Chasing an Image
A couple of months ago I was exploring the North East Coast, specifically Roker beach where there is a wonderful pier and lighthouse that protects the entrance to the River Wear.
Early morning pre dawn at Roker
We are blessed by location here in the north east as we get the most wonderful sunrises over the sea. Looking out to the East I have plenty of opportunities to capture the lighthouse against many beautiful backdrops
Roker Lighthouse at on a hazy early morning
Amongst the various play areas, seats, tables and planters along the beach front there sits a large black square profile sculpture, made of a high gloss marble with a circle cut out the center that creates a perfect frame for the harbour. Now it’s at this point that I would want to show you an image of the wider view of the harbour front to aid in my little story and provide context of the sculpture and it location, but it turns out all I have been focussed on is taking images of the sculpture and what its framing.
There is definitely a lesson here in what images to take not to always focus on the “hero” shots!
Anyway a few weeks ago I captured this Image:
The monolith at Roker
Which demonstrates the view through the piece - you will also be able so see some of the constellations carved into the face of it. Its a great balanced image and a classic use of a frame within a frame.
Jump forward a week or so and I was reading up about Roker beach and found out that the monilith is positioned in such a way that twice a year there is a perfect alignment of the lighthouse and the sun behind it. So out came Photopills on my phone and what do you know, I was in luck, the sun was due to be rising behind the lighthouse in the next few days.
So for the last week almost every morning I have been down hoping for a break in the clouds and looking for the sun rise shot that’s been in my head.
This morning the weather was cold, icy and there appeared to be a thick bank of cloud on the horizon but I set off anyway as you never really know what it’s like until you get there. So glad that I did (another lesson there in perseverance I think!) because these were the images that I got:
I am really happy with the results here - I experimented with the effects of different focal lengths to bring the lighthouse into the frame more. I also bumped into a fellow photographer who gave me some tips on getting a starburst (use a long f stop - f22 in this case) and i’m happy with my first attempt here.
I’ll be back later on in the year for another attempt. This is one of my favourite locations as its very versatile with great waves when there is a large swell and good potential for waves crashing over the lighthouse.
Martin