore drift as a result of the prevailing south westerly winds and tides. Unfortunately and renewal of the beach shingle from the west is prevented by the harbour piers at West Bay, Bridport. The coastal sea level of central southern England is rising at an increased rate and in general the low water mark is moving higher inland causing beach narrowing or beach steepening. Because of this, there is no longer the large quantity of fine shingle that there used to be in front of Burton Cliff. Geologists think that over time the beach at Burton Cliff will eventually disappear and it will therefore become a rocky coast with the sea breaking onto the cliffs.

For any of you that have watched the TV show “Broadchurch” with David Tennant and Olivia Coleman, this was filmed here (I saw parts of both of these being filmed on visits to the coastline).

All of the photos above were edited in Lightroom and I then added my watermark in Photoshop CC.

The art of visualisation

07 Saturday Mar 2015

Posted by in Practice

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Going down

Photography is a creative medium. One fundamental that’s not often talked about is the “Art of Visualization”… A concept that originated from one of my favourite photographers the well-known landscape photographer Ansel Adams.

Ansel Adams is well known for his use of visualisation.  He would look at a scene and then visualise  in “his minds eye” the image before making the photograph.  This process can be harder than it seems. To do do this with a scene you need to be in-tune with your inner emotions and how you feel about a scene.  Then you need to know how to manipulate your camera to show your emotional response of the scene in the image on your film or sensor.  Once that is done the next step is to bring that out in your image in post processing.

I am far from being a great photographer, I am just a hobbyist, who enjoys the art and creativity that photography allows me. I do know though that all my favourite images and the ones that get the most positive responses from others have been ones that I have visualised prior to taking and now I do try to do this with most of my shots, although some days especially when I feel I have to take a shot for my 365, I know I slack and it definitely shows!

I found this video on youtube of Ansel Adams talking briefly about the subject.

So next time your out and about with your camera, before you press the shutter, visualise the photo, you might just be surprised with the results.