I've not posted much lately to Hive and indeed not shot much in the way of images for a while. For the last few weeks, I've looked out of my window and felt depressed daily by the lack of clear skies. My urge recently to shoot star trails and night landscape has been quite intense! The more the clouds rolled by, the more depressing it became!
So last week the weather forecast was looking decidedly better. To celebrate my good fortune, I decided to make a road trip to the North Norfolk coast approximately 2.5 hours's drive away. This might seem like a long way to travel but the dark skies on the North Norfolk coast are just that little bit darker with less light pollution.
My first port of call was an old harbour called Blakeney. After a longer than expected drive, I arrived to find sea mist rolling in and I couldn't see the sky! Damn! To make matters worse, the high tide was considerably higher than I had anticipated. I parked in the highest point of the car park since the rest of the car park was flooded. After a brief recce around the harbour and a few photos, I decided Plan B needed to take effect, I had no wish to drown my car!
I travelled along the coast to another harbour known as Thornham Staithe. This location I had recced before and knew the tide wouldn't so high as to be a problem.
This is what I managed to get on the evening (in no particular order)
The Obligatory Selfie Shot
As I wait for a star trail sequence to finish, I usually get a little bored and tend to occupy my time browsing the internet. But since I'd driven all this way it seemed strange not to shoot a selfie.
This was quick and easy to make using a fisheye lens and my Olight Marauder Mini beast of a flashlight!
Three Stumps and Star Trails
I shot a few "short" star trail sequences on the night, this being the most successful. This is 90 x 30 second exposures stacked in Photoshop to make the light trails. The foreground was another image added to the stack where here I've used an LED panel to light up the foreground.
Two Stumps and a Star Trail
I moved around this scene and shot another trail sequence. It's hard to choose between two or three stumps but I reckon three edged it.
My Achilles Heel
In low light photography and especially shooting the Milky Way, I must confess to never being happy with the quality of the result. I can't blame my camera gear, it's as good as it gets. A Sony A7iv with 33 megapixels of full frame goodness but still I'm not sure of the result. Posted here for criticism or critique.....
The Blue Hour Boat
As I arrived at my first location, flooded and foggy, I realised I'd arrived just that little bit too late for blue hour. I managed to bag this yacht but as I shot this the tide was rising over my ankles at an alarming rate! It's not perfect but I made a mental note to set off at least two hours earlier next time!
Blakeney in the dark at high tide
Despite the high tide, I managed to skirt around edges to find this point of view looking back towards the village.
Note my little van right in the middle of the frame, perilously close to the incoming tide! I didn't hang around long after this shot!
About me:
I usually specialise in shooting lightpainting images but occasionally dabble in landscape, urbex and artistic model photography. I like to collaborate with other photographers and occasionally shoot outside my comfort zone.
Social Media
https://www.facebook.com/fastchrisuk
https://www.flickr.com/photos/fastchris/
