If at first you don't succeed, try again...

I wrote a couple of posts ago about going out with my son to photograph a sunset. Unfortunately the sunset never really eventuated that evening, but I managed to turn lemons into lemonade (metaphorically speaking) and came away with some ICM (intentional camera movement) images that I really liked (see here).

Josh is going back to Uni this week so we decided to give it another try, since the weather has been consistently good while he's been home (clear, crisp winter days). We gave ourselves a little more time for this trip, and headed out to our location a good hour before sunset. Due to the current position of the setting sun, we figured our best bet was to go to the Blaketown Tiphead.

FYI: Tiphead simply means the end of a long and narrow point - in this case the road that leads out to the end of Blaketown and into the Tasman Sea. This area is also sometimes referred to as the Southern Breakwater, with its companion the Northern Breakwater (or Cobden Tiphead) forming the mouth of the Grey River as it enters Greymouth from the Tasman Sea. It can be very rough and treacherous for fishing boats coming into Greymouth when conditions are rough - and can make for some spectacular photos. I've yet to photograph this, since as stated, the conditions are usually less than ideal. Not the kind of weather I think about taking my camera out in. Even though the E-M1 and my 12-50mm EZ lens are weatherproof. Still....! Maybe oneday?

Who you lookin at? Olympus OM-DE-M1 with Lumix 45-150. f/6.3 @ 1/125th, ISO 200

With plenty of time to look for the composition I wanted at sunset, when we arrived at our destination my attention was immediately caught by the seagulls that perch on the rocks surrounding the Tiphead. There was some lovely evening light as the sun was sinking behind a bank of clouds (more on those later). The seagulls, who were extremely chill and very used to having humans around, were posing politely (mostly) for us, as we snapped away from a very close distance. You can often get within a few feet of them, so very close-up and detailed images can be had.

Seagull silhouette. E-M1 with Lumix 45-150mm. f/5.6 @ 1/3200th, ISO 200 

Seagulls are scavengers, and can get quite aggressive with each other if food is around. If you happen to be eating anything near one, you will most likely suddenly find yourself surrounded by dozens and dozens of them. But if you don't have any food, they do tend to leave you alone (thankfully). Because of this scavenger reputation, they aren't one of the most popular birds to photograph. And yet they can be quite beautiful, with their bright white body feathers, grey wings and red beaks. And, of course, if you manage to capture them in silhouette like I have in the above image, then it's hard to tell what kind of bird it is (unless you're an avid bird watcher of course). 

Taking the Shot. OM-D E-M1 with Zuiko 12-50mm EZ. f/6.3 @ 1/160th, ISO 200

As the sun began to set, it became obvious that we were once again going to be thwarted by a large bank of cloud on the horizon. As you can see, there was still a strip of golden light, and this was giving us some colour in the sky, but not really what we had hoped for. Still, undaunted, we began to set up our tripods - me on one side of the road and Josh on the other.

It was at this point that I discovered a problem. I'd left my tripod mounting plate at home on my office desk! I had taken it off the tripod head to attach it to the camera prior to going out - to save time in the field. But I had obviously been distracted at that crucial moment (I'm getting old), and had forgotten to attach it! Doh!

Surprisingly though, shooting into the light and letting the foreground go to a silhouette, I was getting very hand-holdable exposure times. I had switched from my Panasonic 45-150mm telephoto to my Olympus 12-50mm EZ lens, and at the wide end of the range I was easily able to take pin-sharp images hand-held at exposures of around 1/160th to 1/200th of a second. The ibis (in body image stabilisation) on the E-M1 is fantastic, but even so, the shutter speeds I was getting were fast enough for it not to be a concern.

Cobden Tiphead at last light. E-M1 with 12-50mm EZ. f/5.6 @ 1/2sec, ISO 400 

But eventually, the light did drop significantly enough that I had to start relying on image stabilisation to get sharp images. The above image was taken at half a second - obviously with image stabilisation turned on - and is tack sharp! Just amazing.

I know that the very latest ibis in the Olympus E-M1x and E-M1 Mk3 is even better, with people hand-holding for over 2 seconds and still getting sharp results. But for an old fella like me, who comes from the film days when tripods were a necessity if you shot below 1/60th, hand-holding and getting a sharp image at even half a second is mind-blowing.

I don't try to push my luck with image stabilisation - preferring to work from a tripod or follow the focal length rule for hand-holding as much as possible (shutter speed = or greater than the focal length of lens). But in this instance, I had no option, since I had left the tripod mounting plate at home. 

Breakwater blur. E-M1 with Zuiko 12-50mm EZ. f/20 @ 2.5secs, ISO 200 

Although I was successfully getting half-second exposures, I know when I've reached my limit. For the last few images of the evening, I switched back into ICM (intentional camera movement) mode, and captured some abstract photos of the waves coming in.

Once again, these happen to be my favorite images of the evening. They just resonate with me emotionally and creatively. I'm sure there are some who might look at them and think they're just blurry, out of focus photos. While others may even question whether it's a photograph at all?

But I simply adore them. And I think I'm going to be doing a lot more of them in the future. I already have the urge to get a collection of them together and have an exhibition somewhere. It's been a long time since I put together an exhibition of my work, but I've been mulling it over a lot lately. I guess I wasn't really sure what the exhibition might be about - but now I think I do. So yeah - hopefully an exhibition is on the cards. Don't know where, don't know when (apologies to Vera Lynn) - but I will definitely post about it on the blog when I do.