December: month in review
The dying light of 2023…
West Pier, Brighton
Fujifilm X-T5 | 30mm f/7.1 1/320s ISO 400
What’s this month’s image? It’s the remains of the West Pier in Brighton.
Did you do anything to it? This is one of those shots where there is a huge contrast between the brightness of the sky and the foreground, which is in relatively deep shadow. The human eye is very good at handling scenes with a large dynamic range; the camera less so. The absolute golden rule in this scenario is to expose for the highlights; if these are over-exposed then there’s no recovering them. In this case I needed to under-expose (according to the meter) by a significant margin.
The result is that the foreground in the original is very dark and this has been lifted a fair amount to bring the image back to what we experienced. Apart from that, there’s very little to the image. Saturation has been boosted and some there’s been some adjustments to the white point in the waves, but apart from that the image didn’t need too much processing.
What’s it doing here? We were in Brighton in November last year (you can see some images in the November post from last year) and enjoyed the general feel of the place and definitely wanted to return. My birthday falls between Christmas and New Year (and was a big figure change, sadly), so we decided to combine the New Year and birthday celebrations in a trip down to the south coast.
We hoped that the relaxed atmosphere of Brighton and range of interesting places to eat and drink would be a good place to see in 2024, and it didn’t disappoint. We were fed well, watered well and had a thoroughly enjoyable time. The added bonus was seeing in the New Year by watching various groups of doubtful sobriety competing to set off the biggest and best impromptu fireworks display on the beach. Visually entertaining, but not without jeopardy.
The trip was a celebration, rather than a photography trip, but when you’re going to the seaside it would be criminal to leave the camera at home. The sea, the weather and the changing light means that there are opportunities aplenty without venturing too far from the promenade. The seafront at Brighton is blessed with two piers (a sort of catnip for photographers); the working Palace Pier and the rusting remains of the West Pier.
As I mentioned last year, Brighton was a family holiday destination for a few years. There’s a photograph of me on Brighton beach at about one tenth of my current age. At that point the West Pier would have been open for business and as a family we’d have certainly been amongst the hoards of summer visitors. The pier closed in 1975 and, after a fire in 2003, only the derelict framework remains.
I’m certainly not the only photographer who finds the structure as it stands today a compelling subject. You only need to look online to find image after image of the pier in all weathers and conditions, be it as a main subject or a backdrop other subjects. I can’t make any claims to originality, then. All I can say is that I thoroughly enjoyed myself photographing this compelling landmark.
The weather while we were there was, euphemistically, mixed. We caught some good light on Hogmanay, but also got caught by the first knockings of Storm Henk as we were leaving. This at least meant that I could claim to be photographing the piers in different conditions. I’m pleased with the results - there’s a small selection below.
Have you been up to much else? Not a great deal… We’re really just in limbo waiting for the move to happen. Things are progressing, but not at the pace that I’d like. We were supposed to be finalised before Christmas, but that was pushed back to January. December has mainly been eating, drinking, putting stuff in boxes and complaining about the weather.
I did manage a morning run up the A82, however. This won’t be as accessible if everything goes to plan, so I thought a quick outing for old time’s sake would clear my head. In the event it turned out to be a reasonably productive morning…
Coming Up
Hopefully a house move, which is probably going to be all consuming if and when it comes. Apart from that, I’m not expecting to have very much on the go…
The move, however, is an opportunity to assess whether the blog is something that I want to continue. I started the monthly reviews three years ago, partly as a way of motivating myself to get out with the camera over lockdown and partly as a way of keeping my sanity. I’ve enjoyed it and I’ve found it immensely useful as a tool for reflection.
That said, the last couple of months have felt a little ‘rinse and repeat’ and a break at this point is probably healthy. I certainly intend to keep the blog going - I enjoy the process - and I have a couple of ideas on how to take it forward post-move. In the interim, I’ll probably post a little more sporadically and selectively as the mood takes me…
And, relax…
