Guestblog landscape Rob

During one of my twitter critique rounds my eye caught this beautiful landscape shot, the question to me was “what to improve” and although I’m not a landscape photographer so I could be wrong, I could not give one thing I would change, I love the look of this shot, the toning, the way the water was captured, the lines etc. so I had to ask Rob to write a piece for my blog, so here he is.

Photography leads people down different paths. For me, the path is one that commences before sunrise. Pre dawn is a magic time of the day, generally there is no one else around, the roads are unusually empty creating a quiet not familiar to those only around during daylight hours. It’s calming. Add the beach I find it tough to want to be anywhere else. The motivation to be out there is the photograph. To capture the landscape or wildlife in a way that is pleasing to either the casual observer or more detailed inspection.

This particular image of the edge wall of ocean baths was shot at Sawtel on the mid north coast of NSW, Australia. It is a location I visit a number of times a year and always spend at least a few early mornings shooting. There is a river that meets the sea to the right of the image and a large rocky headland that stretches out into the ocean to the left. On the opposite side of the headland are a number of rocky islands where birds seek refuge.

On this morning the seas were quite large so instead of images of surfers or possibly dolphins, or out onto the islands with a telephoto lens, I sought a more sheltered position in the lee of the headland at the pool. Waves were breaking over the rock wall that is visible in the back of the pool creating cascades along the edge under the railing. The tide was also quite high with water running across all the leading pathways.
The camera was setup on a Manfrotto tripod and 322 QR ball head. This is a great combination for landscape photography, especially with the ball head allows quick composition changes and solid locking for a camera mount of this weight. The setup was half on a concrete pathway and half on rocks, more on this later.
Camera of choice for this image was a much loved Canon 5D and Canon 17-40mm F4 lens at 40mm with a neutral density filter added. The ND8 filter reduced the amount of light available to the camera by 3 stops allowing a shutter speed of 2 seconds at F9. This shutter speed created both the flow of water over the wall and the cotton wool effect in the water and across the waves. Incidentally, without the ND8 filter the shutter speed would have been ¼ second and the resulting image would have been dramatically different.

After creating this image I ventured down lower onto the rock to the right of this image, shooting back towards the pool. Looking through the viewfinder reduced visibility of the surrounding conditions and I was swamped by a large wave which also drenched the camera kit. Aside from rust in the hotshoe, this camera still performs perfectly and in any case the resulting photograph was worth getting wet.

Some more information about Robert:
As well as shooting weddings, Robert Whiteley has been running the popular photoblog at www.neverhappen.com posting a new image daily since July 2005. He sees the photoblog as a means to encourage him to keep record every day subjects and as well as a way to improve his photography.
Follow him on twitter at @neverhappen

Additional images:

Black Kite

Crab Pot

The early surf