alan frost photography: Chichester Harbour

Monday 2 July 2012

Chichester Harbour - Dell Quay in June

Chalk writing on the blackboard outside the pub said quite simply 'Coming soon - the Summer'. Sadly this was a rather optimistic statement or just wishful thinking by the landlord, as a number of camera club members gathered to try and capture this superb location. It was grey, not that warm for June and the light was poor. So often Chichester Harbour is bathed in glorious evening light - the golden hour - at least thats what we had hoped for, but not today.

Instead it became clear that a different approach was necessary so I thought about monochrome or black and white. The old boat yard should be a place to find some interesting relics and compositions. This was an evening when normally I would have said the light is too poor for photography, but forced into a situation where the camera had to go to work, it was a surprise to me what I could find. Not my normal approach to a subject but an interesting lesson in observation, tonal contrast and depth of field. I didn't want to keep changing lenses so I stuck with the 45mm for all the shots with the exception of the last image when I used the 12mm.

I hope I have captured something of the atmosphere of the location particularly the boat yard itself. Yes, some of the subjects are rather typical of this type location but I think the black and white treatment brings out the texture and tonal values of the subjects.

All images were taken hand held with the E-PL3, shot in RAW and then converted into B&W in Lightroom. Some cropping, sharpening and levels adjustments to improve contrast and tonal range.