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Previous: Part 1 - Easter 2008
 There are countless photographs of Southwold, published, fine-art prints, on-line through Flickr and others, through stock libraries and of course many individual web sites including this one. And the vast majority of them include photographs of the beach huts, the lighthouse and the recently (re-)constructed pier, all icons of the Suffolk town. I think we have all seen an increase in the number of people carrying and using a camera, but I was quite surprised at the number of people in Southwold during the week carrying and using DSLRs of one form or another. One of the great things about staying in the town is that I was able to leave mine in the rucksack for most of the day and take it out when the light was other than the harsh mid-day sunshine, which I'm delighted to say we saw a lot of. This meant I was able to try to be a little different to my frankly stereotypical Southwold photographs.
I should add that there are some great photographs of the Southwold icons and I was particularly impressed by the photographs of Peter Farrington that were displayed on Southwold Pier when we visited this year. He has the advantage of being relatively local and can, I assume, make repeat visits at optimal times to capture the best light. He certainly succeeds.
Hazy Horizon
The first image is close to one I had envisioned and then had to find the right conditions to get the picture. I had imagined a picture showing the sea and merging into a featureless sky, with no distinct demarcation between sea and sky. Clearly a photograph of that alone would have been very boring. However, the day started with quite a haze, quite bright and a hazy blue sky being visible inland but rapidly becoming a featureless blur looking out to sea. Just the ticket. As I watched my children playing on the beach and doing my bit to help with the sandcastles, I watched the sky until the horizon was only just still visible. I had already noted the end posts of the groyns (constructed to help prevent the sandy beach being washed out to sea - they don't stop it, but definitely slow things down) to provide something to anchor the image. The camera did at last come out of the rucksack. I had tried to picture this with the post to the left and to the right of the picture, but settled on this version to the right. It just feels to me to work better.
I took this image into Aperture and did nothing except to convert to monochrome. I am really pleased with the resulting image as it represents almost exactly what I had imagined. Some have agreed, but others think it's just as dull as looking out to sea on a hazy day. That's just fine, everyone to his/her own opinion.
The River Blythe, Marshes and Reedbeds
The Suffolk landscape is much flatter than the countryside I call my home and one of the bigger differences that result is the large expanse of sky; there's almost 180 degrees whereas in the Derbyshire Peak District there's a great deal less. This of course, given the right weather conditions means that truly wonderful skies can be seen at sunrise and sunset. Southwold's location on the east coast means that sunrise is out at sea, but this is also a time that I very rarely see and this week was no exception. Sunset is inland and in the early evening, a great time for a walk and at a time when the number of people out and about is greatly reduced. We had several evenings during the week when there was little cloud, no haze and absolutely beautiful golden light. I made much use of them!
A walk up the harbour road and up the River Blythe has clearly inspired hundreds of artists for the local art galleries are full of paintings of the harbour, the marshlands and reedbeds with wonderful sunsets. Whilst there are many photographs about of this area around Southwold, it is obviously less visited and photographed than the town and beach and that's where I spent many delightful hours walking and thoroughly enjoying the views.
The next image is of one of the many moorings for boats along the harbour. On this evening the light was very hazy and the sunset was one of those when the sunlight just vanishes without ceremony.
The buildings in the harbour vary from almost pristine to almost tumbledown and are used for boat building and repairs, storage and as fish shops as in the next image.
Walking just a little further inland finds an old metal bridge across the Blythe. This was originally built as a swing bridge by the Southwold Railway company, a 3ft gauge light railway from Southwold to Halesworth that opened in 1879 and lasted until 1929 when competition from buses forced its closure. The bridge over the Blythe was rebuilt as a footbridge and now forms a convenient link between Southwold and Walberswick for walkers and cyclists. This bridge also forms a great vantage point for the landscape beyond, both sides of the river being marshy, full of wildlife and reedbeds. The next image was taken from the bridge on one evening when the sun simply disappeared but left a sky that seemed to glow without much colour.
It is also interesting to approach this area from further inland and a convenient start are the Hen Reedbeds near Wangford and the path that leads to Tinker's Marshes. This passes an extraodinary selection of wildlife, especially birds feeding in the marshland and reedbeds. We were delighted to hear at least two bitterns "booming" and to spot a Marsh Harrier as we walked up the path. Both are seldom found across the UK but are regularly seen (and heard!) here and over the nearby RSPB Minsmere reserve. I deliberately timed our visit to coincide with an hour before sunset. The light was perfect and when we got there I felt completely overwhelmed by the views before us. There was just so much to take in (and photograph!) I barely knew where to start. I can of course now claim this visit to be for research and will know where and when to go next time we visit.
Southwold at Twilight
OK, I admit this picture is not that different to the thousands of other photographs taken from Southwold pier. What I think makes this one a little different is that it was taken after the sun had set and that the lighthouse is shining at the moment the picture was taken. That took a little extra effort as it only flashes intermittently. I used a small aperture and ensured the shutter speed was set to 2.5 seconds - that would allow me to press the button the moment the lighthouse started to flash and still capture the beacon when alight. But I didn't have the tripod with me so had to hold the camera down firmly on the railings along the side of the pier walkway.
I am amazed at how much detail is still visible in the picture and it must say something about current camera technology. If I use the Aperture controls to lighten shadows, this picture turns to daylight. The grass is green, the sky is blue, yet the lighthouse is still shining. Of course, image artifacts do appear to detract when looking at the image at high magnification, but quite honestly the amount of information captured is quite astounding. However, despite amazing technology I have spared the image much processing and have left it as exposed and as I saw the scene.
There was another view that I wanted to create and that was the pier at night. I had imagined a bright moonlit night to illuminate the pier itself and a long exposure to turn any waves to a silky appearance. I would of course need a long exposure to capture anything at this time of day. I took the photograph below once all traces of twilight had gone and the only light available was from the moon and any street lights about. I set up the tripod on the beach just to the south of the pier only to find a really irritating additional source of light from a motion activated security light on the pier. It took me a bit longer to realise it was not my movements triggering this but my son who was a little further away trying to take pictures of the waves breaking against the groyns. That was resolved after he had a few pictures and I got going. With the camera set to manual, I set the exposure for 30 seconds and took a few shots. The immediate issue was focussing. Whilst the 1Ds is able to autofocus in very low light, there simply wasn't enough light to do so. So I fumbled around in the dark to turn to manual focussing and setting to hyperfocal distance for an aperture of f8 and focal length of 32mm. That also involved using the iPhone application PhotoCalc given the Canon zooms do not display the hyperfocal data. The other thing I hadn't planned for was the ship sitting on the horizon, but having both taken it out of the photograph and then putting it back, I've settled on keeping it. The resultant picture is below and I'm reasonably pleased with it, but will try again next time with a wider lens.
My Favourites
These are my two personal favourites from the week. The first image is probably not unique but I like it - and that's the only criterion I'm using here. This was taken a few miles down the coast in Aldeburgh and not unlike the first image above in its concept, a lack of distinct background. This time the shingle beach, sea and sky almost merge into one given the hazy conditions. The patch to the left of the picture is a small patch of grass that was almost perfectly lined up to contrast with the boat.
The second image is yet another sunset, a view of the scene along the River Blythe as the sun was dropping. The tower on the right hand side is the relic of a wind powered pump, now just a relic rather than anything functional.
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