It was never going to be a simple case of turning up and shooting a few well exposed pin sharp images of the Americas Cup Sailing event. When the world class AC45 Catamarans visited Plymouth in September 2011 the shore front was crammed full with spectators and countless numbers of photographers jostled for the prime spots for capturing the action. I was very lucky and attended the event on 3 separate occasions. The weather conditions contributed to the drama and action. Very high wind speeds pushed the boats to the very edge of their capabilities and on at least one occasion threatened to cancel the afternoons racing with no less than 3 capsizes.  In this short narrative of my Americas Cup photography adventure I will explain the evolution of the photographs and why I captured the boats the way that I did.

I was able to get to the event on three occasions, I visited the same spot each time (Mountbatten Breakwater) the tip of this man made sea wall sticks out into Plymouth Sound, but space is limited and I stood waiting in the strong winds shoulder to shoulder with the other photographers for up to 4 -5 hours each afternoon. I picked the same spot each time familiarity with location rewarded me with knowledge of how the light was going to change each day, and the way the boats would navigate that part of the course (although the course changed during the event).

The firs image (above) is a “in the bag shot” something to go home with knowing that I had not wasted my time. But it was nothing to shout about. I knew that e

very one stood with me had the same style of image, I could hear shutters clicking at high speed, see the  long lenses on monopods, checking my LCD screen playback was akin to looking at theirs. I had been thinking about photographing the Americas Cup for several months, and had realised that the problem was not capturing the action but getting something different that had not been seen before, something I could use in exhibition that was a bit different from the rest.  Time to break the rules!

Motor Sport photographers for have for decades used slow shutter speeds and panning to blur the background and give give a sense of speed. Formula One racing cars speed past at 100 mph and more, they follow a predictable racing line to ensure they squeeze every inch of performance from their cars. Sailing boats don’t perform this way. Indeed the AC45′s used in the Americas Cup are the thoroughbreds of the sailing world, but the course they carve is less predictable, winds shift and they are not as accurate and easy to maneuver. They don’t just move left to right they move vertically with the action of the water. They are fast but not like racing cars, the slow shutter speed required really would be slow! So this was the first rule to break throw out sharp images go for a slow shutter speed and accept there would be an element of movement in the boats. there was no way I could pan left to right and up and down at the same time! Aleph(above right) was shot with the camera mounted on a tripod at a shutter speed of 1/4s at f16.

What about exposure? the lighting conditions were changing all the time, when shooting to my left I was looking into the sun, to my right the sun was behind me. Controlling exposure was not easy and I had become adept at dialing compensation during the composing the shots as I panned right to left before releasing the shutter. I knew that everyone was struggling with this, but modern cameras handle tricky lighting well, and good number of the images being captured would be seen soon on the internet, well exposed and sharp, having dispensed with the first rule I set out to blow away the second – I would shoot images that were high key, bordering on overexposure! My success rate now started to drop, but the images were different, blurred high key sports pictures – not something I had ever seen. Team Korea (left) shows this style put into practice.  For these images I wanted even more blur so increase the sutter speed to 0.8s and set and aperture of  f18. Panning for nearly a second with the viewfinder blacked out seemed like an eternity, keeping the pan going at a constant speed was key to the success of the shot, bracketing exposure was possible at this shutter speed as the boat travelled so far in a second and the light changed completely during the exposure. there was only one thing left to do capture the fleet racing using the same technique.

As with my Landscape photographs, I was still pre-visualising the images in my mind seeing the finished print framed and on the wall. The unorthodox way in which the images were captured allowed for some creative presentation. The photograph below shows both boats from the Oracle team racing back towards Plymouth Hoe. And don’t even think it they are not the same boat photoshopped. It’s a straight shot – apart from the over exposure, blur (all done in camera), and the lightly quirky framing done in photoshop.  All photoshop manipulations were limited to basic exposure, cropping and sharpening adjustments, blur and high key effects were done in camera.

Larger Copies of the images can been seen and purchased in the BN-Images gallery

Derwent Water – After The Thunder was a pivotal point in my photography. Although I had been using digital post processing for a while, it was the first digital photograph that I was truly happy with.

It was taken late on a mid September afternoon, I had been walking on Skiddaw that morning and the cloud was building fast and thunder could be heard nearby. Descending through cloud I could feel the static charge in the air, I even witnessed a mini twister scoot across the fell side. I knew we were in for a storm so descended quickly to the car and headed for shelter.

I was staying nearby at the Camping Club site at Keswick. My tent was pitched on the edge of Derwent Water, as the rain fell in sheets and rumbles of thunder could be heard and felt overhead. I sat and watched the scene unfold through an opening in the flysheet. Canoes, sail boats and walkers raced for cover. As fast as the rain came it stopped. I had never seen conditions like this before in the Lake District. The storm clouds travelled deeper into the Borrowdale valley, leaving behind a silence and dead calm. It was still hot and very humid, mist rose from the woodland. A single sailboat becalmed on the lake was being slowly rowed back to shore.

I mounted the camera on a Unilock Tripod with a ball and socket head, I zoomed in on the boat, composed, and took a few photographs, bracketing to make sure I had captured the landscape and atmosphere before me.

2 weeks later the film was scanned into my PC using a canoscan 2700. I was disappointed. The original photograph looked dull and grey, the only colour was the red sail on the boat. Technically there was nothing wrong exposure, sharpness and focus were good, the composition worked. It failed on a deeper level, it had not captured what I had felt or seen. I did not reveal the subtle colour changes the sky had gone through, the mist was lost in the grey background, the sail on the boat was too bright, it did not portray the stillness on the lake. But all the elements were still there.

I used Photoshop 4. I selected the best image from the bracketed shots I had taken (partly decided by the fact the oars are clear of the water in this photograph). The image was converted to grayscale. I created about eight layers to isolate elements within the frame, the boat, water, sky, islands, woodland, and fell side. I was then able to adjust the exposure, and contrast of each of these. I found I was able to enhance the feeling of recession and bring out the mist.

 The photograph still did not fully convey the warm browns and yellows in the sky left by the thunder. I converted the image to a quad tone and adjusted the curves of all four inks to achieve the finished picture. The final act was to add a spot of colour to the sailboat.

 Why is this image so significant?

Well, it captures the feeling and the atmosphere. It reproduces not only the scene and what I has envisaged in my minds eye, but recreates the mood, the stillness of the water the, the absence of wind seen through the boat, strange colours in the sky and humidity, with mist rising from the woodland. And it was the first digital landscape photography that I had managed to do this with.

Technical Details:
Camera:               Nikon F90x
Lens:                              Sigma 75-300APO
Film:                     Fuji Sensia 100
Other:                   Unilock trip