An Unexpected Journey.

Are we all seated comfortably, then I will begin….

It all started with a volunteer, and in direct opposition to years of training I actually volunteered for this mission. The Journey was to Wells on the North Norfolk coast, the mission to take images for PhotoPlus Canon magazine, for I was to be an Apprentice to AJ for the day.

I set off nice and early on the Wednesday morning to ensure when I arrived I had time for coffee and bacon rolls, being prepared is always nice. Once consumed it was a case of waiting for Dan from the magazine and AJ to arrive. AJ had a rough plan for the day and weather depending we would try and stick to it.

The first task was long exposures on the groynes and thankfully the tide was high otherwise it would be a bit pointless. However the interesting broken cloud seemed to disappear in a few seconds to leave us with a cloudless expanse.

Once we had a few of these shots in the bag and posing for some pics for the magazine we wandered along the beach to try the dunes at the far end, the sky by now was empty of cloud and making conditions a bit tricky.

ICM was next on the list and I had to use a 6 stop ND to get a slow enough shutter speed to make it possible. 

AJ was brilliant with advice and tips as always, and it was just a great day to get away from the confines of home and work and to get outside my photographic comfort zone that still life has seem to become.

Once we had a few ICM shots we moved to the Marram grass covered dunes to get some fluffy bum shots. The thing I love about Wells is the massive skies it makes everything else seem so small. 

Once we had these and some posing for the video and some more for the magazine, we trudged back to the cars and on to our next location, which was Brancaster Staithes. Here we were doing some boats in the harbour and a bit of experimenting, also my choice of waders came in very handy as I could get quite a way into the water.

From there we moved to another small harbour and AJ’s favourite boat, along with detail shots. More tips from AJ were great especially around bracketing shots for HDR. 

The day for me (as you can see) seemed to be very much about mono images but did manage the odd splash of colour.

Our last venue for the day involved a wander across a golf course to get to a row of beach huts, by this time the light was ….errrrm variable, one phrase that AJ used was s**t light. But again with some patience we managed a few images.

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