The weather has been fantastic recently, although the skies were a bit bland for any exciting photography. Clear blue skies whilst nice for walks and days out are just not as exciting as those filled with wispy or fluffy clouds. This combined with numerous PC problems meant I hadn't gotten out much, but last night I was finally able to fit in a trip to the South Downs.

I started my journey by visiting a new location I've been working on up behind Alfriston. I arrived at about 7:45pm and the sun was just starting to produce the low golden light that I was looking for. My goal was to capture the rolling landscape bathed in the warm light. I ended up trekking up hill towards the South Downs way before finding a spot that seemed to work. After spending some time with a couple of compositions I wasn't that enthused by the shots I was taking.

Instead I decided to revisit a location on Windover Hill by the Long Man to capture the sunset in the distance behind Firle Beacon. I arrived as the sun was rapidly sinking and had to move fast to start the walk up the hillside. After passing through the first gate I spotted an old piece of farm machinery next to the path. It had been there for a long time as it was a nice rusty colour and somehow I’d never really taken it in before. The sun was perfectly placed behind the plough and the opportunity was too good to miss.

I was using my trusty 17-40mm lens on the 1D MkIIN with mirror lockup and shutter release. As a side I really need to replace the shutter release cable as the wire must be damaged since it only fires when held at specific angles. Initially I fitted a Cokin P121 ND Grad filter hoping to hold back the bright sun to retain some foreground details. It was however not enough to balance the exposure and since I’ve not had good results by stacking filters I decided to instead go for bracketed exposures instead.

This process required a bit more work to get it right and more processing afterwards to combine the exposures but it is much better at handling greater extremes of exposure. I removed the ND Grad filter and whilst working AV priority at F/14 I went about making a number of exposures of the scene, adjusting the exposure compensation by 2/3s of a stop each time. After completing 5 or 6 frames I moved onto the next composition.

Having had a quick review of the shots this morning I think I’ve got one workable sequence that looks pretty good. I’ll need to spend some time processing the RAW files and merging the exposures to complete the photograph.

After capturing the sunset I waited a few minutes to see if the sky would provide any further excitement but it was obviously not in the mood so I packed up and set off for home. Passing the Long Man through Wilmington village I spotted an unusual scene which I had to shoot. The nearly full moon was out and up behind the hillside in the perfect spot to capture with the Long Man. Since it was only a few minutes after sunset there was enough light to capture the scene with a long exposure.

I parked up at the car park and jogged onto the Long Man path looking for a spot to set up the tripod. I didn’t have time to fully close in on the Long Man so I picked a spot very close to where I was shooting a sunrise a month or so ago. Again I needed to bracket the shots to capture some foreground detail whilst retaining detail in the moon. Having reviewed the shots I’m not sure I underexposed quite enough but since I work in RAW I have some latitude for correction. For my foreground detail shots I was shooting at 2 seconds to capture enough light. I think the shot may work but if the composition is not right I’ll certainly consider returning sometime soon to try a re-shoot, perhaps when it’s actually a full moon behind. I can’t recall ever seeing this scene at dusk or night so I’m quite driven to try and photograph it.

I’ll try to update this blog with some of the final shots once they’re processed. Until then remember to put the 24^th June in your calendar as I’ll be exhibiting around 24 photographs at Eastbourne Framing Centre on the corner of Grove Road and Terminus road, by the mini roundabout and Eastbourne library. I hope to see you there.