Framedlight

The next and last morning we left at 6.00am again to try for another sunrise at Pett Level. This time dawn was a much gentler occasion and the sky soon became overcast again. We went back to the hotel for breakfast, where I noticed that a lot more people were having the 'full English' rather than the abstemious continental breakfast. There was a little conference room which we used for some image reviews and discussion before going out for the final outing of the day. Back to another set of groynes on the beach to obtain some different compositions. We finally all went our separate ways around 3.30pm. It had been a very well organised workshop with a good mix of locations, and a little classwork stuff with image discussion which is always very useful. Lizzie and Alex did a good job of coping with a wide range of experience within our small group. But first just a couple of views from the hotel itself, The Lodge at Winchelsea and then down to some more groynes.

The next morning we went further up the beach at Pett Level where it becomes more rocky and there is a large, crumbly cliff. We had left the hotel at 6.00am in order to  try and grab some sunrise shots. The sky lightened to what looked like it was going to be a dull morning, so nobody thought much would come of sunrise. How wrong could we be, the sky flamed red and a scarlet sun rose above the horizon. Very exciting, and I tried different compositions to extract as much as I could out of the moment. After sunrise the sky dulled and everything looked overcast again. It had been a surprising interlude.

Following on from sunrise we went back to the hotel for breakfast. Kippers were on the menu so I chose those. They brought 3. I manfully struggled through 2 but the third was a kipper too far. Next we were driven to Fairfield Church, which lies in the middle of a field with a stream flowing in front  of it. This is a much photographed location and I didn't do much more than the normal viewpoint. The first being a long exposure and the next two using a tilt and shift lens to make first a panorama and then a tilted version to get everything front to back in focus at f/8 And next Dungeness. I have been here a couple of times before, the last around 3 years ago and I was saddened to see that one of the huts had fallen down and things were looking rather cleaned up. It may have been that gales have swept the lighter detritus off of the shingle. I know that three of the pictures below don't look particularly 'cleared up'. It

A couple of weeks ago I went on a photography workshop weekend based around Winchelsea. The workshop was run by Lizzie Shepherd and Alex Hare, who made all of us feel comfortable photographically speaking and also as far as board and lodging was concerned. The 6 participants all arrived at the hotel on the outskirts of Winchelsea at around 1.30pm on the Friday, and after a round of introductions we set out for the beach at Pett Level. Trip Advisor says that Pett Level in no 9 of 56 attractions to see around Hastings! For photographers it must rate more highly than this. We crossed the high sea wall and came down on to the shingle beach and found that there were numerous, beautifully weathered groins, just being cleared by the sea. We were there to do a bit of long exposure photography and I used a couple of different filters to get different lengths of exposure. Here are a couple of my efforts and then the final one where I have added some textures to give a different effect. I know