minimalimits

Another new word invented!  Yay!

Summertime is not great for landscape photography.  The hours are at their most anti-social and light at more acceptable times is usually too harsh.

So, this summer I have set myself a project to shoot abstract, minimalist images.  I can shoot in black and white or give my images a really desaturated look taking light out of the equation (sort of!).  And long exposures can make a boring scene more interesting.  

Sometimes.

Living near the coast means I'm quite lucky at being able to find subjects.  Waves and rocks are always available and provide a constantly changing seascape to allow more variety and stop me (and you the viewer) getting bored.

This week's image was shot in the middle of the day two years ago while I was staying with Corinne, and is of a coastal buoy at Tankerton on the north Kent coast.  I employed a really long exposure and cropped the image to place the buoy as far to the right-hand side as I thought I could get away with, as I really wanted to emphasise the empty, or negative space.

Exposure settings wise, the camera metered the scene to give a 1/500th of a second shutter speed.  To get to the 2 minute exposure I wanted meant combining my Lee 10 and 6-stop filters together to give me 16 stops of light!

This is about as minimalistic as you can get - even though my camera didn't look it!  Hence my new word :-)

Fujifilm GFX50R, Fujinon GF 32-64mm f4 @ 64mm
120 seconds at f16, ISO 50
tripod, remote shutter release
Lee 6-stop and 10-stop neutral density filters combined