I went back to Portland Bill this weekend. There were several things I had in mind to do, one of which was to attempt to re-photograph an image I had taken about 4 weeks previously. See below;
Click the image for a larger view
I was initially quite pleased with this picture. I had deliberately set out to use the water in the rock pool to lead the eye through the image to Pulpit Rock in the distance. I also managed (more by accident than anything else) to catch a token wave crashing on the rocks in the middle ground. But when I viewed the result on the PC at home later that evening I was kicking myself for not thinking at the time to use a polarising filter. This would have reduced the reflections on the main tidal pool and so provide even more foreground interest.
It is a well known fact in nature and landscape photography that you can never take the same image on two different days, or even later on the same day. Something is always going to be different, the light, the sky, weather etc but I thought it was worth a go as I was curious to see how much of a difference using the polariser would make.
Fortunately when I arrived this morning the tide was out so that was one variable less to worry about. It was about the same time in the morning as when the original was taken so the light was sort of similar. The weather was more or less the same but this time there was absolutely no cloud which was a shame because blue skies are boring, still you can’t have everything I suppose.
So I started to set up ready to recreate my “nearly masterpiece”. I was just about to start taking pictures when a man with a fishing rod walked into shot about 50 meters away. "Why do these things happen to me", I thought. "I mean can’t he see I’m trying to take an award winning photo here?"
The fisherman looked around into the sea as if trying to decide if this spot was going to be fruitful. "Come on mate!" I thought in the hope he may be telepathic, "There's no point in hanging around here you won't catch anything on this side of the rock - go around the corner there's a good chap". No such luck; he casts his line into the sea and in less than a minute he's landed a decent sized sea bass. So that's it, he's here to stay now.
At this point I was tempted to pack up and move on to somewhere else instead. But then I decided to at least try out the polariser on the rockpool reflections. Besides I could clone him out in photoshop afterwards. After a couple of shots it dawned on me that having a human figure in the compostition actually provided a stronger focal point than just the rock on it's own. The figure also gives a sense of scale which had been lacking previously. I of course congratulated myself for brilliantly pre-visualising this scene and continued to try and capture a wave crashing onto the rocks as I had done before.
In the end I think this image is a stronger composition due to the fisherman as well as the enhanced foreground interest.
(Click the image for a larger view)
Now all I have to do is get to the same rock pool at low tide, remember the polariser, wait for a fisherman to come into shot, and make sure there are some interesting clouds in the sky!