I am not one to shy away from a challenge, I have certainly put myself in many a difficult situation when it comes to attempting to bag some shots, most of those however were down by the light and not trying to beat or match other photographers. One challenge that I did last year which was not only lots of sun but also both challenging and rewarding was when I had Mads Peter Iversen, Michael Shainblum & Nigel Danson over and we decided to have a 400mm challenge in harsh light and gale force winds, I enjoyed it, and was happy that I was able to stay toe to the with the pros.

Now, given that I was back on the Dingle Peninsula for the first time since they all visited last September, I arrived at one of the locations I had brought them to and was immediately reminded of the conditions that we had to shoot and the different shots that each of us got. The weather was similar with regards to the wave action, although it wasn’t as wild as we had back then, nonetheless, I set about giving myself another personal challenge to try and emulate a shot that master photographer Michael Shainblum had got on that day. His shot encapsulated what it means to photograph large waves and the conditions we had then were similar to today, so I set about trying to get my version.

To the left side of the beach at Clogher are a couple of stacks that are pounded by the waves daily, however when you have big swells like I had today and we had back then, what you get is an opportunity to freeze the action as waves crash against it. Michaels’s shot was a perfect example of that, he was able to freeze the action, but also use the dark cliffs in the background to bring out the contrast in the wave. The cherry on top for his shot was that the wave shape emulated the shape of the stack, a wonderful shot which made it into his top images from 2023, so of course now it was my turn.

I had one additional factor either on my side or against me and that was the large blazing ball of light which was flooding the area, now this could have been something that was a hindrance, however, it’s position, I felt was ideal as it lit up the scene to enable me to get very fast shutters, I was shooting at 1/2500 of a second for most of the shoot. I know I would get a similar shot, however, to get an exact shot would be near impossible as each wave is different to the next and I knew I wouldn’t get the same image.

I found the spot, framed up my shot and waited for the waves to arrive. I didn’t have long to wait until the first click of the shutter occurred. I was shooting at high speed continuous, which meant that I was able to get a shot of the wave as it neared, exploded and then cascaded back down the rock, surely in all of these there would be a shot to compare. A quick review on the back of the camera, well actually in the EVF as it was too bright to get an idea from the LCD screen, and I know I had the framing right, so it was just a matter of waiting a few seconds before peeling off the next batch of shots to freeze the wave in action.

Michael was using his 400mm lens for his shot, and while I could have gotten my Sigma 150-600 out, I didn’t want to as I felt I needed to be as fast as possible with it came to shutter speed, and my Sigma would be at f6.3 when extended, so I chose to use my 70-200 f4 and I could crop in, in post later. This decision could have come back to bite me, if I had under-exposed the image as the data wouldn’t be there to crop in on, thankfully however I was able to get the shutter and exposure right for my shots. A challenge in itself as the scene is dark and the cliffs behind are dark also, so the risk of noise was high, but as mentioned I was ok.

After a few more rapid-fire shots I looked at the EVF and saw my winner. A wave was about to crescendo over the stack, but I froze it just in time for it to reveal its shapes and textures, arching its way up and eventually over the stack, but I had done it. I was missing the waves flowing in the foreground for mine, but I didn’t mind as they simply weren’t there for me to shoot, the waves while big, weren’t as colossal as we had during Storm Agnes back in September, so it meant I had to accept what I had. I was happy, however.

Once this was in the bag I then looked around to see if I could catch other features of the area, Waves crashing off a distant rock that lies at the edge of the headland with An Fear March in the background, or waves rolling in towards me being backlit by the omnipresent sun, I didn’t mind what I shot, they were all good in my eyes, but I had what I came to get from the initial outset.

You can watch my adventure on my YouTube Chenille and see the other images I took in the Gallery Below

Thanks for reading and your continued support

Darren

Inspired to Succeed