‘Your View’
Back in January this year, I was lucky enough to have been chosen to have an image of mine reviewed by a professional photographer and shown in the ‘YourView’ gallery, as part of LEE filters – ‘Your View’.
Each month through their website, LEE Filters invite photographers to submit one image that have used a LEE filter to be in with a chance to be picked by a professional photographer and to have that image shown in the ‘YourView’ Gallery and critiqued.
I often use LEE filters in my landscape and seascape photography (as I prefer to get things right in camera rather than during post-processing), whether it be a poloriser, ND filter or ND grad filter, so I thought I’d give it a go and submitted a seascape image from St Mary’s lighthouse at Whitley Bay which I’d captured at sunrise one morning between Christmas and New Year.
After submitting the image, I kind of just forgot about it, not expecting anything to come of it. But at the beginning of February, I received an email from LEE filters saying that my image had been selected by that month’s pro – who is a Kuwait based landscape photographer called Sarah Alsayegh.
I couldn’t believe it; I had been hand picked and was one of four other photographers who had been selected. It just goes to show that those early cold mornings are worth getting up for and capturing images that other people also appreciate.
Here is the image along with Sarah’s comments. My camera settings and LEE filters used are also listed.
“Wow! I’m in love with everything about this image, from the wet rocks in the foreground to the silky long exposure of the sea and clouds. I believe Mark made the right choice in using a Polariser along with the 0.9 ND Medium Grad and Little Stopper. It’s helped remove the glare and reflections from the rocks, as well as giving the sky a little boost. I also really like the simple processing Mark has used on this image; it has a lovely feel.
My only issue is the low tide on the right hand side of the image, but as we all know, Mother Nature doesn’t always deliver the perfect mix of sky and tide!”
St Mary’s Lighthouse, Whitley Bay
Nikon D810 with Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens at 24mm
15 seconds at f/16, ISO 64
LEE Little Stopper
LEE 0.9 ND Medium Grad
LEE Polariser
I later printed the image using Fotospeed’s Platinum Cotton 305 paper and was very pleased with the result.
If you would like to read about my printing workflow, please see my Print Workflow blog.
If you would like to see what other equipment I use, please check out my gear blog.