I’m delighted to have had two of my favourite types of shots published in The Times (Ireland Edition) this month. The first was a weather shot - “Poolbeg Jogger”, that appears in today’s paper - 12 May 2018. The second was of the full Moon setting at the Ha’penny Bridge at about 6am on the 29^th April last - that one appeared on 1 May. Check back next week for my blog post about my April moonshots.

004-20150511-Poolbeg-Gale-©-2018-John-Coveney

Anyway, I headed for the Great South Wall in Poolbeg yesterday morning as a spell of wet weather with southeasterly winds arrived at high tide. As it was only a neap tide, I wasn’t expecting the pier to be overtopped by the waves like on a previous visit, but I still hoped there might be a nice long exposure shot to be had. When I arrived however, I could see a jogger heading out along the pier, so I rushed to get set up on my usual perch in the shelter of the blockhouse in the last car park - and I wasn’t disappointed as there was spray sheeting across the pier as he ran back. It wasn’t dangerous, but I was glad it was him out there and not me! The exposure was for 1/250th of a second at f/5.6, and ISO 400 at 220mm, using a Canon 7D Mark II and a Canon 100-400mm Mark I. Thanks to StenaLine for the loan of the ferry!

001-20150511-Poolbeg-Gale-©-2018-John-CoveneyJogger during this morning’s gale at high tide at Poolbeg Lighthouse on the Great South Wall in Dublin Bay, Ireland.

Once the jogger had gone, I settled down for the original target - some long exposure shots. After some playing around, I found that relatively short exposures of about 0.5 to 1 second worked best to show the spray well while retaining some movement in the waves – longer exposures smoothed things out too much. And of course, the relatively short exposure only slightly blurred the ship – thanks this time to P&O for their freight ferry!  The exposure this time was for 0.6 seconds at f/9.0, ISO 200 at 190mm, with the camera mounted on a tripod and with a Lee Little Stopper (6 stop) Filter on the lens.

002-20150511-Poolbeg-Gale-©-2018-John-CoveneyLong exposure during this morning’s gale at high tide at Poolbeg Lighthouse on the Great South Wall in Dublin Bay, Ireland.

For the final shot, I wanted just a bit more context than I could get in a single frame, so I took three shots to make a stitched panorama in Lightroom – here’s an excellent tutorial on doing these from Photography Life. The exposure was for 1 second at f/13, ISO 200 at 320mm – again on the tripod and with the Little Stopper. All the edits were done Lightroom i.e. cropping, white balance, exposure, contrast, dodging & burning, and minor levelling adjustments. In particular. I used Lightroom’s graduated filters for dodging using both the exposure and dehaze sliders to emphasise the spray. I used the Radial filter to emphasize the jogger by darkening him.

003-20150511-Poolbeg-Gale-©-2018-John-CoveneyLong exposure stitched panorama during this morning’s gale at high tide at Poolbeg Lighthouse on the Great South Wall in Dublin Bay, Ireland.

These shots are available to purchase in my New Land and Seascapes gallery.