“There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality, and then there are those who turn one into the other.” ~ Douglas H. Everett
Today feels like somewhat of a milestone. While this is certainly not the first image I’ve released this year it is the first that I have both photographed and published.
I visited this location for the first time just over a year ago, although on that occasion for sunrise. It was a simply stunning dawn and I ended up producing three images from that outing; entitled First Light on Bray Head, Sunrise over Naylor’s Cove and Isolation. The latter went on to receive an an Honourable Mention at the International Photography Awards later in the year. To say then that my interest in returning here was high might be a slight understatement 🙂
On this occasion it was the opposite end of the day I arrived, about an hour before sunset. Both the cloud cover and wind speed was perfect for the image I was hoping to capture, this broken down old jetty jutting out into a silent sea while the clouds moved restlessly overhead. It took a little bit of experimenting to get the components of the composition correct and I ended up shooting two separate frames, one extended exposure of 4 minutes for the sea and an 80 seconds exposure for the sky. I then blended the two later in Photoshop. By doing this I was able to maintain structure within the moving clouds while isolating the jetty in an almost perfectly calm sea. I composed this image as a panoramic and this final 2×1 aspect ratio works well, I think in adding to a sense of isolation of the Jetty within the space.
