Photowalk 31 - Chilling Coastal Area At Dusk

It's been overcast all week in Gosport, UK, so when the clouds cleared, the Sun came out and the sky turned blue, I thought we'd be in for a great sunset...

Unfortunately dark clouds on the horizon obscured the Sun when I got to the beach, but there were some interesting colours in the sky, so I headed a little further on up the coast to the Chilling Coastal Area, a nice little country walk, to see if I could grab some photographs.

Best Served With A Cold Beer Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, F6.3, 1/4, ISO 64, Focal Length 6mm, Tripod

The Sun was long gone by the time I parked up and headed into the woods, but I knew there were some fields up ahead, and after a couple of minutes walk I was on a path leading along the edge of some farmland.

I set up my tripod and looked for some foreground interest along the fence-line to bring an extra dimension to the lovely sky. I knew that whatever I shot would be a silhouette, which was what I was after, and had to shoot quite low, looking up, to frame this bush against the sky.

Photoshop Elements emphasised the colours in the Dusk sky through Overlay and Soft Light blend modes applied to a couple of levels adjustment layers.

Field At Dusk Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, F6.3, 0.71 Sec, ISO 64, Focal Length 63mm, Tripod

The Power-Station Chimney is a long way away - by using my Fujifilm S5700 at its maximum zoom I compressed the scene somewhat, and as with all these shots used a medium aperture, F6.3, in order to get a reasonably large depth of field. I like the way some of the plants are blurred though.

In Elements I applied a gradient adjustment layer - white to black - and played around with the position and strength to lighten the ground and darken the sky, then used levels to add more contrast. Plenty of noise in this one, it would have been better if I could have just got to the scene a little earlier, with a little more light available.

Darkness Creeping Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Aperture Priority, F6.3, 1/3rd, ISO 64, Focal Length 6mm, Tripod

Similar to the first shot, this time I used some ears of corn as the foreground interest, and Photoshop Elements once again emphasised the colours and richness in the sky with levels adjustment layers, applied in the Overlay blend mode.


I was rushing on this mini photowalk - the light was fading fast, so I'll definitely return to this location, and maybe play around with a little fill-flash to lighten the foreground interest instead of going for silhouettes.

Thanks, Rob.

ps, A note on camera exif data. Being a bridge camera, my S5700 has a crop factor because the sensor is a lot smaller than on a dSLR, so when you're looking at the focal lengths bear in mind that the S5700 has a focal length range of 6-63mm, which is the equivalent of 38-380mm in a 35mm dSLR. Also the aperture and shutter speeds given are approximate, as for some reason sometimes they're different in the PC exif data than what I actually took, but its usually just the next step up or down.