The Photographers Ephemeris

I'm a sucker for sunsets, I really am and there's lots of places I'm getting to know where, given the right conditions, some spectacular ones can be seen. My current favourite locations are West Kirby on the Wirral peninsular and the west coast of Anglesey from Llanddwyn to Tywyn Fferam. There's lots of places to discover, too. I'm planning a trip to the Jurassic coast of Dorset, the north Devon coast and to see and photograph the wooden lighthouse at Burnham on Sea in Somerset probably in May.


One of the best tools I've found for planning such adventures is The Photographers Ephemeris. This little tool allows you to plot sunrise and sunset times for just about any location in the world. It's superbly accurate; I put it to the test a couple of weeks back on Anglesey when it plotted the sunrise at Beaumaris perfectly. There's two versions: a desktop one, which is free, and an iPhone app, which is £5.49 (UK). Once you've got a copy of the program or app start it up and search for a location. When it finds where you're after it drops a pin that can be moved to the optimum location. Yellow and blue 'beams' are projected showing the sunrise and sunset on the yellow axis and moonrise and set on the blue one complete with times. You can fix the date to any point in the year.


There's all sorts of other calculations such as elevation above sea level, azimuth and altitude of the sun or moon for any time of daylight and it will even find when the sun/moon will appear from behind a hill! It's invaluable for the landscape photographer. All I now need to complete my landscape kit is a nice set of Lee ND grad filters!


You can get TPE by clicking below:

http://photoephemeris.com/

To round off this post, here's a West Kirby sunset from last winter. As always, ACR5 was used to process the image before final tweaking in Elements and a 5x5 crop, a format I'm liking this more and more...

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Dawn at Bangor

After the snow and ice of December the weather in January was not particularly brilliant and certainly not when I was free to take some photographs. I did manage a couple of good days on Anglesey in the middle of the month and took the weather people at their word turning out to shoot the dawn from Beaumaris Pier. It was a lovely morning with nary a cloud in sight, which rather spoiled my plan of shooting the sun rising over the Welsh mountains. And it was cold with a sharp easterly wind adding a sizeable windchill factor. All was not lost because as I was driving back to Menai Bridge the sun popped over the mountain tops and bathed Menai Straits in a lovely golden light. I knew a spot where I could get to the water's edge and managed to get a couple of half decent shots. Here's a picture of Bangor Pier taken from the slipway of the Gazelle Hotel. Enjoy!

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From a Riverside Balcony...

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The snow returned on Friday sprinkling its magic over Cheshire. Here's a scene from the balcony of a good friend's home looking out over the River Dee towards Chester; a delightful view enhanced by the snow and beautiful sunlight.


This is four images taken with my compact camera, which were then stitched together in Photoshop Elements. They were then tidied up using Adobe Camera RAW and finished off back in Elements where the brightness was tweaked to bring a a little detail in the trees on the left. 

I've Known Mornings White as Diamonds*

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Tuesday dawned cold, clear and crisp with a sharp hoar frost so I packed a lightweight camera kit and set off on the numerous footpaths near home in search of things to photograph. I shared my three hour trek with robins, blue tits, rabbits, lapwing, fieldfares and assorted other wild things exploring a couple of footpaths I'd not been along before. This lovely scene - yes, the sky really was that blue! - was a bit of a challenge to expose correctly. I think this is the pick of the images I took during my walk. I hope you like it.




*White as Diamonds - Alela Diane from the album "To Be Still"

Holiday Homes 3

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Fresh overnight snow followed by freezing temperatures in Snowdonia produces a wonderful sight for walkers and photographers alike. A storm is gathering over Foel-Goch bringing the threat of yet more snow and adds some drama to the scene while Llyn Ogwen remains frozen over despite early morning sun. New Year's Day 2010.