RPS Landscape Group Magazine, Summer 2022

Landscape

THE ROYAL PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY

RPS House, 337 Paintworks, Arnos Vale, Bristol, BS4 3AR, UK rps.org Incorporated by Royal Charter

Patron

HRH THE DUCHESS OF CAMBRIDGE

President and Chair of Trustees

SIMON HILL FRPS Chief Executive Officer

EVAN DAWSON Hon Treasurer TONY CEARNS

RPS LANDSCAPE GROUP

Editor Robert Brittle ARPS Assistant Editor Gaynor Davies ARPS Artwork & Layout Editor Paul Cayton

Committee

Richard Ellis ARPS (Chair)

Sue Wright (Web Editor)

Peter Fortune (Newsletter Editor) Andy McLaughlin (Secretary) Mark Reeves FRPS (Vice-Chair and Pro-Events Manager) Mark Edwards (Treasurer) Dave Glenn (Member-Led Events Manager) Robert Brittle ARPS (Magazine Editor) Fiona McCowan FRPS (Member Without Portfolio)

COVER IMAGE: Shoreham Lavender by Alex Hare

Landscape is the magazine of the RPS Landscape Group and is provided as part of the annual subscription to the Group.

© 2022 The Royal Photographic Society All rights reserved on behalf of the contributors and authors. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder. Requests for such permission must be addressed to the Editor.

The Royal Photographic Society, RPS Landscape Group and the Editor accept no liability for any misuse or breach of copyright by a contributor. The views expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the policies of the Royal Photographic Society or of the Landscape group.

Contents Regulars

Distinction Successes

8. Dr Edward Hyde FRPS

Edward describes his distinctions journey from ARPS to FRPS and how advice from others was invaluable in this journey.

22.

Brian Hopper FRPS

Brian details his lockdown journey, from uncertainty to a successful Fellowship Distinction.

30. Jill Taylor ARPS

Jill’s images were taken last winter as people were coming out of lockdown in an area of the Jura mountains near where she lives in Switzerland.

Featured Photographer

38.

Alex Hare

Alex is an RPS workshop leader and author of an upcoming Fotovue book who recently took over the group’s Instagram account.

44. Adrian Battersby ARPS

Adrian was inspired to take images from the viewing platform atop the famous Rockefeller Centre, characteristically branded by the New York tourist industry as “Top of the Rock”.

Member’s Portfolio

16.

Ellie Lilly

Ellie loves to live in the moment and creates photographs to capture memories in image form.

Inspirational Places

Cley Windmill, Norfolk by Ellie Lilly

Welcome to Landscape;

the magazine of the RPS Landscape Group.

Welcome to the Summer 2022 issue of the group’s magazine. It is always great to find Society members’ work on the walls in galleries and Ellie Lilly of Raspberry Zoo Photography is one such member. Ellie currently has a large, framed image of Under The Grand Pier, Teignmouth included in this year’s West Midlands Open Exhibition at The New Art Gallery Walsall (until 25th September 2022). We are pleased to include more of Ellie’s portfolio in this issue.

We are also pleased to include a selection of successful distinctions in this issue, including the distinction experiences of Jill Taylor ARPS, Dr Edward Hyde FRPS and Brian Hopper FRPS, with very contrasting images and ideas around how to show their local landscapes in print. In the UK we have hit record temperatures and seen very little rain and we are all aware that countries around the world have been similarly affected; how these events will affect the landscape we love in

the future is a question we will all need to consider as we partake in the hobby we all enjoy.

Social media is becoming more and more a channel for sharing images and the group has a great social media presence on both Facebook and Instagram. Alex Hare was recently invited to take over the RPS Landscape Group’s Instagram feed for a weekend and he has shared a varied selection of images and technical information. For those not on Instagram or who, like me, still like to read text on paper instead of a screen, Alex has kindly allowed us to reproduce the images shared and also some more of his stunning portfolio. For any members looking for further information about the group’s online presence, I cannot recommend highly enough having a quick look at the group’s pages on the RPS website.

Adrian Battersby guides readers through the process of creating a stunning New York

cityscape image, from planning to completion and what a wonderful image Adrian has created, with lots of fine detail leaving the viewer with only one questionhow long can I look at this image?

The group’s magazine couldn’t happen without the support of the group’s members so if any reader would like to contribute to the next issue of the magazine please do get in touch; to date, everyone who has been in touch has been published. Please don’t be worried about the technical elements of sending text and images as we will happily guide you through the process.

The Editorial Team wishes you a great late summer and autumn and hopefully we’ll be able to feature some fantastic images taken in 2022 over the next few issues.

Next copy date is 15th October 2022.

Musings from The Chair

Chair’s Welcome

Richard Ellis ARPS, Chair, RPS Landscape SIG

As I sit to write this the lawn is slowly turning brown, the plants are wilting and the papers are full of stories of hosepipe bans. Yet, turning my attention to the social media forums, I see many people publishing wonderful infra-red images and the true early risers posting pictures from dawn shoots. It all goes to remind me what a wonderfully versatile hobby we have.

The AGM and conference for March 2023 is really taking shape and promises to be a wonderful weekend away. There will be the chance to hear great speakers, undertake some photography and meet likeminded photographers. If you have not already booked then please have a look at the event on our “what’s on” section of the website.

Our exhibition has been touring the UK and has been to Edinburgh and York, with further cities planned. The reaction has been very positive, with other photographers and the general public enjoying the wonderful images. Many people are also progressing on the “Close to Home” project. Mark Reeves has just shot the last two locations for the “By Degrees” project and so there will be lots of great images to enjoy at the end of the year from these two projects.

The summer is a challenging time for the landscape photographer but we should not spend our time wishing for the next season. There are great images to be made so get out there, get up early and create something of which you are truly proud.

Enjoy your photography.

Richard

Distinction Success

Dr Edward Hyde FRPS

Edward’s plan B - to investigate the landscape around where he lived in Surrey, the most wooded county in England. During lockdown, the frequency of his walks in the woods increased to being almost daily and his local woodland became an important part of his wellbeing. A walk in the woods had always been something he had enjoyed but the pandemic made it much more significant and it soon became obvious what he should base his fellowship panel of images on.

Dr Edward Hyde FRPS

My journey to FRPS took quite a tortuous route. I am, first and foremost, a landscape photographer but I have always enjoyed most other genres on an opportunistic basis. Wildlife and birds, for example, on the occasional safari holiday or day out at a bird reserve; sporting events where one is allowed to take a camera; action in the landscape such as the RAF and USAF practising low flying in the hills; architecture; street and travel photography on holidays, city breaks and day trips to London. My ARPS panel was in the Applied genre, based on preserved steam trains in the UK.

I did, for a while, have the opportunity to get press photographer passes to World Rally Cross motorsport events which gave me somewhat privileged access to some highoctane sporting action and I set about building a fellowship panel on this basis. After 2 advisory days I had progressed my panel to the point where the advice was to “have a go” but none of the advisors I had were on the Applied genre panel itself and so I sought some 1:1 advice from Will Cheung who, at the time, was an Applied panel assessor. It was clear that there were probably about 40% of the images that were falling short of the standard.

Given the sport is world rallycross, there is only one UK event per year and although I could, and did, access the French leg, it did boil down to being a one, or at most 2, weekend-peryear opportunity unless I engaged in a lot more travel.

So, time for plan B. As I said in the opening paragraph, my mainstay is landscape and, living in Surrey, the most wooded county in England, a lot of my photography is of woodland. When we went into lockdown, the frequency of my walks in the woods increased to being almost daily. My local woodland had increasingly become an important

part of my well-being. A walk in the woods had always been something I had enjoyed but the pandemic made it much more significant. So it became obvious what I should base my fellowship on.

All the images in this project were from woods that I can walk to from my house or that are a short drive away: Bookham Commons, White Down, Headley Heath, Leith Hill and the woodland surrounding a local National Trust property called Polesden Lacey.

I took advantage of the 1:1 zoom advice on offer in this period, having 2 sessions at intervals, responding to feedback each time and then submitting a print panel. The prints were examined in Bristol by a print advisor with no actual vote while digital versions of the images were examined by 3 voting assessors (plus the chair) remotely via zoom, as was the system at the time. This panel was unsuccessful but the feedback was encouraging me to carry on as I was advised that it did not fall far short. So I

followed up on the specifics of the feedback and, after one more very encouraging 1:1, I resubmitted at the next available opportunity. This time I submitted digitally only as the process had still not returned to normal for prints with the assessors being together in Bristol to see them and, whilst this would have been my preference, it seemed an unnecessary step when those voting could still only see the digital images; a personal decision that was in no way a criticism of the process that was adopted to see us through the

pandemic. I have subsequently printed the panel for my own enjoyment.

With 5 assessors now plus the chair, I was successful on this 2nd attempt.

I think the hardest challenge with the fellowship is recognising distinctiveness in one’s own images. After all, we see and photograph what we see but

never know whether others see the same. It is often when others say that they would not have seen or taken an image that you can feel you are on the right lines. I have my wife to thank for that input.

Overall, the road to Fellowship felt long but, in retrospect, it wasn’t that long as I gained my ARPS in 2017. I enjoyed the process and learnt

a great deal. At times it felt very stressful, although the stress was entirely self-imposed because of the importance the pursuit of the Fellowship took on. The relief on passing was quite overwhelming and then very satisfying.

Statement of Intent:

John Muir

I have always had a strong affinity to nature and woodland in particular. The range of sensations within a wood bring a sense of wonder, comfort and peace. In Japan they call it Shinrin-Yoku, taking in the forest atmosphere or “forest bathing”.

I live in Surrey which has the most trees of any county in England. I am within easy reach of many of these woodland areas and visit them almost daily, most often in the early morning or late afternoon when the

light is at its best. For me, being amongst the trees is calming, invigorating and therapeutic. I love to search for order in the chaos.

My intent is to share with you this experience and to show the beauty to be found in the woods of Surrey. Through a series of moments captured when a combination of the light, season and weather reveal otherwise hidden works of art, I aim to evoke the sense of well-being this landscape provides.

I have concentrated on the period from early Autumn through winter and into the very early Spring when the moods, light, textures and colours are at their most variable and harmonious and one can still see the wood for the trees.

“And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.”

Distinction Success

Dr Edward Hyde FRPS

Ellie Lilly

“What doesn’t kill you hopefully gets you a picture.”

Ellie Lilly

Alonissos Old Town

Tromso Harbour at Twilight

I try to portray in my pictures a sense of ‘being there’, living it. Be that through the sights, the sounds, the tastes, the smells or re-living happy memories.

Having a social science background, my early pictures were largely social documentaries taken in the punk clubs in the 80s and of people in my life at the time. This moved on to a love of food photography and beautiful places.

I love the sea; everyone loves the sea, don’t they? I try to capture this in my ‘My Sea Salt and Spray’ collection images; the energy I get from the seaside, the feel of the salt sea spray, the sounds of the waves crashing and the sand between your toes. Beautiful sunsets, quaint fishing harbours and the hustle and bustle of fishing boats coming and going all make up the ambiance of beautiful seaside locations.

Grand Pier Teignmouth

Similarly my ‘Beautiful Places’ collection hopefully encourages people to want to go and explore or, if they are unable to, at least to get a flavour of places through my work. Whether it is warm or cold, romantic or a harsh terrain, travel is an enlightening experience and an opportunity to explore and gain a sense of other cultures. I love to bring those memories back in visual form; a picture on the wall that inspires reminiscence of that experience.

I have no real preference between UK travel and overseas; each has its own merits and brings enriching experiences.

I use Nikon cameras and lenses - a Nikon 5200 and a Nikon Z7.

My next plans are to continue focusing on seascapes, planning a relaunched website and branding in the next few months but also to build up my food portraiture portfolio.

Bay View Terrace

Cefalu Beach Evening

My Blue Boat

Distinction Success

Brian Hopper FRPS

During Lockdown, Brian had been posting some of his images under the heading “Light Banishes Darkness” and he soon came to realise the enormous significance of this phrase. For Brian personally, the early morning trips onto the mudflats near his home were a source of healing, both mentally and physically. Brian didn’t mind the early sunrises – rising at near 4am during summer was not easy but became a pilgrimage – the images were a bonus. Brian used these feelings and images to create a stunning panel which was rewarded with an RPS Distinction.

Brian Hopper FRPS

Statement of Intent: Light Banishes Darkness

“Hope is being able to see that there is light, despite all the darkness”.

These wise words by the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu became my leitmotif and motivation during the challenging times we have all experienced recently.

Going out with a camera on a regular basis is an important part of expanding personal growth, creativity and improving mental health.

Photography has helped many to express themselves, conveytheir self worth and help bring focus to positive life experiences.

The purpose of my work is to depict the serenity in nature through majestic sunrises and sunsets, with reflections, rich colours and forms which helped envision life on the other side of those dark times –nature has created a wonderful serendipity.

“Light Banishes Darkness” is the culmination of my project.

When, in 2020, the term “lockdown” was mentioned on the news I, like most others, panicked a little – at the time it was the fear of the unknown. I had returned from a trip to Norway and had witnessed airport workers in Oslo cleaning the door handles and disposing of the wipes in a bin. Little did I know at the time that was in preparation for a global pandemic – life for everyone was going to change enormously.

When I returned home and heard the news, my first reaction was to work out how to live a “normal” life and fit my love for landscape photography into my daily routine. I soon realised how fortunate I was to live by the sea; I could incorporate my love of landscape photography into my daily exercise and still manage to remain within the 2km lockdown restriction. When I began to post my images on social media I realised how restrictive the lockdown rule was for most landscape photographers.

I had posted my images under the general heading “Light Banishes Darkness” and soon realised the enormous significance of this phrase. For me personally, the early morning trips onto the mudflats were a source of healing - both mentally and physically. I didn’t mind the early sunrises – rising at near 4am during summer was not easy but became a pilgrimage – the images were a bonus.

I presented a panel of twenty one images for my Fellowship Distinction. I chose these twenty one images from a panel of around one hundred and eighty images. I had many different panels assembled and many changes made before settling on the final twenty one images; all bar three were shot during “lockdown”.

I was conscious of not displaying any repetition in my images but found this difficult as the images were shot in a rather confined area. To my surprise, the assessors commented on the fact that the images were different because they were not captured in “famous” or “iconic” locations – this contributed enormously to the “distinctive” nature of the panel. I have always held the opinion that you do not have to travel to a foreign/famous location in order to capture a good image.

If I was asked to pick out one “favourite” image from my panel it would have to be the image below.

While I have experienced nature at close quarters in my regular outings, I have always tried to capture birds in flight in my landscape images whenever the opportunity presents itself. More often than not, I end up not quite managing to change camera settings fast enough.

On the 13th of April 2021 I had practically finished my sunrise shoot when the noise of migrating Brent Geese distracted me. I immediately changed settings on my camera and took three extra images.The geese flew very close overhead and as I picked through my images, I discovered the second of three shots had 42 Brent Geese framed perfectly in an arc; Nature indeed provided a fortunate stroke of serendipity.

Preparation for Shoot.

I use a variety of apps to plan my shoots. Google Earth provided me with the bare essentials but did not provide all areas exposed at low tide. A friend flew a drone up to provide me with more images of the area but most of my locations were scouted over the years by exploring the area and making notes on where to go at various tide levels.

“Ventusky” (a comprehensive weather app) provided me with detailed cloud levels (essential for predicting the effects of light from the rising/setting sun) but the final arbitrator was the early morning viewing from my window – depending on the direction of light and the clouds I would decide where to head for the best display.

Equipment.

Over the years I graduated towards using an ultra-wide-angled lens in my landscape photography. I wanted to depict the enormity of the vista and also wanted to include some interesting foreground interest in my images; I wanted my images to be different, to have dynamic perspectives and be interesting and impactful.

All my images are single captured images which are “real” and not composite, all captured using filters to balance and control the exposure - on a 14–24mm lens that is not easy. I currently use 150mm optical glass filters/holder from Haida (Haida Red-Diamond Filters). I regularly use a combination of circular polariser, graduated neutral density and full neutral density filters in capturing my landscape images.

I have a thorough working understanding of my equipment – this is essential for any photographer. I can set up my camera and filter holder/filters in near darkness and often have. I understand fully how to control hyper focal distance and try not to let technicalities get in the way of producing a good image.

The Printed Image.

For me the print is the final test - the photograph becomes physical when printed. I am an ambassador for Canson Infinity, a French paper manufacturer. I experimented with six different papers for my panel and finally chose Baryta Photographique II Matt (the first matt baryta paper on the market). Part of the printing process involved printing the complete panel on one large roll so I could view the panel of images at a distance and refer all the prints to each other in order to make notes on all the changes needed to balance the panel.

Advice.

I would highly recommend any distinction applicant to avail of the 1-to-1 advisory service offered by The Royal Photographic Society. I found the advice offered invaluable; the assessors give freely of their time and advice and really demonstrate an in-depth understanding of the whole Distinction application process. I am indebted to Tim Rudman FRPS and Paul Mitchell FRPS for their advice and patience.

Distinction Success

Brian Hopper FRPS

Distinction Success

Jill Taylor ARPS

Jill’s ARPS images were taken last winter as people were coming out of lockdown in an area of the Jura mountains about 30 minutes away from where she lives in Switzerland. Jill had an encouraging one-to-one with Tony Worobiec FRPS in the Spring and, having followed his advice, then had the job of getting everything ready for a print submission in May this year. Jill was “very pleased” to be told that her submission met the requirements for the ARPS landscape distinction.

Jill Taylor ARPS

Having a dog that loves the snow and needs a decent walk certainly gets you out every day, whatever the weather. These images were taken last winter as we were coming out of lockdown in an area of the Jura mountains about 30 minutes away from where I live in Switzerland. The covering of snow made me notice the simple aspects of this familiar landscape. Trees, fences and farming equipment became more noticeable now the general green colours had gone. I’ve always appreciated a more minimalistic approach to photography and I wanted a graphic look for this project. Monochrome was the obvious way to go and making sure there was always a true black in each image against the snow that varied from dirty white to blue or grey was what I aimed for.

I had an encouraging oneto-one with Tony Worobiec FRPS in the Spring and, having followed his advice, I then had the job of getting everything ready for a print submission in May this year. I was very pleased to be told that my submission met the requirements for the ARPS landscape distinction.

Statement of Intent

Winter changes the landscape especially when the snow arrives. Gone are all those greens and abundant foliage found on our trees and fields.

These images have been chosen to show how a covering of snow emphasises the lines and textures of my local, agricultural landscape. The tree branches devoid of leaves show their true shapes. The farmer’s equipment stands out against the snow as do the fences with their posts leaning this way and that. Longer shadows are displayed as the snow illuminates the countryside.

The landscape look more graphic.

All images have been taken within 30 to 60 minutes of where I live here in Switzerland.

Distinction Success

Jill Taylor ARPS

Featured Photographer

Alex Hare

We have a brief Question and Answer with Alex, following on from his Instagram posts on the group’s feed, with additional images to complement the answers given. Alex is an ambassador for Kase Filters and Fotospeed and sees handmade photo books as a final part of the creative process and a brilliant way to display our work in a creative and visually engaging way.

Alex Hare

Alex is a pro-landscape and commercial photographer and author of the forthcoming Fotovue title ‘Photographing Kent’. He teaches photography to enthusiasts on his Tripod Travels photo tours with Lizzie Shepherd.

Alex is an ambassador for Kase Filters and Fotospeed and those on his workshops will receive special discount codes for their products. Alex also loves making handmade photo books with his prints and teaches this skill via the RPS workshops. He sees it as a final part of the creative process and a brilliant way to display our work in a creative and visually engaging way.

Ed: You started your RPS Landscape Instagram Account ‘takeover’ with an image of Swale and, in the text with the post, you commented on the 7 years’ wait; can you expand on this comment?

Alex: Yes, it’s a field I spotted from the train when I used to commute to London in my twenties to do my work as a solicitor. I only spotted it as I had this rare view from the railway line! Once I’d worked out where it was I was delighted to find public footpaths permitted access into the field. I started to shoot it in

various conditions - some snow, post-harvest, and with green wheat. But in my mind, I always felt it would look its best with a sea of golden yellow oilseed rape (OSR). However, as crops are not the same each year, it took two cycles over seven years before I managed to see it with the OSR in its prime beneath a wonderful sky.

Ed: Staying local was the theme of the images used in the ‘takeover’; how do you approach landscapes that you are very familiar with?

Alex: Yes, shooting local landscapes was the emphasis of my take-over. Partly because showing a set of great photos of far flung places always seems, to me, more of a celebration of the photographer in question than a meaningful way to help other photographers with their photography.

For this reason I focussed on what I do locally in a very understated area (Kent isn’t exactly on the landscape photo trail!) to try and show what we can achieve closer to home.

For this reason, these landscapes aren’t all that familiar to me! Take Swale; I never see another tripod or landscaper when I’m out shooting there. I’m probably more familiar with Derwent Water than I am with many parts of Kent. But this is why shooting locally is ‘a good thing’. It’s a way to challenge ourselves to see a less familiar or tried and tested landscape and come up with a creative solution to how we want to portray it.

My approach is to take my classic landscape style and emphasise the appeal of a place in a way which might reveal a side to an area people didn’t know about. In this way, I can challenge perceptions around Kent/any local landscape as a place for photographers to enjoy

their creativity without travelling miles, just to queue up with other photographers at well-known locations that have been captured well many times before.

Working somewhere that isn’t familiar is a challenge in itself, and a good one, so I highly recommend testing ourselves in this way.

Ed: Kent has a wide variety of landscapes; is there one type you prefer? Can you let our readers know what equipment you typically use?

Alex: I think because Kent is so varied, from lavender fields to soaring white cliffs, marshes to urban decay, there isn’t one ‘stand out’ location. Rather, it’s the overall variety and the pleasure from discovering something new, from trees in unexplored forests to ship wrecks on the coast, that gets me excited.

The one place I shoot most often is Whitstable, a fishing town on the north coast, but only because I live here and it’s easy to go for a walk with my camera when I see some nice light developing. I find that if I go out with my camera I very rarely ever come home with nothing to show for my effort. There’s nearly always something you can find and do and it’s down to us as photographers and creators to come up with the ideas and find the right creative solution to suit the subject; light, weather etc. that we experience at the time.

In terms of camera kit, I use Canon’s 5D series of cameras. I haven’t made the financial leap to their mirrorless cameras yet. I currently have the 5D MKIV and the R. I use three main L series lenses; the 16-35mm f4; the 24-70mm f4 and the 70-200mm f4. I also have a 150mm macro lens, a 17mm TS and 15mm fish eye for when they are, on the rare occasion, needed. I always have my Gitzo tripod with a chunky, but lovely to use, RRS ball head. My filters are the Kase grads, polariser and NDs. I like how the polariser attaches via a magnet to the step-up ring, making it so easy to use.

Ed: New ideas, angles and inspiration are something we all struggle with from time to time with familiar locations. Have you any tips or tricks you can share when this creative block occurs?

Alex: I wish there was a magic answer to this!

Although I’ve said above that much of Kent isn’t all that familiar because I explore new places all the time, there are some areas I’ve been to many times. Why do I revisit them and what do I do differently each time? Well, some spots have really good subject matter that can’t be captured in one visit. Take these two photos of the decaying groynes near

Folkestone; shown on the opposite page, the sand levels rise and fall from visit to visit and the type of light, sky, weather, wave etc make each visit potentially very different from the last. The light in the B&W one was such that it lent itself to this high key type of mono image, whereas the lovely clouds and late evening conditions made the long exposure and colour combination more appropriate, in my view.

So, if I’m going somewhere familiar, it’s usually because I’m happy to re-shoot a view, angle or composition I’ve done before but use the different weather, sea, crops, light, time of day/season etc. to reveal it in a different way.

A good example of this would be the photos below of Botany Bay in Broadstairs. I like this view of the stack, as do many others, so, rather than try and reinvent what is pretty much a very effective composition, I try and vary the photo through different conditions, e.g. with the tide rushing in, with stars at night, and so on.

Letting nature do the hard work in terms of serving up different light and conditions is probably my best weapon in terms of creating something new from a familiar or tried and tested view.

Ed: For a first-time visitor to your patch, can you recommend one location as a starting point for photographing the landscapes of Kent?

Alex: This is an easy one for anyone interested in visiting Kent!

I’ve written a free photo guide to exploring and photographing the landscapes and seascapes of Swale (with parking, maps and suggested local pubs!) which you can download from the VisitSwale website:

https://www.visit-swale.co.uk/ plan-your-visit/discover-swalea-photo-location-guide-by-alexhare-photography/?fbclid=IwAR 3xgwOUd4CnoJno-uO8QnWDU wkHpnwieihhq6TeqlQoRp8eeLe cucjkOjE

Featured Photographer

Adrian Battersby ARPS

In November 2019, Adrian and his wife flew over to New York for their second visit to the Big Apple. Generally speaking, Adrian tries not to irritate his non-photographer wife too much with his hobby by over-indulging, but she kindly agreed to go with the flow for one “session” during the trip. This was to be an attempt to capture some ‘good stuff’ from the viewing platform atop the famous Rockefeller Centre, characteristically branded by the New York tourist industry as “Top of the Rock”.

Adrian Battersby ARPS

New York Panorama

I was aching, hungry and rather drained and yet, at the same time, I had a feeling of cautious optimism about the several hundred frames I had just fired off over the last few hours….

In November 2019, my wife Denise and I flew over the pond to the USA for our second visit to the Big Apple (the first trip resulted in us moving in together…. so who knew what the outcome of this one would be!).

Generally speaking, I try not to irritate my non-photographer wife too much with my hobby by overindulging, but she kindly agreed to go with the flow for one “session” during our trip. This was to be an attempt to capture some ‘good stuff’ from the viewing platform atop the famous Rockefeller Centre, characteristically branded by the New York tourist industry “Top of the Rock”.

My research told me it was going to get very crowded with tourists as sunset approached and also that tripods are not allowed up there. Obviously, I checked the official sunset timing; I also studied existing shots taken from up there, working out which direction I was going to want to be pointing for the best content and composition and hence the side of the viewing platform to which I wanted to stake a claim. I decided I wanted the south-west facing side because (a) that includes some of the most iconic buildings and, more importantly, (b) the East River on the right and the Hudson on the left would be hopefully forming lead-in lines on each side of my wider shots and/or panoramas (panos).

So, the plan was:

• Turn up about 2 hours before sunset with the full armoury and smuggle in my mini tripod.

• Grab a good spot and STAY THERE until well after sunset, fighting off with sharp elbows

any competing photography types (and anyone else for that matter).

• Mount the mini tripod on the flat-topped wall surrounding the platform and just do my best with it… (panos were going to be a bit trickier but I would just go for it)

• Shoot a mix of single-frame wide shots and 180-degree panos and keep shooting until after sunset.

As it turned out, I ideally needed to get the camera higher (with the large tripod I didn’t have) to take full advantage of these elements but I was pleased to find that, to some extent, that part of the plan did work; just a little more subtly than I’d expected.

That “stay there” was absolutely right. One false move and I’d have lost my good position. The platform filled up as sunset approached, to the point where there was something like a hundred photographers with DSLRs and tourists with phones at the ready, jostling for position.

As you’d expect, I shot a large number of images, selecting various areas of the huge New York vista before us. Many of these, of course, I didn’t eventually use. As the day progressed and sunset approached, it was one of those evenings when the sun disappears behind clouds which have formed along the horizon so a classic sun-on-horizon was not going to happen and my big-sun long lens stayed in the bag. However, I was liking the warm, hazy atmosphere in the distance and the light that prevailed a short while before that and shot a couple of panoramas. Keeping the shutter speed relatively fast so as not to rely too much on my less-than-super-solid mini-tripod, I shot 9 overlapping portrait frames across the scene, covering a full 180 degrees so that I could crop as required later. To be reasonably confident about the exposures (it’s a long flight!) I

bracketed each frame 2 stops up + 2 stops down, i.e. a range of 5 exposures; so 45 frames in total per pano. I was glad I did this, because in the end I have to admit to using the fastest (i.e. 2 stops down) exposure. Back at home on the iMac, having merged the panos into single images, one of these emerged as my favourite image out of everything I shot that evening (come to think, everything I shot on the whole trip) so I got to work on carefully processing it.

Firstly, as you can readily see comparing the original stitched image to the cropped version, I did a crop to extract a fairly clutter-free image. Secondly, I did a bit of cloning etc. to tidy away one or two tourists still spilling over into the edges here and there. Obviously, I did some general balancing of exposure and other typical tweaks and then, finally, cloned-in a very small area of sky where the sun was still (just) managing to blow out the exposure.

Because (a) I felt personally pleased with my pano, (b) I knew the resolution would easily stand it, and (c) my wife agreed it would be a nice reminder of a great trip, I had it professionally printed 5ft wide and very nicely framed. The framed print is now proudly displayed in our dining room. The printed image is extremely sharp and detailed and, although I had no possibility of adjusting my position by more than a foot or so up/down or left right, fortunately the overall composition is, I feel, fairly pleasing.

The original pano (right) was 9 frames each bracketed 5 ways.

Canon 5D IV / EF24-105 F4 L ISII

USM at 24mm / ISO100 / 1/60sec f19. The resulting stitched pano (below), uncropped, was 16194 x 6389 (103 Mega-pixels).

I hope my little pano story will be of some interest, and perhaps also be of some help to anyone planning to shoot some images from the same location.