When it is wet, grey and generally dull with a gale blowing, apart from waves and barnacles on rocks it is generally a difficult time to try and make images. I was having one of those days last Wednesday, where it didn’t matter where I went, I just was struggling to find subjects that seemed to work. I eventually ended up at Arthur’s Stone on Cefn Bryn. Due to the rapidly declining weather I was up there on my own, so when a severe rain storm hit and visibility was reduced to 100m at least I didn’t have to fight with anybody to get the only sheltered spot under Arthur’s Stone itself. It doesn’t matter how good your waterproofs are, eventually the rain gets in, so I was glad for some shelter. I’m actually quite surprised that I was wearing my waterproofs. Normally I forget to take any for me and only carry the ones for my camera and bag!
As the rain cleared a few beams of sunlight came through the clouds and spotlighted some of the landscape. Unfortunately none of them hit Arthur’s Stone, which stayed in rather boring dull light. I knew when taking the images that conversion to black and white would have to be done. The colours were so dull and fairly monochrome anyway, the images wouldn’t work in colour. I like to work with black and white film, plus all the processing and darkroom work. I think that it has a craft feel to it. Unfortunately with my darkroom in boxes at the moment, digital is my only real route to choose from. At least I can now reduce the number of camera bodies that I have to carry. In the days of film I had a couple of bodies loaded with slide and black and white film. This was no problem with the interchangeable backs with my medium format system. but with 35mm it was a bit of a pain.
Kittiwakes at Mumbles Pier again!
The Kittiwakes continue to do well at the Pier. Most of the chicks are quite well advanced, with most adults with two chicks. There are still some smaller, newer chicks around though, so it is possible to see a cross section of age ranges. I am still continuing to make the more straight images of the colony, but have found the process of making the portrait images quite challenging and fascinating at the same time. I noticed with some of my earlier attempts that the depth of field was so shallow it was nearly impossible to get the eyes sharp. In sunnier conditions the brighter light has allowed more depth of field to be used with a high shutter speed. Unfortunately the adults rarely keep still, so maintaining focus has been difficult. With auto-focus loosing the focus point if the sensor leaves the eye, and my manual focus skills lacking to cope with their movement, it has turned into a numbers game. Some times it all comes together and then it really works well, with pleasing images and the look that I am after.
As well as portraits I have been trying to get some of the interactions between the young, parents and other birds around them. This is proving difficult to get some variation, but overall there is a coming together of the overall behaviour. The young chick above was staring attentively at it parent as it was trying to stimulate the adult to give it a feed by pecking at the adult birds beak. I just like the look on its face.