View From The Roadside

Borage Sky
Originally uploaded by Liam O’Neill.

Summer, with it’s long days of harsh, high sun (or rain) isn’t usually the busiest of times for my photography. I much prefer the winter, when the sun stays low in the sky most of the day, casting lovely golden light on everything, rather than casting the harsh shadows of the summer sun.
Fields of flowers, though, are one of those subjects that actually look better in the summer sun, which given that fields of flowers grow in the summer is a good thing really.
While half the county seems to be turning a golden yellow as the barely matures, some local farmers have diversified into the pharmaceutical industry. The flowers turning this field purple are called Borage or Starflower, whose oil can be used to treat hormonal related complaints. This picture is just a slice of a huge field of it, which makes for quite a sight.

I recently bought some Hi-Tech ND Graduated filters designed to be used to balance the exposure on the sky to prevent it being washed out due to the need to expose the ground properly. They work far better than the Cokin ones I had, but hadn’t been using much. In some of these borage shots I fell into a trap caused by using both the filter and a circular polariser on a wide angle lens, and turning bits of what should be blue sky into a darker shade altogether. Now I’ve seen it I’ll know to watch for it in future.

Probably the most common flower grown for medicinal purposes around Hampshire is the Poppy. Fields of both red and white poppies can be seen dotted about the county in or around June. These fields of white poppies were near Ashley (the same field in this picture).

Ashley Poppies 2
Originally uploaded by Liam O’Neill.

I spent a couple of hours here taking pictures from various different angles in between the gusts of wind. So many white poppies blowing about in the wind was magical, though looking back I can’t help wonder how much of that magic might have come from the effects of the plants in was standing amongst!
I’m not entirely happy with the pictures though. The sharp foreground and blurry backdrop technique that works in this shot, doesn’t work quite so well in the other shots. Looking at them now I would have preferred to have a shot with both the foreground and at least the middle background in more focus. It’s a lesson learned for the next time.

The next crop to turn an interesting colour is the barely, a lovely deep gold. I’m not sure I’ll get too much of a chance to take any pictures before it’s all harvested though, between softball and looking for a flat to buy. The nice thing with buying a flat will be the extra wall space it’ll give me to hang some prints of my pictures. With nowhere to hang them, I haven’t worried too much about printing these pictures, and can’t help but feel I’m perhaps missing a part of the whole photographic experience.

Micheldever Bluebells10, Originally uploaded by Liam O’Neill.

I’ve found myself down around Southampton Water a lot recently with the camera, with the three Cunard ‘Queens’ in port for the only time before the QE2 is sold off later this year, and a few days later to see the new Independence of the Seas. I like taking these shots, I find the ships themselves and the whole idea of a port with ships coming and going from all over the world fascinating, but they are ‘documentary’ shots. There is nothing wrong with that, other than that I don’t really do documentary shots. I prefer to try and take some interesting composition to add some artistic twist to the picture, and you can’t really do much with a big ship on the other side of the harbour.
I was therefore looking forward to the trip to Micheldever Wood. It’s famous for it’s bluebells, which I wanted to photograph. I’d gone along a few weekends ago just to have a scouting walk around it. There were some bluebells then, but not the carpet of them I knew to expect. Having seen bluebells popping up around the place going in and out of work, I had a pretty good idea it was time to go back to Micheldever.
The weather couldn’t have been better. Very hazy sun, normally a terrible source of light, was just prefect for this place. The bright sun giving nice bright colours, while the haze made sure there were no harsh shadows. I’d seen other pictures, so I knew what to expect, but the actual sight of this carpet of purple was still quite amazing to see. It was almost too much. In one sense you just think you could point the camera anywhere and get a great shot, but you know that simply isn’t the case, but how do you go about finding the better spots?
My approach was to take a picture of a ‘nice’ spot, then move on around the wood looking for a better spot than the last. I did that for nearly three hours while walking around a lot of the wood. There were a lot of people there, including a lot of photographers, but nothing intrusive. For me, the best place was an area of Beech at the further end from the car park. A lot of people don’t venture that far, so I was the only one there.
Standing in this sea of purple, with the lovely fragrance was spellbinding, well, as spellbinding as anything can be when your about a hundred meters from the M3. I just kept finding another great shot to take, and another, and another. I even tried some tricks with adjusting the zoom mid-exposure. The dizzying effect just seemed to sum up this place so well, though that might say more about me getting dizzy trying to place the camera in this amazing wood than anything else.
By the time I gave up, mentally exhausted and physically tired, I couldn’t have been happier. It was the perfect way to spend a few hours, and a magical place to take photographs.

Update:
Bluebells are meant to be blue. They look blue. The original version of my ones were actually purple. I went back to Micheldever on Thurday to show James where I’d taken the pictures, and in the last moments of daylight, the shots of those bluebells really do look blue. A quick alteration om the white balance on the first batch of shots, and they too look like the blue I remember them being.

Southampton Container Terminal, Originally uploaded by Liam O’Neill.

Where Portsmouth has the Spinnaker Tower, Southampton has the Container Terminal and it’s giant loading cranes. I’ve wanted to take some sort of picture of them for a long while, but I could never seem to find anywhere in around Totton that gave a good view, and none of the lanes around Marchwood looked any better. This was before I found the little slipway I used for the Queen Victoria shots, and charged with a new determination, I set off one evening a few weeks ago to try again. I very nearly failed again.
I went to where the map seemed to say my best chance would be, and again found access to the waterfront blocked behind gates and apartments. I was about to go home, when I noticed a family out walking their dogs, walking along a little dirt path by the side of a block of flats. Did the path continue around the corner? How close to the water would it get me? I parked the car and went for a walk.
As soon as I turned the corner I knew I’d found what I was looking for. The path led all the way to a little shingle beach were people were fishing or walking their dogs, and right across from the Terminal. I took a few shots, but knew I really wanted to be there as darkness fell to get a night shot.
When I went back I found my spot, and took a picture every few minutes over about half and hour as darkness fell, looking for just the right balance between the natural light of twilight and the lights of the terminal. This shot, for me, was it.
Now that I had a picture without a big container ship there, I began to wonder how different the picture would be if there had been a ship there at the time. I knew I was going to have to go back and see. I can’t remember if I checked ais-live or not, but the next time I went down, there were three ships unloading, one right opposite my little spot. I took some ‘daylight’ pictures, wandered off to see how close to the new Ventura cruise ship I could get (not very) then came back as night started to fall.

Dublin Express originally uploaded by Liam O’Neill.

It wasn’t a great nightfall. The cloud in this picture turned into a proper rain cloud, giving both a fairly boring flat sky, and rain that I couldn’t shoot in. It did finally stop, and I did take some pictures, but the Dublin Express, pointing right at me, had long ago turned on some very powerful lights on the bridge to illuminate the containers on deck, and these lights, and their long reflections in the water, very prominent in the middle of the frame, were just too bright. Instead I concentrated on the earlier pictures, and saw the Black and White potential in this one, where the threatening clouds add a real interest to the scene.

Moving water, such as waves on a beach, are an interesting topic of discussion in photography. Waves are, by their nature, fluid things, they move, they break on the beach, they flow back before the next waves arrives, all while making that familiar sound of the sea. Photographs don’t move, so what do you do about the waves? I went back to Dorset last weekend, and back to Durdle Door. I took a number of shots over the hour and a bit I was there, but I’ve picked these three out because of their shutter times.

Durdle Door - Short, originally uploaded by Liam O’Neill.
The first uses a short shutter time, 1/20 of a second. The waves, and the sea, are caught in a moment, frozen. They look “real”, the way we see waves as they move. I must admit, I don’t really favour this approach on a shot like this. To me, the waves in this shot should be moving, should be flowing. I take issue with the “real” tag too, this is really no more real than any other shot, since waves do move, they don’t stand about like they seem to do in this shot. They look a little, well, boring.

Away from the waves, getting the setting sun to cast light on the inside of Durdle Door seems to be something that might only happen on a handful of days later in the year, which is a pity.

Durdle Door - Long, originally uploaded by Liam O’Neill.
This is a much longer shutter time, 6 seconds. In that time a wave has gone through the whole cycle of forming, breaking, and washing back. This means you can’t actually see “the wave” at all, but it gives the see this misty, ghostly feel. The water looks smoother, calmer, quieter. It also doesn’t have any distracting details in it. This can be a great effect where you wouldn’t see so much of the wave, such as over rocks in the foreground of a sunset. Here, where you can see a long stretch of the beach, I don’t think it works so well. You expect to see waves here, yet they aren’t there. It gives the picture an unsettling feeling, that something isn’t quite right, which isn’t the mood I was looking for at all.
Light-wise, the sun has set by this point, and Durdle Door is light by the reflected light from the grey rain clouds passing overhead. It gives a lovely even light across the whole rock. It was taken with an aperture of f22, which has caused a little softness, as it does on smaller-than-35mm sensors. I should have stuck to f16.

Durdle Door - Medium, originally uploaded by Liam O’Neill.
This is a medium shutter time, 1/4 of a second, a compromise between the long and the short. It’s long enough to capture some movement of the waves, but not so short that they no longer look like waves. Of these pictures, the waves in this are my favourite. They still have the appearance of waves, so the sea doesn’t look alien or out of place, but you can see them just about to break, they still have that movement lacking from the short shutter time, which is such an important aspects of waves.
The light is lovely here too. It’s sunset light, with it’s slightly golden colour, but it’s not direct light either, the sun has gone behind clouds on the horizon. This light is reflected from the rain clouds overhead, who are still seeing the setting sun. As it’s reflected, it light the whole of Durdle Door evenly. with no harsh shadows.

Pebbles And A Wave, originally uploaded by Liam O’Neill.

One consequence of the car being out of action was that I couldn’t get to Portsmouth for softball training last Saturday. It was a nice day, and I somehow had a flash of inspiration; Take the train to Bournemouth! I’ve been near Bournemouth before, I might even have driven around it before, but I’d never really gone there. As much as I like beaches, and Bournemouth is about the nearest bit of real sand around here, I prefer little coves and inlets (like Rocky Bay back home). Without a car to get me around though, a day in a closed location like a city was ideal.

With no clue where to go I headed for the only thing I knew I’d find, the beach. I’ve noticed I need to get my brain into “photo mode” before I really start seeing pictures, and the best way of doing that is to take a picture of almost anything. Some interestingly designed offices did the job, and while those shots aren’t worth a second look, they did get me thinking of pictures again. That meant my mind was on the lookout for pictures, and it was near the beach that I came across the bench.

Rest A While
Originally uploaded by Liam O’Neill.

What caught my attention was the brilliant blue colour in the lovely light of the winter sun, and the nice green lamppost beside it, strong colours like that always look good. The contrast of the newish bench with the shabby, rusty lamppost just made the picture better. The slightly lonely image of the unused bench and the neglected lamp became very poignant when I went to read the inscription on the bench. It reads “Rest A While in affectionate memory of Eleanor Wolstencroft 1925-2005″. Google suggests Mrs Wolstencroft was a local lady, chairman of the East Cliff and Town Centre Residents’ Association, and an active one at that.

After the bench I took a little walk down to the Pier and along the beach, thankfully a lot quieter than it no doubt gets in the summer, but far from deserted. Nothing on the pier really caught my eye, but some gargoyle-like decorations on a shelter along the beach did. I walked along the beach, stopping to see about a shot with the groins and the waves that really wasn’t there to take, before heading off to lunch. It was when I reached the cliff-top that the powerboat race began. I’m terrible with photographs of things that move, but couldn’t resist at least trying for a few laps, the spectacle was enjoyable if nothing else, but f22 is not a great aperture for fast action shots. I always seem to get something wrong on those shots.

Lunch also meant the rugby and a none too inspiring performance from Ireland. By now there was just about an hour till sunset, and while the clouds had closed in ruling out any spectacular sunset, I took a stroll down the main street but by now it was all in shade, and didn’t strike me as full of photographic potential anyway. I’m sure there must be more photogenic parts in Bournemouth, and if Bournemouth has an old town I didn’t find it. I just didn’t have the time to look for them either. So back to the beach it was. The obvious idea was some sort of shot of the pier, but what exactly?

Time To Go Home
Originally uploaded by Liam O’Neill.

Then I noticed the sand castles on the beach, left behind by some unknown child or family. They were just in the right place to form a foreground with the pier behind them. The whole thing was just a lovely “end of the day on the beach” shot. A nicer sunset would be great, but using what you’ve got is all part of the fun for me. I was just happy to have seen the castles and been able to imagine the shot before I ever got anywhere near them. I like it when I can do that.
With the belief that I can ’see’ pictures restored, I put the camera away and took a nice walk along the beach, listening to the waves breaking. There are no rocks on Bournemouth beach, and the groins certainly weren’t going to take the place of them in any ghost-fog style shot of the water. The only option for anything like that were the little pebbles. I took a lot of shots to try and get that fog-like effect, without too much success, but one of those shots, the one above, just caught the front of a little wave as it over-ran some of the pebbles. I love that ghostly effect of the pebbles being only half-there, but I still have a lot of practise to do before I get to being able to take those pictures with any sort of confidence.

Rocky Bay Waves
Originally uploaded by Liam O’Neill.

Things have been very quiet on the photography front these past few weeks, for a number of reasons. Work was one reason, with a fair bit of it to do before Christmas. The car which I regard as a vital photographic tool (well, the blogs name does refer to the roadside after all) is also very sick right now. It’s biggest, though not only, problem is it’s blown head gasket. It was showing signs of trouble well before Christmas, and is now in need of serious repair. I’ve been very reluctant to do much driving in it, which has limited the chances to take pictures. Not that there were all that many chances anyway. The weather, especially back home in Ireland, was a horrible overcast, wet grey that was just not inspiring at all. I’m sure I could have used it better, but coupled with the broken car, I wasn’t suited to trying.
I did find myself in breathtaking scenery with lovely sunny weather for a whole week, and I had the camera with me, and I wouldn’t have needed a car to get around and take plenty of pictures. That was in St. Anton am Arlberg in Austria. It was my first time skiing, and I was there to ski. The camera was strictly a back-up plan in case the skiing didn’t work out. I (thankfully) didn’t need the backup plan, and was not going to skip an hour of skiing to take some pictures, especially when an hour of pictures could not do justice to the place anyway. Looking back it seems funny that I didn’t take even a single picture, but I know that during the week I didn’t even think about the camera even being there.
The car goes in for repairs next week, after which I should be able to go back to my little drives in search of pictures to take, but for now, I’ve put one of the three half-decent shots from the holidays back home. It’s some waves from the heavy sea crashing on Rocky Bay, the little beach I love to visit when I’m home. I’m sure I’ve said it before, but it’s little coves like Rocky Bay that I sorely miss along the Solent coastline.

Queen Victoria Twilight Panorama, originally uploaded by Liam O’Neill.

I really liked the panorama shot of the Queen Victoria from Sunday. It had all that extra detail that just isn’t there in a single shot, something a subject like a cruise ship can really do with. Unfortunately, the overly soft front section disappointed me, so when I realised I might get a second chance at the shot, I had to take it.
I knew the ship sailed around 5PM, and I knew that I’d have to be there for 4PM at the latest if I wanted to take shots at twilight, as the light faded. We had a little lull in work, amazingly, and I had the camera in the car just in case, so off I went back to Marchwood.
I was the first one there, though quickly more and more people began to arrive, naturally including a fair number of photographers. I knew what I wanted to do this time, and made sure I took enough shots, properly in focus. I also made sure I made more than one ’set’ of pictures as the evening went from day to night. We all then stood around in the gathering crowd for about an hour waiting for the ship to set off, and the promised fireworks.
It was worth the wait in the end, with a spectacular display as the ship sailed out. We had no idea where exactly the fireworks would be coming from until they started, which made getting set up impossible. I then tried the wrong lens in the mistaken belief I could use it’s extra reach, which meant a quick switch back in the midst of it all, as if fireworks aren’t stressful enough to photograph.
As it turns out I needed have bothered. I had the fireworks looking fairly good, if a little lost in the frame, a necessity if I wanted the ship in the shot too of course. What I hadn’t quite appreciated was how fast the ship was moving. It doesn’t look to be going all that fast, probably due to it’s size, but every single shot, and there are quite a few, has the ship as a very bad motion blur. None are at all usable.
Not that I’m bothered. Seeing the fireworks is good enough, and more importantly for me, I managed to get the panoramas this time. That could have become a regret, now it won’t.

Queen Victoria Panorama, originally uploaded by Liam O’Neill.

Cunard’s new cruise ship, the Queen Victoria arrived in Southampton Docks on Friday before a naming ceremony and her departure on her maiden voyage. There were a number of things connected to the whole event around Southampton this weekend, so I knew she was going to be in and might be something to think about photographing.
I do have a fascination with shipping on the Solent, from the Navy in Portsmouth, to the tankers in Fawley to the container and cruise ships in Southampton. Up to now the only place I’d found with a view to the Docks was from the marina in Hamble, which is great for the usual Cunard berths at the QE2 Terminal but not much use for anything else. I’d assumed the military port in Marchwood would have blocked any decent viewing point of the main berths, where the rest of the cruise ships come into and where the Queen Victoria was, but hadn’t really had a good look around in daylight to be certain. It turns out I was wrong, and there are in fact places in Marchwood where you can get down to the waterfront and see across to the docks. I’ll remember that for the future.
Having found the place, my first problem was discovering that I had lost my little spirit level that is so invaluable taking any picture with water in it. It wasn’t too big a problem though, with plenty of other straight lines to help me out. There really isn’t much scope for artistic experimentation when taking pictures of ships. They pretty much are what they are, which is more than impressive enough anyway. I did try a few things, one of which was various shots of a Patrol boat as it passed by the ship. The last of those quick shots had the bow of the Queen Victoria as the backdrop, and I had a brainwave. A panorama shot of the ship, giving far more detail than a single shot could manage. I didn’t know it then, but that was where I slipped up a little. The last shot of the patrol boat wasn’t quite as focused as it could have been, probably due to rushing to get the picture as it moved along, but I didn’t take a fresh shot to replace it for the panorama. I’ll ruin the picture for you now, but if you look closely, you will see that the front section of the boat, from the front mast forward, is a touch soft.
Other than that, AutoStitch has done a wonderful job of the blend, giving a massive 20+ megapixel shot with enough detail that you can actually see people sitting at tables in the bar/restaurant in the top-middle section. I’ve put the full thing on flickr, so make sure to follow the “all sizes” links and view the original file. I’m new to these panorama shots, and this one wasn’t planned at all, so perhaps it would have been a better move to wait for the evening to darken a bit to bring out the lights on the ship better. I did that, but only with the more normal single shots, I didn’t try for another panorama later on. This is only the second one of these that has even worked, so hopefully I’ll learn some lessons from this one and the next one will be better again, the first lesson being that this stuff can work at all, and when it does, it’s well worth the extra effort.

Sunset over South Parade Pier, originally uploaded by Liam O’Neill.

It’s been a while since we’ve had a photo club 2 hour challenge, and I missed the last one as it was. I almost had to skip this one too. The original date was the week before but the weather was terrible so we moved it back a week. That meant it was going to start just as softball training in Hursley ended, with the challenge being in Southsea. It was such a nice day though, that I brought the camera with me to training and went down to Portsmouth straight after, arriving a little before 3:00, with about an hour left.
I stayed around the Esplanade on the shoreline, I didn’t really have time to venture further inland, and street photography isn’t my thing anyway. Looking back I should have gone to Clarence Pier and Old Portsmouth, where some of the others were, but instead I went in the opposite direction and headed for Southsea Castle.

Shoreside, Southsea
Originally uploaded by Liam O’Neill.

Before I got there I found this structure just off the footpath. I don’t really know what it’s purpose is, though it’s clearly some sort of breakwater, presumably either to break up waves hitting the wall, or to somehow catch boats the run ashore. In the light of the low sun, the curves and pattern of repeating standing stones was too good to skip. This shot is actually taken on the way back. The first time I took some shots there were too many people moving along the path that I couldn’t get a clear shot, and didn’t have much desire to wait around. This is where the time limit idea can get in the way.
I continued on to the castle and it’s lighthouse, and while the light was great, there was no obvious picture from the waterside of the castle. I went around to the shore-side though, and thought I could do something with the pond and fountains there. I tried a number of shots but they weren’t great. They needed the sunlight to catch the fountains far more than it did, and they were ruined by some horrible lens flare sitting right on top of the lighthouse anyway.
I meant to come back via the tanks on the roadside outside the D-Day museum, but clean forgot to, coming back by the uninteresting bandstand instead, back to the bollard-thingy in the second picture. By now it was almost 4:00 and with the sun setting, I was only going to get to go to one more place. That had to be the South Parade Pier. I’d wanted to take a nice sunset shot there for a while, and this was the chance.
When I got there, instead of being almost empty, I found the beach full of fishermen, complete with tents all along the beach. At first I thought that was going to put pay to any go at taking a picture, but I went ahead anyway. I was going to have to go between the fishermen, but in order to see the pier and not the tents along the beach, I had to get a little closer than I might otherwise have preferred. Having found the spot, I set up the camera and took a first shot, a banker if you will. The sun was still a little high, with a real chance things might get even better as it set. I took a picture every few minutes, and as usual the preview image’s darkness made me take second shots slightly overexposed, with them proving not to be needed when looking at them on the computer. Funnily enough though, the sunset didn’t really get better. Some of the clouds did, but the sun itself didn’t, hiding in clouds and then behind the pier. This shot, the first I took with the sun still fairly high, works the best. The little golden path of light to the sun being lost in the later shots. The picture itself crops out some beach on the bottom and some uninteresting sky at the top.
All in all, just two pictures to chose from really, let alone enter. At least I won’t have to wonder about not entering a better picture this time.

Farley Mount Rapeseed Field
Originally uploaded by Liam O’Neill.

This is a view from the opposite side of the road to the Farley Mount monument. Every time I drive past it, I just catch a glimpse of it through the hedge and trees, and keep thinking it would make a nice photograph, just not today when the light/clouds/trees/whatever aren’t right. I had tried to photograph it before but the ploughed field and the way the shadows fell across it didn’t work at all. Then, one day last May, I tried again. I was looking to photograph the rapeseed anyway, it’s yellow always mixed well with a blue sky. I took a few shots, was reasonably pleased with it all, then I seem to have forgotten all about it.

I presume this is connected to my new monitor. It was a few weeks after buying it before I got around to calibrating it, and I remember being very reluctant to process any pictures until then. It being the summer, when I didn’t really get to take that many pictures at all, everything just hid away unnoticed. I was backing up pictures during the week (always a good idea) when I found the folder again to copy it to the DVD. I had a look to see what the pictures were of and thats when I found this one. Two lessons for me there, always back up stuff, and always keep old stuff so you can go back to it again later and maybe find something you missed the first time through.

Salisbury Crosses
Originally uploaded by Liam O’Neill.

Driving around a few weekends ago I found myself near Salisbury. The sun was getting low at this time, and it cast the Cathedral in that lovely glowing “golden hour” light. I parked the car and went for a walk around. It was only when I got to the Cathedral that I remembered why I hadn’t been there in a while. Between the scaffolding on one side and the walls and trees of whatever is on the other side, there really is only one aspect of the Cathedral available to photograph, and I’d already taken pictures of it before. Nevertheless, I took the same pictures as before with this new light and leaves on the trees. It was fun later seeing how similar my composition was, but at the time I was a little disappointed. To “save” the trip I went looking for something new. The impressive statues on the façade just weren’t working for me but I saw that I could frame the top of that façade and the spire together if I stood in the right place. The result is this picture. It was at least a new angle on the place and I was pleased with that.

Backlit Tree
Originally uploaded by Liam O’Neill.

The last picture here is from a copse of wood near the house. I had actually thought of going to the New Forest again to look for trees, a long enough round trip with a touch of needles and haystacks about it. I had a flash of inspiration, don’t go there, stay here. It has been ages since I went anywhere near any of the paths through the woods around the house. It’s fairly natural woodland in that it’s not pre-planted in neat little rows and for my purposes it was just as good as the forest would have been, maybe even better. I will have to go walk around it again in different light to see what else might be there. This tree, on the edge of a clearing was in full sunlight. I saw this view of it walking along a path behind the camera. A quick walk around to find the best spot and that was that.

If nothing else it was nice to walk around the local area again anyway, something I hadn’t done in far too long. The light wasn’t really right for many more shots but there were some places that would be well worth another visit in the hope of catching better light. The train track picture is also from that walk, a touch cliché perhaps, but I really couldn’t not take it. Far better to decide it doesn’t work later on the computer screen than not to take the picture at all.