Blast Beach

[Black Pearl]

Took a drive down to Seaham this morning with mate to get some shots along the Blast Beach - its a bleak place and the remains of years worth of industrial dumping etc.

The weather was a bit off which kind of suited the scenery so I went with moody monochrome and subdued palettes.

This might look soft but its more careful framing, long exposure and gentle processing. The original had a hard shadow to the right as I exposed for the highlights in there sky. A shove of the shadow slider in Lightroom sorted most of that then its been through Nik Viveza to bring to some detail and finally I worked it over with the dodge and burn tools in PS to tweak the sea.

Down to business - went for subject isolation, deliberate subject placing and plenty of sky. Most done in Lightroom and Nik SEP2 but as above the last bit was hand finished in PS.

I wanted to get this rock-stack to stand out from its surrounding so stepped back, used a long lens with a wide aperture then stitched two images together to get width. Processing is very minimal but I did apply sharpening to help it pop.

Another with the long lens, typically I'd have gone 12mm and massive DoF. Switched to the Fuji's Classic Chrome sim to pull down the tones and recovered the sky to enhance the dullish day
 

[AlphaBoo]

I was going to say which ones I like the most but after looking at them a few times I just like them all 

 

[Stravinsky]

I like the water in the first, just right

Great set though 

[Clicker]

An interesting set Beepy. Love the tranquility of the  first one and the light is gorgeous ...I can see a lot of thought has gone into your shots ... # 2  looks like an alien  landscape  from a sci-fi movie and quite surreal  . I particularly like the way you have gotten the horizon  in # 3 to run  level with the start of the dark banding on what looks like an old WW II Pill Box.... I  love this one ... so much detail and depth with so little variation in tones ..really subtle ..  Yup   'tis my favourite ..  A palette of  textures and tones .

[FUJI]

I agree with Alphaboo, that there isn’t much to choose between any in this set of excellent, well planned studies....all Perfect examples of how to ....make.....a photograph, rather than just....take....one.

I must admit to having a leaning towards the mono examples.

Just imagine the life of the unfortunates who had to man this bleak looking ....Defensive Pill-Box ....and any others along the British coastline.....had there ever been an invasion they would have taken the initial shock and probably not survive.

FUJI

[Black Pearl]

4 hours ago, Clicker said:

An interesting set Beepy. Love the tranquility of the  first one and the light is gorgeous ...I can see a lot of thought has gone into your shots ... # 2  looks like an alien  landscape  from a sci-fi movie and quite surreal  . I particularly like the way you have gotten the horizon  in # 3 to run  level with the start of the dark banding on what looks like an old WW II Pill Box.... I  love this one ... so much detail and depth with so little variation in tones ..really subtle ..  Yup   'tis my favourite ..  A palette of  textures and tones .

I am sooooo glad you spotted that, it took me a while of shuffling with the tripod and zooming in on the screen to get it to line up.

Its a Vickers MG Pillbox for multiple machine guns according to the internet.

[Black Pearl]

1 hour ago, FUJI said:

I agree with Alphaboo, that there isn’t much to choose between any in this set of excellent, well planned studies....all Perfect examples of how to ....make.....a photograph, rather than just....take....one.

I must admit to having a leaning towards the mono examples.

Just imagine the life of the unfortunates who had to man this bleak looking ....Defensive Pill-Box ....and any others along the British coastline.....had there ever been an invasion they would have taken the initial shock and probably not survive.

FUJI

Thanks Fuji

I helps immensely when I'm out with another photographer as you bounce ideas off each other, see what they see and tend to linger longer meaning the shots are a little more careful.

It must have been as bleak as hell down there during the war. That said the chances of being shot at were slim so not the most dangerous of placements.

[Black Pearl]

9 hours ago, AlphaBoo said:

I was going to say which ones I like the most but after looking at them a few times I just like them all 

 

Thanks

7 hours ago, Stravinsky said:

I like the water in the first, just right

Great set though 

Glad you like the water, theres a fair bit of fiddling gone into it.

[David61]

I like the whole set Black Pearl, but my favourite is the 2nd shot.  Really like the sky and having the big stone in the centre really makes the shot for me.