Yesterday was a fairly long day. I had left the house early to pop over to the guys at Fixio who had replaced the dud battery in my 2019 MacBook (I fried the battery during covid by not unplugging the 12 month old machine for 2 years!) I then went to London for a fairly intensive corporate photoshoot before finishing at the UK Premiere of “The Stath’s” new film (The Beekeeper).
It will not surprise you then that I decided to move this morning’s alarm back from 6am to 7am (I’m fussy about getting my seven and half hours sleep). As the morning was clear and very very cold, I decided not to go for a run but headed down to the beach for the sunrise with a coffee and a camera (an X-T3 with the 56/1.2 fitted).
Seeing as I don’t really walk that far on these mornings, it’s a little tricky not to be repetitive. Today, with the sky & tide as it was, I decided on trying for a shot that featured the low sun, a breaking wave and a groyne.
I used the “Star Walk 2” app to locate any heavenly body in the sky (above or below the horizon) to select a suitable groyne and waited for the sun to appear.
I can’t help but hum “Ride of the Valkyries” as I look at this.
That’s very pretty but the aim was splash and sun!
Of course this is “pure luck”, a wave breaks over the groyne, surrounding the warm sun behind as a seagull flies directly in line overhead. I could not have directed this if I had tried!
Anyone with any sense will realise that this was not a single shot. I was positioning the camera on the beach, lining up the groyne and the sun (using the rear LCD) , fixing the focus and then watching the waves, not the back of the camera. As the wave started to break, I shot a burst at continuous high.
I did 5 or 6 sequences, these were the results …
Above I mentioned this was “Pure Luck”, well it is and it is not. I may not have been able to control the splash pattern and seagull, but I did ensure I was at the right place, at the right time, with the right kit, exposure set correctly, likewise focus. Finally there is the technique that comes from lots of practice.
It really was very cold and once home it took about 30 minutes for my fingers to warm up (fingerless gloves) and get any feeling back in them (I had forgotten how painful that can be).
I then proceeded to edit, bringing out some shadow detail, adding a little contrast and reducing noise / sharpening using DXO. I have kept a couple of the images back to sell as prints from the studio but the rest were uploaded to a stock site (otherwise they will only sit, unseen, in my archive system and there is very little point in that).
All this done, I looked at my watch. It was 11AM; I had not eaten breakfast, made the bed nor showered. I started to berate myself “what have you done all morning” , “11am and you have achieved nothing today, you lazy person” , “you have not done a thing” , “you have loads to edit” etc etc. I ran off showered and ate.
At that point I slowed down and contemplated what I had done.
The fact is, I had achieved and completed a lot, I had produced a number of beautiful images. I had forgotten that being professional photo grapher is not just about paid corporate shoots.
As creatives it is imperative we make time to play, to learn to experiment.
Without doing so we will not move forward.
These last two lines are the real message of the post.
How do you deal with this, let me know in the comments.
J
Julie Edwards-X 
Charlie don’t surf!!
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