Arriving on location at the wrong time is a situation that many photographers face, the solution is to just wait, however, is it possible to bag some shots in the wrong conditions and time and bag some long exposure shots?

When it comes to landscape photography I am a big proponent of the motto that bad conditions do not exist, there’s always a shot, and there are generally two exceptions to that rule when there is sideways rain or clear skies. Both of course can be overcome, if you put yourself out there at least you stand a better chance of bagging a shot, however with the latter, the blazing sun can make it nearly impossible to get a song shot, mainly due to the harshness of the light in your shots so it’s best advised to shoot with the sun so you can watch its glow and not have it directly in the shot. However, on this occasion, I decided to ignore all that advice and put myself in what seemed like an impossible situation.

Arriving at a beach that I hadn’t visited before was the first challenge I faced, where to find a good comp and then what to shoot after finding it. The beach I question is Ballycroneen in East Cork, a place that I had scouted many times before but never with the camera. The time was 2 pm and the sun was high in the sky, however, what I did notice was some great wave action crashing over the rocks that line the left side of the beach, so rather than take the comfortable route and sit this one out, I opted to take my gear over the rocks to find a suitable location right at the water’s edge. The mission was to attempt to capture some long exposure shots of the water as it cascaded over the jagged rocks.

The rocks that I found were very nice, there were some great shapes and textures in them and when the water arrived it then completely changed the scene, so I set about finding my first composition. And settled on a pool of water below me, framed but these rocks with a great natural curve that would act as an ideal frame. I took my first test shot, and boy was it a mess, the sun was so bright that even my 10-stop couldn’t tame it, I will include the shot below so you have an idea of what I was dealing with.

So I found myself at a juncture where I needed to tap into my creativity and make use of additional filters to enhance my chances of capturing a successful shot. Luckily, my reliable KASE filter system came to the rescue, offering me the advantage of magnetic filters that could be swiftly and effortlessly attached without the need for intricate maneuvers in the cramped space I found myself in with my camera and tripod. I strategically incorporated a polarizer to diminish the glare in the scene before me, and coupled it with a 6-stop along with a 10-stop filter to equip myself with the essential tools to manage the intense light. To my surprise, the resulting image turned out well, a realization that I attribute, upon reflection, to my thoughtful composition. Leveraging the natural curve as an anchor, I framed the shot with the captivating rocks adorned with unique shapes, vegetation, and textures, not only serving as a compelling subject but also helping to pacify the turbulent waves. While I still had to address some areas of overexposure, it was not the sky that posed a challenge, but rather the pool of water below, reflecting the sun's rays directly into my lens. Nevertheless, securing this shot instilled confidence in me that there were further opportunities to be seized at this location, even amidst seemingly insurmountable conditions. All that was left now was to edit the image and I wold do this quite selectively,

I moved to my next compositions, closer to these jagged rocks to try and catch the water as it flowed over them, I now changed over to my preferred speed of shooting waves, 0/5 seconds, and managed to capture some very interesting movement in the water as it arrived to my feet. The waves at this point were adding to my experience as they were arriving thick and fast with some even reaching my feet, so this action combined with the rocks resulted in my next images.

A few compositions later and I seemed to be gravitating back to the long exposure shots. I felt that the water movement albeit nice, wasn’t doing the shots any justice, I instead was leaning to the ethereal look and feel that comes from the long exposure shots, but I still had that blazing sun to deal with. Now to be fair it did go behind some clouds from time to time, allowing me to shoot some shots that didn’t have the harsh highlights to fight against, and when it did come back out again, I opted to take some shots with little to no sky, in fact, some shots had just the rocks with water flowing over them I front of me. I did find that many shots felt messy to my eye, nonetheless within those I felt there would be some that would resonate with me.

There was a lesson in this for not only me but for others too, in that, even if you may feel that you have an impossible task ahead, it is best to at least give it a go, and use the tools at your disposal to try to tame the light, after all, if you don’t try you don’t know. Were the shots I got that day bangers, perhaps not, but did I learn from them, absolutely yes. And even if I didn’t get any shots at all, I still got to use my camera, and find compositions to return to another time when the light would be more favourable.

You can see the images I took during this shoot below, plus watch the full adventure on my YouTube channel if you wish, I love for you to join my adventures on my channel, and together we can continue to learn

Thanks for reading and your continued support

Darren

Light Tamer