alan frost photography

Two minutes at Langstone Harbour

By alan frost on February 8, 2019

In case you were wondering about the title of this post, let me clarify straight away that all three images were captured using a Lee Super Stopper (15 stop Neutral Density filter). This gave me a two minute exposure time. Add in a second exposure for the same length of time for noise reduction and I was waiting four minutes before I could see the result on the camera screen. This is nothing of course compared to using a film camera when you might wait for days before finishing a roll of film, develop the film strip and then finally see a thumbnail print on a contact sheet, only to be elated or disappointed with the outcome.

I actually spent a couple of hours at this location finding different compositions and testing various shutter speeds. There wasn’t much cloud movement and I eventually settled on 120 seconds as the optimum time to create the effect I was looking to achieve.

Langstone Harbour is in Hampshire on the south coast of England. At the head of the harbour there are a couple of pubs and a distinctive mill. The old mill is now a private residence but was a working mill until WWI. You can imagine it’s a popular spot for tourist, walkers and bird watchers.

There is no question it’s a delightful spot and the view above is the ‘picture postcard’ composition taken by many a visitor. But I was searching for another and more dramatic interpretation of the location.

Earlier this week I gave a talk at a local camera club and one of the topics I spoke about was projects, both large and small. I said that I considered each entry on this blog was a small project in its own right. A selection of images coupled with some words which help to give context and background information to a photographic outing, however brief.

I have been sharing images and writing about my work on this blog since 2012 and for me it is just one way of arriving at a conclusion. There is a sense of satisfaction in posting an entry which I have enjoyed piecing together; but more importantly I hope it gives my followers and readers some pleasure as well.

Until I am ready to post the next one, thanks for reading this one!