Shoot a graphical shot on the beach
After a couple of hours working the pier, it was time to explore the beach. The stark light and shade generated by the combination of clear blue skies and midday light didn’t lend itself to classic landscape photography, but Brighton has plenty of other seaside nuggets to focus on – including the British Airways i360. This observation tower takes passengers to a height of 450 feet (20 feet higher than the London Eye) – but it’s the view of the pod itself that caught Alain’s eye.
“I originally wanted to shoot straight up from the base of the tower with the wideangle lens, but was prevented from getting there,” he says. “So I opted to stand at a distance and shoot with a longer focal length to emphasise the details of the cabin before it got too high.
“My plan was to get a frame-filling shot showing the size of the capsule relative to the people in it, but also include the landscape underneath in the multi-layered reflections. The capsule moves quite slowly, and with the abundance of sunshine I plumped for an exposure of 1/500 sec at f/8, ISO 200.
Expert opinion
Alain’s shot has an impressive level of clarity, with bags of detail to pick out in all the panels and an almost threedimensional feel. The graphical, almost abstract feel of the geometric shapes against the solid blue sky contrasts with the human interest of the observers.
Holiday season was yet to get into full swing, so the pier wasn’t heaving with people. This gave Derek and Alain more breathing space to pick out potentially interesting scenes with both short and long focal lengths.
Derek was keen to try out a range of lenses, from an 8mm fisheye and 45mm micro lens right up to a 75-300mm zoom. If you’re unfamiliar with the Olympus Micro Four Thirds system, the sensor is half the size of a full-frame sensor – so doubling the focal length tells you the equivalent lens required to produce the same view on a full-frame camera. “The 45mm lens I was using has the equivalent focal length of 90mm, so it lets you get in close, and its compact size lets you do this discreetly,” says Derek.
“For this shot, I tried to keep the figure in the window as the central focus, while still having an interest in the other thirds of the image. The central figure kept moving and people were walking past, so it was a waiting game to realise the image I had in mind.”
Expert opinion
Visually, this is quite a busy, intricate image, despite there not being much going on. The viewer’s eye is drawn to the guy in red on the left, thanks to that block of solid colour, with the flags looping around the shop front adding further emphasis; so it’s a shame he’s looking down. That being said, Derek’s captured a good sense of two workers grabbing a moment’s peace.