Photo of the Month: October 2014

Dunstanburgh Castle, Northumberland

 8th October 2014, Dunstanburgh Castle, Northumberland Coast

Dunstanburgh Castle on the Northumberland Coast. There is not much of it left but its dramatic location on a prominent headland, part of the Whin Sill geological formation, means it is popular with photographers, especially at sunrise.
Lit by the late afternoon sun and with a high tide bringing big waves and a lot of sea spray, conditions were fairly dramatic. I didn't want to freeze the action in the waves by using a fast shutter speed. Nor was it possible to decrease the shutter speed to 1 second to create a sense of movement in the waves.  In the end I went for the opposite look and by using a Lee Big Stopper filter I was able to bring the exposure down to 45 seconds which has smoothed out the wave action and created ghosting over the rocks to suggest movement in the sea. Black and white development has increased the mood further.

 

Technical Info:

Taken with a Canon EOS 5D mkII
Zeiss Distagon T* 21/2.8 ZE lens

EXIF: ISO-100 / 45 sec / f/11
Lee filters: 0.6 Hard GND / Big Stopper (10-stop ND)

RAW File converted to TIFF in Canon DPP, developed in Adobe Photoshop CS5 with Topaz B&W Effects II plug-in

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