Leigh on sea, Arnside with Boats.

Old Leigh, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

Summer holidays soon, and time to go and see my family in Leigh on sea. I always try to find time to photograph the 'Old Town' part of Leigh, down by the water. Cockle boats, seafood stalls and old pubs full of old fishermen and young yachtsmen, boatyards full of abandoned projects and the mounds of crushed cockle shells that make up the foreshore and the space behind the jetties where the boats unload.
Everything that Arnside doesn't have as a result of the tidal pattern of Morecambe Bay. But then, Arnside also doesn't have piles of litter, the most expensive car park outside of Knightsbridge and it doesn't smell of vinegar.
I like them both, and I like photographing them both, but for very different reasons.

Arnside Sunset

Arnside Sunset, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

I've not really felt much like blogging recently, nor have I taken many photos. Its not that I've lost interest in photography (or blogging for that matter) but being a sensitive soul, or a softarse to be more vernacular, I have not been in the right 'place' mentally for several months.
All it took, as it turns out, was a visit to Arnside seafront and some dramatic 'pink' light. I quite like the result above, but more to the point, I am looking forward to taking some photos again soon.

Morecambe Contrast

Morecambe Contrast, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

Having taken this a few weeks ago, on a rare bright day in August, I was a bit disappointed with the final result after running it through Photomatix and CS2 with Topaz Adjust. As the title suggests, the point of the photograph was the contrast between the old bandstand and the recently redeveloped Midland Hotel in Morecambe. I had hoped to draw attention to the graffitti scrawled all over the bandstand and the weeds forcing their way through the ground in front of it, while at the same time pointing the lines of sight in the image towards the gleaming Art Deco hotel.
In the original version, the graffitti was a bit lost and the Midland lacked any real punch, so the picture, instead of showing the paradox that is Morecambe, looked a little like Blackpool with a few weeds.
So I downloaded Topaz Vivacity and filtered the original file with it.
I've always been a bit nervous of sharpening. Used delicately it can help low res images look like they were taken with a plate camera. Getting too free with it can make a perfectly good image look like it was taken with a mobile phone.
Having been an enthusiastic supporter of Topaz Adjust since I tripped over it on a web forum earlier this year I had high hopes for Vivacity.
And I was not disappointed. The image now makes sense. The contrast between the two sides of Morecambe's character jumps out of the frame as it was meant to originally.
And it doesn't look like it has been deliberately sharpened at all.
Which is rather the point.

Plover Scar Range Front Light.

Plover Scar Range Front Light, River Lune, Lancashire., originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

I was really quite pleased with this shot of the lighthouse at the mouth of the River Lune between Heysham and Cockerham Sands. I had walked all the way out to it a couple of weeks previously to find that the light was so washed out that the capabilities of my S5 to resolve punchy images from less than ideal lighting were no match for the grey monotone that was the sky and the one photograph I produced that day was no more than a reference shot, serving to remind me to go back when there was some contrast in the sky.
The second time I visited, I was able to walk out further towards the lighthouse as the tide had ebbed further, but more importantly, the light made the hike from Cockerham worthwhile.
The sun played on the stonework as I splashed around in the mud with my monopod, trying to get Heysham Power Station and the skyline on the third lines, while the clouds provided a theatrical backdrop for the lighthouse.
Eventually, after an hour of this top entertainment, I walked back up to the sea wall and returned to where I had parked the car.
This was landscape photography at its best. A strong subject, great lighting and a bit of exercise.
Job done.

August in Arnside

Arnside Clouds, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

To paraphrase Victor Meldrew, I simply don't believe the way that this August, just like last year, has been more like the monsoon season in Borneo than summer in the UK. My garden has gone bonkers, the roads have been rarely dry enough to ride my motorbike and I am seriously fed up with photographing everything under a moody dark sky with towering clouds.
Take the shot above for example. To be fair, I wouldn't have even bothered posting it on my Flickr stream without the sky, but I would really like just for once to have a reason to put a circular polariser on my camera.

Wyre Wreck

Wyre Wreck 5, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

Time off work has provided me with many things in the past. The chance to relax a little. The opportunity to have some time to myself, to reflect on the past year, or on my plans for the future. More importantly in recent years it has given me the time to visit places and photograph them.
I have an extensive and comprehensive list of places I want to photograph. Some of them are places I have been to before, some I have photographed in the past but many are parts of England that I think might give me an interesting shot or two, but which I have never set eyes on.
So how do places get on to my list? One way is if I see a photograph taken by someone else there that inspires me. But there is a certain danger in this, as it is surprisingly difficult not to take the same photograph oneself. Even with a different lens, different light and a whole different pair of eyes looking through the camera I have more than once unwittingly plagiarised someone else's photographic work.
And I have had it done to me. Once.
So the chance to spend a little time photographing the wrecks on the banks of the River Wyre behind Fleetwood Fish Docks was something I approached with some reservations.
There are many, many photographs of these boat remains on Flickr, Pbase and on individual websites. Perhaps the best, and the first I saw, are on David Nightingale's website www.chromasia.com .
So I was quite pleased with this shot. Not because its better than anyone else's. Just because its sufficiently different. to say something new about the place. Not a whole page of something new, nor even a paragraph. But just a couple of words.
And that, for me anyway, is enough.

Gale Beck Lodge

Gale Beck Lodge, Blea Moor Road, North Yorkshire, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

I used to drive past this building on my daily commute from Newbiggin in Bishopdale to Kirkby Lonsdale. So my daily drive, which had previously been in and out of London on the M4, was along one of the finest driving roads in the UK. Like a true saddo petrolhead I used to time myself from Hawes to Ingleton, shaving seconds off by taking a sweeping line round the corners and learning every bump and change of surface and camber. I tested the ABS on my car more than once as I came face to face with a milk tanker or a scraggy Swaledale in the middle of the road, and relied far too heavily on the ability of Bridgestone Potenzas to find grip on wet North Yorkshire County Council tarmac.
But it was my personal Nordschleife, a challenge that was as compelling as it was pointless.
The relentless stream of bikers on summer weekends seemed to appreciate the road as much as I did, and I was surprisingly pleased to see Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond one evening parked next to Gale Beck Lodge in a Porsche and an Aston taking a break while filming a road test.
But all things come to an end and after I moved to Arnside I rarely had any reason to go back to the B6255.
Until last week, when I drove over to Bedale.
And stopped to take this photograph.
My only regret is that it was sunny. I can't help but feel that dark clouds would have suited the image better.
However, I'm going back to Bedale tomorrow and I will be riding back to Arnside on a motorcycle, so I am quite sure that the weather will oblige me with some splendid rain clouds.

Oi Oi!!

Sunderland Point Sam York 2, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

...an old Essex expression for 'Hello there, how are you?', but which is also a bit like 'eye eye', a Photographic term meaning ' I used an Ultra Wide Angle, which is why the verticals converge'.
I am aware that it is possible to correct Fisheye distortion with rectilinear correction software, or with Fisheye-Hemi, but as my new, Ebay purchased, Nikkor 10.5mm is such a novelty for me at present, I am rather childishly reluctant to do so. In any event, I thought the transom gantry on the Sam York did rather a good job of framing the rest of my shot, taken at Sunderland Point this weekend.
But shooting trawlers with a fisheye lens is not my only discovery of the week. I stumbled over a Photoshop plugin called 'Topaz Adjust' while looking for a current link to Lucisart (which is now discontinued), shortly to be replaced with 'Lucisart Pro', (which will cost about a gazillion pounds by the way).
Topaz Adjust is a remarkable tool for finishing photos off with a range of detailing, sharpening, exposure correction and saturation adjustments. It has a number of presets, but they are all adjustable and you can refer to the original image at the touch of a button. And best of all, it is fairly cheap.
Two bargains in one week. I have saved a fortune on my gear buying recently.
Does that make me a semi pro?

Silverdale Cove

Silverdale Cove, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

Seized with enthusiasm by virtue of having my new camera, I have been out almost every evening this week, revisiting local venues and rephotographing them. Predictably, the results are not particularly awe inspiring, but it is interesting to see how the S5 compares with the S2 I have been using for the last two years.
I am slowly working my way round the menu system, trying out film emulation modes, increasing the dynamic range, shooting at different ISOs, and the most obvious difference I can see at present is the way the S5 surpresses noise. My S2 would have had a good go at this image, but it would have been fighting against the poor lighting, the lack of contrast in the rock and the glitter from the sea. As it was, I was fighting against a more prosaic combination of a Morecambe Bay gale, a banging headache and a determination to catch the start of the Germany - Turkey game.
I felt that the S5 acquitted itself well under the circumstances, and produced an image that was detailed, controlled and well exposed. It rather reminded me of a Victorian lithograph for some reason.
However, while I enjoyed taking and processing it, the high points of my evening were the two goals that Jens Lehman let in.
As with my S5, I look forward to seeing more of that very soon.

A Windy Sunday in Arnside

A Windy Sunday in Arnside, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

...is better than a calm day in Kirkby Lonsdale. Not because there is anything inherently wrong with Kirkby, its just that i work there, and frankly I would rather not have to these days.
I have been out three times over the weekend with my camera, despite the weather, determined to make use of my new S5 pro body. I'm not sure if it is really that much better than my S2, but the greatest limitation on its performance is almost certainly my ability to use it properly, so I am probably not the best judge. However, I have found it easy to set up, beautifully made and pleasingly accurate in recording the view from my lens collection.
The above was taken with my Nikon 18-70mm, which has always been a favourite of mine, easier to use than my Tokina 12-24mm, which seems to be a bit 'hit and miss'.
I'm not sure if a lens can be hit and miss, but I am sure my ability is more miss than hit most of the time, so the odds of shooting anything worthwhile are pretty slender.

Shrimp

Shrimp near Forton, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

I have been concentrating my efforts in recent weeks on getting my boat 'Shrimp' ready for the season. She has been through a Boat Safety test, had her engine serviced and her underwater sections painted in about ten coats of epoxy, primer and antifouling. Although I actually rather enjoy all this sort of thing (except the bit where the paint goes in your mouth and you sit up too suddenly to spit it out, bashing your head on the hull and dropping the paintbrush down your shirt), I have hardly taken a single photograph since April.
I've always been a bit of a tart with my camera over the years. Teasing it a little by taking it out every day then not even looking at it for weeks or even months. Buying it expensive accessories then leaving them wrapped up for ages. Talking about going out at the weekend than disappearing off somewhere else... So it came as a bit of a surprise to it when I heaved it on to my boat and took it for a ride up the canal at the weekend.
And it came as a bit of a surprise to me to find out just how much I have missed taking photographs while I have been drinking Underwater Primer and giving myself double vision.
We're going out again next weekend. We might go to the beach or up to The Lakes. I haven't decided yet.
I just hope I can remember which buttons to press.
Its been a while.

Good Hope

Good Hope, Skipool Creek, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

As a boat owner I am often dismayed by the number of vessels that are left to rot in boatyards, marinas, and on moorings. They can be seen all round the coast, and in many parts of the inland waterways. Once loved and cared for they have either outstripped someone's ability to maintain them or fallen on hard times through accident, gear failure or just old age. For some reason which is not entirely clear to me, I find this all a bit hard to take. Even though I have spent my adult life trying not to be a bizzom (though I have also spent much of it trying to find a use for the word 'bizzom') I can't help but find against the owners of these boats in the portable personal tribunal that I carry around with me. Why buy them if you don't want to look after them? Why not sell them if you're fed up with them? Preferably before its too late.
However, as a photographer I am eternally grateful to the same people. By all means, leave them to rot. Somewhere close to a car park and well above the high water mark would be best, but anywhere will do.
As long as the paint peels artistically and the wood springs apart in an attractive geometric pattern.
Much obliged. Don't know what I would do for foreground interest without you.

Riverdance

Riverdance, on Cleveleys Beach, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

This rather sparse frame, shot yesterday on Cleveleys beach, is the product of more than one set of parameters.
Frankly, I would have preferred to have been a little closer the the upturned ferry 'Riverdance', but the beach around the ship has been cordoned off and is patrolled by yellow jacketed security guards. So, after the complete failure of my best polite smile and 'Would it be possible to...?' I was compelled to shoot from afar.
However, the emptiness of the beach (apart from the rope that marked the cordoned off area) gave me the opportunity to try out my magazine cover shot technique.
Surprisingly little space is left on most magazine covers after the masthead and coverlines have been added and I have a feeling that the usual rule of thirds and foreground interest principles either don't apply, or if they do, they work in a different way.
Having been invited to submit a selection of shots to Lancashire Life as a result of my feature 'Bay Watch' in this months issue, I am now trying to see my viewfinder with the top fifth and bottom left quarter covered with text.
And its not as easy as I thought.

Morecambe Bay Nobbies

Morecambe Slipway, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

Nobbies are Morecambe Bay shrimp boats, some of which were built by Crossfields boatyard in Arnside. These two are moored off the Lifeboat slipway in Morecambe and I could have walked out to them if I had been wearing boots and if I had been able to overcome my natural reluctance to wander around the sands of Morecambe Bay at low tide. So instead I photographed them from afar and included the jetty, hopefully leading the eye towards them.
Earlier this afternoon I was at Glasson Dock trying out a graduated ND filter. I took a number of landscape format shots then some portrait formats. However, I forgot to turn the filter, so I now have a fine selection of photographs of Glasson Dock in which the left half of the shot is one stop under exposed.
I might be fairly useless with filters, but at least I'm not called a 'Nobby'.
Not often anyway.

High Water Springs

Kent Estuary from Ashmeadow, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

An unusually high tide in Arnside this afternoon, combined with a cloudy sky and bright sunshine made for some of the best conditions for photography so far this year. So I am not sure why I was able to take 62 of the most ordinary, lifeless, dull, boring and unispired photographs I have ever shot.
This one is probably the pick of the bunch, or it might be the photograph I took of the footbridge in Arnside Station, for a reason that now escapes me. But neither of them, nor any of the other 60 had any merit at all.
It's not that I think I'm so good that I should be able to take worthwhile photographs every day. On the contrary, I am often surprised by the quality that some of my photographs seem to achieve despite my lack of ability. But the conditions today were so good, and my output was so not good that I am inclined to think that I may be having a mid life crisis.
I'll be changing my Land Rover for a cabriolet and using skin care products next.

A Lot of Rocks and a Lighthouse

Lune Estuary, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

I was contacted this week by a resident of Sunderland Point to tell me that some of my captions on Flickr were innaccurate. He pointed out that (amongst other errors) I had referred to a boat as a 'trawler' when it was, in fact, an ex-pleasure boat, and that I had called a building a 'Pilot's Cottage' when it had been used as an Inn.
He also gave me the benefit of some of his intimate knowledge of the personalities and families that lived and worked in the area. His comments were both fascinating, and a reminder of how a few words under a photograph can either inform or misinform, and add to or subtract from, the meaning of it.
All of which has shaken my confidence about captioning photographs to the extent that I am now going to confine myself to stating facts that I can prove beyond reasonable doubt.
Hence the caption above.
They may well, technically, be stones rather than rocks, but I am hoping to be allowed a little leeway.

Islands in the Sun

The Islands of Fleet in Wigtown Bay, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

Half term provided me with the opportunity to spend a few days in Scotland with a Land Rover full of photographic gear. Well, maybe not full exactly. That would be a lot more gear than I could realistically use in any constructive way.
In reality most of my gear stays in my bag most of the time anyway and when I am scrambling around on slippery seaweed covered rocks taking photos I tend to confine myself to just my S2 and lens, and a Manfrotto monopod. If I feel the need to take brackets of exposures for future processing in Photomatix (like this one) I have to take a proper tripod, but that means lugging around a three ton Velbon that is made out of scaffold poles.
To achieve this photo of The Islands of Fleet I had to clamber over the rocks, running the risk of slipping on the wet seaweed, spearing myself on the jagged rocks and more importantly, smashing my uninsured camera, my uninsured lens and my brand new (and uninsured) circular polarising filter in to a thousand sparkly pieces, all while carrying a tripod that weighs almost as much as... a small island in Wigtown Bay.
And I loved every minute.

Flood Tide

Arnside Railway Viaduct, flood tide, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

Ambled down to the seafront today to take a few photos, hoping to make use of the surprisingly sunny morning that had dawned after a week of rain and high winds. As I parked on the promenade it was clear that the tide was about to arrive. I know that in most seaside towns the tide 'comes in' or flows' but in Arnside it Arrives. The stone jetty was occupied by fishermen and a group of canoeists were hovering about in the middle of the estuary.
The bore, when it came past, was only a few inches high, and barely rocked the canoes, but as I walked towards the railway embankment a roar like the sound of a BAC 1-11 taking off (sorry, ex-anorak aircraft spotter reference to an obsolete and very noisy jet aircraft) began to echo around the sea front. The water rushing upriver past the railway viaduct was increasing in volume and creating bow waves on each pillar as if the bridge was ploughing downstream at full throttle.
By the time I had walked past the Fighting Cocks, the usual Arnside seafront landscape of undulating and rippled sand had been replaced by ten feet of swirling murky water.
The roar from the viaduct continued undiminished long enough for me to photograph the entire seafront from the viaduct to Ashmeadow.
The power of the tide in the Bay and particularly in Arnside is either a curse or a blessing depending on your point of view. The spectacle of the bore may attract onlookers and the odd canoeist to the village, but the rush of water and the range between the high and low water marks seems to almost completely preclude the possibility of pleasure boating in the area.
If Arnside was on the Isle of Wight there would be yachts moored four or five deep off the foreshore, boatyards, chandlers and sailmakers would cram every building and alleyway close to the water and the pubs and restaurants would be thronged with people wearing reflective wellingtons and South Atlantic proof trousers.
Sailing heaven or yachtie hell?
Unless SLDC decide to build a barrage across the Bay from Grange to Heysham, we may never know.

A Cold Sunday in The Lakes

Windermere 1, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

Taken on probably the coldest, most miserable and dullest day I have ever been out with my camera. Having hardly taken a single frame since Christmas however, I was determined, despite the weather, to capture something so I could enjoy a little bit of CS2 time this evening. I suppose the whole concept of 'enjoying a little bit of CS2 time' is one that will only have a limited appeal to a few people but when the only other choices are Ski Sunday or doing some lesson prep. I'll take Photoshop every time.
Actually, I was so stuck for worthwhile activity that I processed this from the RAW file in three different ways, using CS2, Photomatix and the Finepix convertor that came with my S2. This is the CS2 version, which had more depth and range of tone and had a better 'surface finish'.
Its a pretty ordinary photograph really, and I make no pretence that it is special in any way other than that I suffered for it.
I might not have lived in a rat infested garret and cut off my ears to keep warm, but my hands got jolly cold and I had to turn up the heater in the car all the way home.

Still in Arnside

Arnside, Stone Jetty Bench, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

Freezing action in a single frame is usually achieved by setting the shooting menu to shutter priority and using as fast a shutter speed as the available light and the lens will allow. However, when I take bracketed shots for later processing as an HDR there is the possibility that movement may be recorded across the three (or occasionally five) frames required despite being frozen in each individual picture. The reflection under the silver birch in the post below this is an example.
This is a particular difficulty around water, and since many if not most of my photographs have water in them, is a particular difficulty for me. Or to be more exact, for my copy of Photomatix. There is a menu which includes an option for 'Attempt to Reduce Ghosting Artefacts', but there is a price to be paid for selecting this. To be honest I'm not really sure why, but it reduces the overall quality of the image and changes the tonal range.
The photograph above has no such issues however. The water is millpond still, there are no people walking through the frame, no cars driving along the promenade and no trees waving in the breeze. Even the two men talking outside the chemist kept obligingly still. So all three frames are monozygotically identical.
Except for a single seagull, which was photographed three times in different parts of the frame, thereby giving the impression of three seagulls flying over the promenade on Saturday morning when there was only one.
So I am identifying the other two as false readings.
I think it might be best to declare every contribution at the outset, rather than have to blame poor accounting later on.