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| Early morning, looking from Binevenagh towards the Giant's Causeway
The little round tower in the foreground is Mussenden Temple, which is probably one of the most photographed buildings in Northern Ireland, perched as it is on the cliff edge. I've posted shots of it before (here, for example). The finger of land stretching out into the sea is Portrush and the headlands in the distance would be the Giant's Causeway and Benbane Head.
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Monday, 11 March 2019
The North Coast
As you know, if you've been paying attention, I was up and out early-ish the other morning. I ended up driving west towards the table-top mountain of Binevenagh. There's a handy layby at the top, near the viewing point for Donegal/Inishown and I pulled in there and sat a while, wondering if it was worth venturing out. There was only one other vehicle there - a makeshift camper van with the windows covered. Occasionally you get 'free campers' who just park up anywhere for the night - they're not really supposed to do that and lots of car parks have signs to that effect but my guess is that at this time of year no-one is really going to either notice or care that much. I hope they had heating as it would have been into negative temperatures that night, before the wind chill factor which would have been significant on this exposed headland. Anyway, I decided not to get out of the car, as it was quite misty and the light was just a bit too murky. But just as I turned the car back towards home the sun decided to make an appearance. I pulled in at the side of the road and set up the tripod with the 'Blad and the 250mm Sonnar lens:
It took be a few attempts to get this one the way I wanted it. Either the foreground was too dark or the sea&sky were. In the end, I opted to get the foreground right under the enlarger and then burn-in the top 2/3 of the scene. It needed a subtle hand and this was definitely one of the those times where regular printing helped. When I'm out of practice I find it easy to be too heavy-handed and then the burn-in lines are all too evident on the print. What I wanted was to pretty much recreate the scene as I saw it, with everything fading in to the distance in the soft morning light, the air still full of moisture. I was happy with the end result. On Ilford MG Classic Fibre paper and my usual HP5+ and ID-11 developer.
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Your practise has paid off, because this is a great print and doesn't look artificial or altered.
ReplyDeleteMussenden Temple is interesting. I just looked it up on Wikipedia. Built by a Church of Ireland Earl Bishop in Grecian style based on a temple in Rome. And named after his cousin whom he thought was very beautiful. Wikipedia says he used it as his library. No doubt to hold all his forbidden pagan texts! :)
Anyway, great photo. I'd like to see more of that place and have a go at photographing it myself.
Thanks Marcus - appreciated. Yes, Mussenden is a very interesting little building. A few years ago it was in danger of falling into the sea - large steel pins had to be hammered into the cliff side in order to stabilise things. It seems fine now and attracts a lot of visitors each year - and a heck of a lot of photographers ;) You'd be very welcome too should you ever make it to this part of the world.
DeleteAs much as I like The Temple - and in particular its setting - I find it difficult to be too interested in the goings on of the Earl Bishop. At a time of extreme poverty in Ireland he was off on his Grand Tour of Europe, amusing himself with whatever took his fancy. For sure he wasn't the only one doing that, of course.