A good start to 2020.
Combesgate and Woolacombe 04/01/2020
I hope that everybody reading this enjoyed the festive period and wish you all a productive and prosperous New Year.
Saturday 4th January 2020 was my first trip of the year. Combesgate beach on the North Devon coast was my chosen destination and one that I’ve never visited before. My Dad agreed to accompany me and we left our hometown of Weston Super Mare at 5.30am, making the 2 hour drive through the dark country lanes and arriving just before 7.30am.
Camera choice for the day was a Chamonix C45H-1 along with a Hasselblad 500cm. Film choice was Ilford FP4 and Kodak Tri-X.
My Dad has just recently purchased a couple of small drones, so it was a good opportunity for him to come along with me and get some footage. Drones have never really interested me, however it was impressive to see what they were capable of, even in windy conditions.
When visiting a location, I’m always intrigued by the smaller features such as rock formations or plant and trees that I feel give the landscape it’s individual character. When I first started making trips, it was always to shoot using a wide-angle lens to capture as much of the scene as possible.
As I have matured as a photographer, I have started to include more intimate details of the landscape. A lot of my images now concentrate on features that I feel make a landscape unique. I believe this builds a broader picture and gives a better overall appreciation of the landscape as a whole.
It’s been a while since I used my large format camera, so it was refreshing to do so. Initially it’s a challenge to compose upside down on the ground glass but it quickly becomes second nature. Using a spot meter to carefully read the scene and decide on the correct exposure and filtration required was important to ensure I got the best negatives to print with.
The tide was rising as I set up for the first image of the day. The sky had some nice clouds forming and a section of rocks caught my eye as I walked towards to sea. The sand at this location is very coarse and provided a nice contrast with the dark rocks that are the main focus of the image.
Before the tide got too high, I moved down to the where the waves were reaching the shore. Timing for this shot was important as I wanted to use the diagonal line produced by the waves as a lead in line and miss timing it would result in a weaker composition. Choosing the right shutter speed to show movement but maintain texture in the water was also important to me.
After this initial setup we decided to put most of the kit in my truck and take a walk around the corner to the beach at Woolacombe. I grabbed my 500cm and we went down for a stroll along the beach. There was some beautiful light coming through the clouds producing the opportunity for some very atmospheric images. A paraglider was enjoying the winter sun and onshore breeze and provided additional interest for my next image. The beauty of film is that the gradation in areas of strong highlights tends to be very subtle. If I had shot this using a digital camera, although possible, I think the chances of the highlights blocking up and looking poor would have been much higher.
After a coffee and bite to eat we walked down the steep steps to Combesgate beach and waited for the tide to retreat. It is worth noting that due to the steep steps at this location it is unsuitable for wheelchair access.
Setting my tripod up on the rocks I wanted to capture another image of the interesting rock formations. There appeared to be a high concentration of what looked like quartz within these rocks, something that I haven’t seen anywhere else so far so decided to make the image.
I explored the area a bit more after this but found myself lacking further inspiration. The light had started to change and become very flat. There certainly didn’t seem to be any chance of great light around sunset and the rain had also started to move in. Up to this point we had been very lucky with the weather with only a couple of light showers. I made a couple of further exposures from high on the rocks and then we packed up ready to head home.
The whole day was a really nice start to the year and a good way to kick off my photography for the year ahead. Having a bunch of negatives to process in the evenings is always welcome and the excitement of producing prints from negatives is a further bonus.
I usually use Ilford DDX for all my film processing but decided to process all of the FP4 that I shot using Rodinol. The result was some of the best negatives I’ve produced so far so I will continue to use it for now. I want to try Kodak HC-110 in the near future as well and will be interested to see the results.
The journey continues…
Matt.