Penarth Pier Sundown

It’s been a month since I started this blog, woohoo go me for actually sticking something out for once, and as that’s the case I thought I’d do something a little different. I said when I started this that I’d be posting film photography but I may expand it to include some of my digital portfolio as well so that’s what I’m going to do today and I’ll see what kind of reaction I get. If it’s positive well then maybe I’ll do it again in the future, if not…..well then we shall never speak of this fateful day again.

So, above is a shot I took of Penarth Pier in South Wales (the Vale of Glamorgan to be exact although for some people who probably don’t know where that is…….it’s not far from Cardiff, where I live) taken on my Nikon D5200 using a Sigma 10-20mm 4-5.6 EX DC lens, 14mm f/29 at 1 second ISO 400. This was the first time I took that lens out after getting it, so I went to do something I’d always wanted to do, take a medium/long exposure of the Pier at sundown, and this was taken somewhere between 17:30 and 18:30 on a winter’s evening.

Firstly lets just say it was flipping cold, standing next to the sea in February after a relatively cloudless day tends to do that. Secondly, the sunset is nowhere to be seen as the sun was actually setting directly behind me over some cliffs, personally I think that worked out much better due to the colours that ended up in this image. And thirdly the pier was recently refurbished and re-opened, which is wonderful as there are far too many relics of our past and history that are left to disuse and decay, this is their website for anyone that’s interested.

So what do I like about this? Well the colours I adore, pink, candy floss sky reflecting off the water giving a dreamy strange glow to the whole image, with that colouring bleeding into the pebbles on the beach as if the sea itself is washing the shades over them. The creamy, almost smooth look of the sea that you get from a longer exposure, I feel there’s something about water when viewed this way that just looks spectacular, almost as if you could walk on it. The shoreline leading up to the Pier in the distance, which then bisects and leads out into the centre of the shot, framing the sea and giving a hard defining point between sea and sky, which then continues across as a layer of cloud across to the other side of the frame. I have to say I was terribly impressed with myself simply because I didn’t really think I could create a photo like this, one that I think is actually quite good.

So what do other people think? I’d love some feedback. If it’s good and you’d like to see more then I could make this a regular thing rather than just posting film photography. Please feel free to comment below.