Brutalism in Colour and water
Some of my first experiments with long exposure photography involved water, I think pretty much every photographer who’s tried shooting long exposures is drawn to the way it smooths out running water to a smooth, glossy surface, or a raging sea into a fine mist. Several years back when I was still shooting on 5x4 film I shot a series on buildings along the Thames and found myself drawn to how the water looked more than the buildings I’d chosen to photograph.
Fairly early on into this project I remembered those thoughts and decided to keep a lookout for locations where I could involve water in the images, it turned out to be not as easy as I thought, but this image of the Barbican was my first success. I love the stillness of the water combined with the occasional highlight streak which I think were caused by the passing ducks.
It took a long while to find another subject, but while on holiday in Polperro I noticed a rather nice finish to the local sewage processing plant (not exactly my most glamorous subject) so decided to see if I could get a night time image of it. Being located outside a small coastal village meant that there was very little light pollution which led to an over 10 minute exposure time which reduced the sea to a fine mist.
Next up is a pier at Woolwich which took a bit of planning to make sure I was there at the right time, I needed the tide in just enough to cover the foreshore, but not too high so that it obscured the structure. I had little idea how the water would turn out, but was pleasantly surprised by how much the smoothness of it made the structure stand out, as well as nice little touches, like the red in the top left corner from a light on the ferry.
Again, it was a long while before another subject presented itself. This time it was while on holiday in the picturesque fishing village of Staithes, not an area particularly known for brutalist architecture, but I happened to notice that the stepping stones were concrete replacements for older stone ones, so they fitted the bill for the project. Again, being a small village meant not as much light pollution, so this called for a rare image made at above 100 ISO, this one at 400 ISO, otherwise it would have been a near 40 minute exposure, a bit too much for my liking given that I’d already been standing alone on the cold and dark slippery bank of the river for over an hour already. I’m glad that I stuck with it though as while the stepping stones are no great architectural marvel, they stand out wonderfully against the neon hues captured by the shifting shape of the water rushing through them.
A few more water based images can be seen in the Brutalism in Colour: Water gallery