Storm Amy Photo Shoot
- Black and White Storm Photography -
Hey everyone! How's it going?
Its been a while since I’ve chased a storm of this nature. In fact, it was Storm Babet back in 2023 that was the last one I documented. Every cyclone since then it seems has either passed too far to the south so that the winds this far north were too weak, or has passed to the north meaning the winds were offshore along the Northumberland coast.
I could, of course, have chased into an area where the winds were stronger and onshore, but aside from the Sussex coastline, I’m not familiar with any photogenic landmarks that sea swells might be crashing against.
Cue this time then, a much needed visit to Whitehaven harbour and its impressive stone edifice that is the west pier. This arm of the harbour is built like a medieval fortress and as such inspired me to experiment with my processing.
That and the fact that the waves weren’t very big.
Storm Amy had raced through the day previous but her peak winds, gusting in the low 100s kph, were both predominantly southerly - meaning the harbour was shielded by the headland - and occurring at low tide. Once Amy uncoupled from the jet stream though, she became almost stationary as she ran into a Scandi High and so a secondary bout of strong winds - this time westerly - developed on her south west flank for a longer period this time, increasing the swell and battering the harbour.
The winds though were significantly diminished compared to the previous day, probably only topping out with gusts of 60kph, and just weren’t strong enough to conjure anything close to the drama of Storm Babet.
This was my first visit to the area though so I was a little bit relieved as this was more of a recce than anything else. I found that the shape and angle of the harbour means you’re limited in your approach to how you photograph it. The beach is off limits due to coastal erosion so you can’t venture far enough along it to line up the last section of the pier and the lighthouse which runs almost parallel to the shore. Any crashing wave shots would have to be from ‘behind’ the wall then and as the winds weren’t at their peak, such shots were at a premium. I did catch this one though (above) so I at least know its possible. Whether waves crash against the end of the harbour arm like they do at the end of Tynemouth pier is yet to be seen.
However, aside from the ‘obvious’ external shots of wave against stone, you can actually venture onto the pier itself as the wall rises above the walkway, shielding it from the elements. As sea and spray come crashing over it, it offers a totally new dimension to how you photograph it within the elements and I can’t wait to head back and experiment with different shots and angles.
There are even steps leading up to the top of the wall itself and though I did have a venture up there on this occasion, to do so in more violent circumstances would take a serious head check.
All my photography on this occasion was shot handheld at as high a shutter speed as possible. With a long lens attached, the winds were buffeting the camera all over the place, neither of which the lens or the IBIS could counteract.
I could have attached a monopod to steady things up a bit more, but this is often impractical for me as my camera lens is constantly roving and needs to snap as quickly as possible to wherever the waves break. A monopod doesn’t stop you from doing this per se, but to make use of it in this manner, you would need to tighten up the movement of the ballhead which, ironically, restricts speed of movement. I’ll need to come up with some kind of halfway house.
As I mentioned above, the architecture of the harbour coupled with the nature of the weather, inspired me to try something different when developing this set of images. Truth be told, I needed to make a boring situation more exciting and this was the perfect opportunity. Ok, it wasn’t boring per se but the waves weren’t up to par. Using luminosity masks then, I essentially selected a certain point in the brights, inverted that and curves adjusted the result, creating an image with an extreme tonal range. This of course lends itself straight into black and white, or at least heavily desaturated, territory as pushing hues into such tonal ranges not only alters them slightly but saturates them. Your eye becomes more obsessed with what is now a ridiculously coloured image rather than the form and structure of the scene. Unless colour has a role to play in the narrative, then - for me at least - it's black and white all the way.
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