A toast to the coast
No one in Britain is more than 70 miles from the sea. We asked finalists of this year’s Shipwrecked Mariners' Society photographic competition for their tips on photographing it
in the uK a seascape is within reach of most. Eleven winners of the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society photo competition pass on their advice
Not forgotten David Jenner
This image was taken at Barmouth harbour, North Wales. On the night of the full moon the tide was a long way out, enabling me to get on to the beach and up close to this magnificent old lifeboat. However, the poorly lit environment posed a number of issues. My first test shot of 30 seconds illustrated the diffi culties, since all I could see in the black abyss was the bright moon that was so overexposed it looked like the sun. I knew that this image would require multiple exposures, which I would have to blend together in post- production.
It never ceases to amaze me just how short an exposure you need to capture the colour and detail in the surface of the moon and, after a number of shots which were constantly interrupted by passing cloud, I fi nally got the perfect image at 1/640sec at f/4 (ISO 100). Once this had been achieved, I then set about capturing the image of the boat itself. No matter how long I exposed the shot there just wasn’t enough ambient light from the harbour to capture the detail in the vessel’s paintwork. So my only solution was to light paint the boat with a pocket torch. A 30secs exposure at f/8 (ISO 100) gave me just enough to bring out the detail in the raw file. Back in the studio I then blended the short exposure I did of the moon, along with my light painted long exposure of the boat to give me the perfectly balanced image. www.davidjenner.co.uk.