Saturday Night, Sunday Morning

Due to road resurfacing works, the late night 'drunk tank' bus returning to Salisbury was delayed by over an hour so I made the most of the dark gloomy clouds and ran a few long exposures from the beach.

The moon was up there, somewhere and through the long exposure it has given a gentle silvery lift to the waves. 

Around sunset, as I had the 70-200mm f2.8 on the big tripod trained along the Promenade from above, a nice middle aged American visitor asked if I was out taking the sunset. Which I wasn't, as there simply wasn't one.  He basically suggested that I cheat a little and 'pretend' that there was a sunset.

Little would he know that some three hours later, I was getting amazing colours, without any cheating, through long exposures, this time with my other pro grade f2.8 zoom, the Tokina 11-16mm 2.8 Mk 2.

But during this murk and gloom and cool breeze, the waves crashing, two more American visitors asked, rather dumbly, in my opinion, at the time, "You taking photos?" She was a sweet young girl and her boyfriend added incrediously "What of??"

They - and I - had to wait for nearly a whole minute for that particular exposure to complete and to show them. They were aghast. "You must have SO much patience!" she gasped. But that exposure was too bright, as I have to guesstimate the manual exposure. So, the whole process again, but at a half stop under. She asked to shake my hand, which I was obviously pleased to do and so they then melded into the gloom, hand in hand, along the line of the waves.

So, it is refreshing that in today's point and shoot on any device (one day cameras will be cygnet rings and you will be able to just point your finger at your subject) instant, app for everything that patience and sheer work can get the results that other find inspiring.

Over four hours, I only took about 35 images, of which only about six are usable - and I almost only took pictures during that period.

Otherwise, I could have done what everyone else (including the intolerable drunks on my bus home, for whom the journey is just a continuation of their own personal parties, but at the even uglier stages) and got pi^^ed.  Nightmare.