Quayside Photograph commended in Landscape Photographer of the Year 2009

Great news, this image has made it into the Landscape Photographer of the Year 2009 book and exhibition. Commended in the Classic view category of the competition. It was taken at the start of the year about half an hour before sunrise just when the river is at its most reflective. Anyone interested in a print or canvas follow the link to it on my website.

The National Park

My rambling as a photographer has now taken me up to the National park, and a new challenge for me photographing mountainous countryside. These pictures are some of the first I've attempted and many more will come.

Dunstanburgh Sunrise

Another morning and a good excuse to try out my new camera, the 5D mark ii. The clarity of the image on this camera is outstanding and I'm more than pleased with the latest results. The sunrise was beautiful and fast moving clouds after the stormy weather through the night helped me to gain a variety of images. Trying one out as a black and white has proved to add extra impact, and works well as a moody piece. Both images prove the kind of variety in similar conditions you can get with landscape photography and they should work particularly well on canvas.

Newcastle Quayside

After a small summer break, my first return to photography was my most local. The Newcastle Quayside is just on my doorstep and these are some of the first results I achieved on very different mornings. I love the reflections and stillness of the Tyne first thing in the morning, and think that this helps add to the impact of the image. I'm looking forward to printing these images as I think they are going to have real impact particularly on a canvas print.

Sugar Sands

I love the name of this beach and hope that the photo I managed to take on Thursday night has done it justice. The colours of this sunset remind me of candy floss and this goes aptly with the name of the beach. It was a sunset that I nearly didn't capture, I was packing up heading towards the car when I looked up and saw the colours had changed dramatically, so I sprinted back to the beach in time to capture this. The colours of this landscape photograph will work well as a canvas or print.

Bamburgh

A beautiful and calm sunrise was to be seen up at Bamburgh a couple of mornings ago, but the main lesson here was to be in the right place at the right time. This shot was taken half an hour before sunrise proving that often the best colours are at unexpected times! This will work particularly well as a panoramic canvas.

Tynemouth Pier

An evening that promised more in terms of stormy weather still produced a sunset worth photographing. So I set out to the Tynemouth and this shot gives an idea of what I was able to produce, in future photography of this area I'll be trying my zoom lens to see if I can focus in on the waves.

Cheviots

A good time of the year is upon us for photography, so I set about staking out the Cheviots. On a quiet evening with not a sole around I had the Linhope area to myself and managed to get a couple of shots. One in particular shows off the heather around at this time of year.

St Mary's Lighthouse

Conscious that the sunset wasn't actually that good, in terms of clouds and colours, I set out to photograph St Mary's Lighthouse at Whitley Bay. To make the image more interesting I decided to concentrate on the reflection that was in the still water surrounding the rocks, I was forever having to move as the tide came in and ruined the reflection. The overall result will work particularly well as a canvas print and I'm looking forward to printing this in the coming days.

Shooting with an extremely wide-angle lens really does help to add drama to a scene, without it I wouldn't have been able to get so much of the cloud into the scene and the reflection it produced.
For this picture I had a perfect reflection lined up and was just waiting to shoot at the right moment and then along came a boat. I decided to use the ripples it created to my advantage, the distortion in the reflection added some life to the picture that I think it needed.

Just to show the variety of conditions near sunset and why such low light is ideal for photography, here is another photo taken the same day as the photo below. I just loved the light shimmering down the beach, and hoped that when the tide came in that the light would hit the water. Patience was required but also, because I had forgotten my wellies, being able to put up with wet cold feet for an hour and a half! This should add well to my coastal library.

Coastal Sunset

The sunset last night was something special to witness, although the colours in this photograph I managed to capture didn't stay around for too long. As ever with a sunset there is usually only a couple of minutes (sometimes seconds) to capture the moment, after waiting around for a good hour or so and thinking about taking a long walk back to the car this happened. As I was on a beach with very little other than miles of sand it was very hard to create a bit of foreground interest, I resisted the urge for the cheesy foreground driftwood, and concentrated on making the reflection and wave movement enough to make up for the lack of foreground, and I'm satisfied with the result. The sunset was glorious and goes to show that you just never know. In the background is lindisfarne castle and although it was the intended subject of the picture I had to change my mind quickly as the position of the sun demanded a wider angle. This kind of picture will work really well as a larger canvas print to bring out the castle in the background.

The thing I love about digital photography is the creativity it allows you. This photo came about as a result of me thinking about trying something different for sports photography. Inspired by a photo I saw of a motorbike jumping the length of a football pitch, I decided to go about trying to photograph the flight of the ball. The tough part of this picture was stitching it together afterwards as it had to be done manually. Overall I'm pleased with the result and will be looking to improve on this for future sports photography - maybe I will and try and blend in the movement of the bowler.

Being injured has its advantages. Being able to watch a match instead of play meant I was able to get behind the camera and take some photos for Tynedale cricket club's website. With light not great, I had to use high ISO just to maintain a fast shutter speed, but this has allowed me to catch the ball spinning with the seam in the perfect position. Sports photography can have its frustrations though, I missed the next ball which happened to be a wicket!

Hot Summer's Day

Being one of the hottest days of the year yesterday I decided it was best to be out and about. Eventhough these conditions aren't ideal for landscape photography I'm pleased with the overall result of this, the primary colours really contrast sharply against each other. This should come out well as a decorative piece of landscape photography on canvas.

Just a quick one to say welcome to my blog where you'll be able to see all the latest photo's and any news events involving myself and Roger.