Windmill | alan frost photography

Halnaker Windmill – on site creative decisions

How often do you arrive at a destination only to find that the image you had in mind before leaving home isn’t possible when you arrive on site? This may be down to the weather which affects the light and mood of the shot. People or vehicles in the way of the ideal view or possibly other factors which your research had not revealed beforehand.

Earlier this summer the restoration of this very fine windmill finally saw the replacement of the sails. For a number of years it had looked naked without them so when I heard the windmill had been returned to its former glory it was time to revisit this lovely location. The mill is perched on a hill to the East of Chichester in West Sussex. It overlooks the glorious countryside of the South Downs as well as having distant views of the coastline as far as the Isle of Wight.

Turf Fen Mill on the Norfolk Broads

The Norfolk Broads are a series of rivers and lakes (broads) most of which are navigable and together they form an area which has been called ‘Britain’s Magical Waterland’. The area is renowned for its big skies and windmills.

The drainage mill pictured in this post is Turf Fen Mill on the River Ant in Irstead and was taken from the river path at How Hill. Built in 1875 the mill ceased working in 1920, when cattle no longer grazed the marshes. Since 1976 the mill has been restored and maintained by the Norfolk Windmills Trust.

Last light of the day on Cley Windmill

This very fine windmill can be found at Cley Next The Sea, on the North Norfolk Coast. The last light of the day fell on the mill and lit up the white painted sails, the terrace of village houses and the reeds in the foreground. Minutes later the sun had dropped below the horizon and my camera was packed away in its bag, waiting for the light of another day.

Cley Windmill – decisions, decisions.

I recently uploaded this photo of Cley Windmill to Flickr. A traditional view and treatment of this much photographed and prominent building on the North Norfolk Coast. A relatively pleasing image, well composed I think, but is there anything more to say about it, or just as importantly, could I do more with it in post processing?

When I looked at it again a few days later, I wondered whether or not I should have processed it in another way and that got me thinking. What if I came up with three more versions of the same image using only Silver Efex Pro2, promising myself that I would take no more than five minutes on each version. My plan was to start with one of the many pre-sets and then make some minor adjustments until I finished with an image I liked but had a very different look to the first attempt. What would I learn from this quick experiment? Would I prefer any of the ‘new’ pictures? ….. and finally how would all these photographs compare to the original RAW file from the Leica M Monchrom. Just how flexible are the files it produces?