Cowes - 7th August 2009

The Illusion of Sun and the Difficulties of Sea

Had an awesome day out at Cowes. It was an unplanned day mostly, at least with regards to photography. Its primary purpose was to have fun on a day out with family and to take a look around Cowes during Cowes week (if you don't know what that is look it up, although it is simply a sailing competition with additional tourist and festival type airs). We were there on the Friday in particular to watch the Red Arrows and the famous fireworks in the evening.

I'm always a fan of going to the seaside. As someone who's grown up in a suburban valley, being able to see the horizon is a novel experience let alone that much water. My father was at one point in his life in the merchant navy, sometimes I wonder if it's in the blood. With regards to my work however I find myself thinking about the issues around taking photographs on a seaside setting.

The sea is always in movement (yes I know, stating the obvious) and much of its interest lies in that. Trying to get a photograph of it on a particular wave pattern is impossible unless you catch it by accident. Even then you still lose a lot of it's allure, like many things it just doesn't look as good stationary as in motion. On a minor note you also have the challenge of getting the horizon level something hard to do using the view screen rather than the viewfinder (additionally more so if you are A. impatient and trigger happy and/or B. with a limited time period in which to get the shot). I rarely worry too much these days about a perfectly level horizon however, it can always be fixed later in Photoshop ;)

Another interesting problem to note is that of sunshine and shade. On most occasions a bright sunny day with a few occasional clouds is not a problem. If the sun become obscured I will just wait for it to come back out. By the seaside, scudding clouds are the good weather norm. However waiting for the sun to come back out doesn't work when you have a huge swathe of open beach for some where, that beach will be partly in shade. The only solution? Take lots of photographs, hopefully one will have the shade in a place where it doesn't ruin the overall composition of the shot.

We were pretty lucky that day, having no idea what usually goes on and when at Cowes Week we stumbled on the boats coming into the finish line right by the coastline. I managed to get quite a few close up shots. The boats were spectacular en masse with the multitude of brightly coloured spinnaker sails. We also found a brilliant spot to get shocked by the fireworks and the unexpected appearance of the Red Arrows from behind us. I tried to take a few photographs of the Arrows, a futile endeavour I know but does anyone with a camera to hand not try and try again. I did manage a good video and a single photograph....and plenty of empty sky and smoke trails of course.