Weekly Photo Challenge: Blue (2)


Stormy night at Knightstone Island with the waves breaking over the causeway

It’s very rare that I will submit a second post for the Weekly Photo Challenge but as I was working on this I thought it would be ideal for “Blue”. The background to this photograph and how I took it are as follows. The south-west coast of England had been battered by storms for a couple of days and we were expecting exceptionally high-tides.  Normally you can walk over the causeway you can see here and most times at high tides it’s not covered. But when there’s a storm or we get the Spring Tides it a different matter. In a previous post “The Sea Is A Dangerous Place” I wrote about the stupidity of people trying to cross the causeway when the tide washes over it.  In that post I show a woman crossing the causeway with two dogs and is caught by waves breaking over the causeway.

Anyway I digress. Because I do a lot of photography outdoors I bought a camera and lenses that are weatherproof. Now I’m not saying that you could dip it in a lake or river but you can use it in rain and wind…..and believe me it was raining and windy this night. Horizontal rain, cold as well. Fortunately I found a little alcove of sorts in the sea wall where I could take part shelter from the elements. My biggest problem was keeping the front of the lens free from raindrops; fitting a lens hood helped  tremendously. Next to take a shot like this at night you need a long exposure, That’s why the sea looks so creamy and smooth. To get the long exposure you need a tripod but mounting a camera on a tripod in gale conditions doesn’t mean you won’t get movement. Far from it. My trusty camera back-pack helped to weight down the tripod and keep it steady.

So there you have it. The things we photographers will do to get a photograph. What would you do to get that photograph?

I wasn’t going to do any Related Articles for this as I probably mentioned you in my previous entry for the Weekly Photo Challenge: Blue, but in the end I thought, “we all like ping-backs and mentions in other blogs” so here are the related articles…

Related articles
Category : Mike Hardisty Photography, PostaWeek 2012
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