More images for Assignment 1

I have nearly completed the photography for Assignment 1 but have a couple of ideas that I still want to try out: photographing Cleethorpes sea front at night.  I was keen to get a straight night shot of the lights, but I wanted them to be reflected in the water/wet sand.  This required both darkness and high tide so I have had to wait a couple of weeks for the conditions to be right.  I went down a couple of days ago to try my luck.  I had missed the tide but there was still a reflection in the wet sand.  I used a wide angle to get the whole of this section of the sea front in but felt it looked better when cropped to the image below.  I used an aperture of f22 to secure the star burst in the lights.  I am going to try again tonight and make sure that I hit high tide at 5.00 pm to see if there is more of a reflection.

I also wanted to try a couple of experimental shots that I had in mind.  I enjoy playing with zoom bursts, the subject of the next picture taken from the same position.  In all these shots I used a tripod as I was working with a long exposure.  For the one above an exposure up to 30 seconds was fine but for the zoom burst I needed only 1 or 2 seconds, the idea being to zoom out the lens during the exposure; 30 seconds would have been too long.  I like this shot but wonder if it would have been better if I had been at right angles to the lights in order to get a symmetrical burst.  I shall have to wait for the tide to go out a bit for this shot though otherwise I shall be up to my neck in water.

The next experiment I wanted to try was the one below.  I had already tried this at dawn a couple of weeks ago when I noticed that if the lens was slightly defocused the lights turned into lovely globes of colour.  I wasn't sure that it had worked at dawn so decided to try again on this occasion.  I am much happier with the result.  I have seen this effect on television occasionally and my wife says that this is what Christmas lights look like when she removes her glasses.

I'm not sure about these experiments; I suppose you either love them or hate them.

Just as I was finishing I spotted this, more conventional night shot.  I waited for a car to pass in order to get the straks of red from its rear lights.