Last night @inksurgeon and I ventured to Normanton Church on the banks of Rutland Water in the middle of England. Rob brought along his drone and I did my usual thing of travelling light with only one lens. Rob set about recording aerial footage while I got to work on the fabulous sunset.
Rutland Water is a huge reservoir completed in 1975 and is upto 33 metres deep. On the site of the intended location for the reservoir is Normanton Church. The church was built in classical style for the Normanton Hall estate on the site of a 14th-century building. The medieval church was rebuilt in 1764 with various modifications made as late as 1911.
The church was de-consecrated in 1970, and was to have been demolished as part of the reservoir construction. Following a public outcry, the lower half was filled with stone and rubble, and a concrete cap constructed just below the level of the windows. An embankment was built around the church leaving it a prominent feature on the water's edge. The structure is now used as a venue for civil weddings and concerts.
This is what I bagged for the evening:
Sunset over Rutland Water
I often forget to try something when I'm out shooting. This time I remembered to use the sun to create a starburst in the composition.
I always seem to gravitate towards portrait orientation for landscape photography:
Boat and a Church
This is a two image focus stack with one image for the foreground and another for the background. This was quite tricky to compose with an inconvenient wooden post too far in to my frame and this took a while to faff around with.
Long Exposure
Here I used a 10 stop filter to blur the clouds for a more "fine art" feel to the image. I've always had a problem with the definition "fine art" as it implies to me something I never regarded myself as being, an artist. It's only recently I've allowed myself to think that way.
This was a 2 minute exposure at f11 and ISO50. I'll definitely be doing more of this stuff sometime soon.
The Blue Hour Cometh
There is a period of time between daylight and darkness known as the blue hour. Certain subjects don't lend themselves to this intense period of deep blue skies but in this case the lighting on the church provided a contrast.
Let's try a bit of lighting
During this long exposure I waved a flashlight around to light up the foreground. The morning after the night before, I wished I had spent more time on this shot.
Going around in circles
And finally, @inksurgeon set his drone going around in circles centred on the spire of the church. It's not easy on summer evenings balancing the light from the drone and the lighting on the church.
The intention after this was to try a star trail sequence over the church but I found it damned near impossible to expose for the stars and not overexpose the lighting on the church! We gave up and drove home!!
About me:
I usually specialise in shooting lightpainting images but occasionally dabble in urbex, landscape and artistic model photography. I'm always on the lookout for someone to collaborate with; the social side of photography is always good!
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