Recently I was down in Weston-super-Mare for lunch. I say “lunch” but it was actually a sandwich on the almost empty promenade at about 3.15pm. That’s a bit late for lunch these days when it gets dark so early. Still, the sky was fabulous as the sun was setting behind Brean Down. I had a travel zoom compact with me, (always carry a camera), so took a few images. There’s always a composition decision to take with landscapes like these. It’s whether to take them as wide angle images or to use a longer (telephoto) lens to capture details.
“Weston sunset: wide” by Derek Gale
Here’s the wide-angle shot. The beach sand was too dry and dark to add any foreground interest so I found a large salt-water pool to reflect the sun and sky in. The breeze was rippling the pool’s water so that the reflection was broken up into an abstract pattern. I placed the “gull on a post” off-centre on the right to balance the position of the sun.
“Weston sunset: long” by Derek Gale
The gull was facing towards the sun, and it caught my eye. I moved so it was in line with the sun, placed the sun behind the post to reduce flare, and zoomed to about 300mm equivalent. The gull’s nicely caught against a line of dark cloud, and there are some attractive shapes and reflections in the sky and water. It’s no longer an image that shows Weston. It’s more of a generic seaside sunset.
Wide or long? Actually it’s best to take both!
by Derek Gale