Bullshit Corner, 18th October 2020

Morning Surf, Batu Bolong, November 2019_-16
Laughter, Batu Bolong, oct 20th 2020
Actual Grace
Bullshit Corner
Bali, Indonesia
Oct 18th, 2020
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Bullshit Corner, 18th October 2020

If you are only interested to see the pictures you will find them all in the slider above or below. You are welcome to use these images in your social media especially if you could take a second to add a link to my Instagram account @_supersharp and maybe like and comment on a few pictures 🙂

This is a bot tricky because this is supposed to be a secret location. In fact its on one of the beaches in one of  Bali’s most populated areas so the best you could probably say is that this wave is hidden in lain site.

The sensitivity might come from the fact that members of the PSOI, Indonesia’s International surf team are training there currently. And that is tricky. Clearly the surf team need waves to train on and waves are by nature public spaces. So imagine if the England football HAD to train in a public park and you turned up with your kid and decided to have a kick about. I don’t think that would be cool, and so it’s not particularly cool if you turn up here, especially if you are not very good, and start taking waves away from professional athletes. Actually this is one of the coolest places I have been, although they are all cool, and these are some of the friendliest people that I have met in my surf photography adventure. But, you can expect a frosty reception if you turn up and get in the way.

I actually have a bit of an issue with this whole secret spot idea. People get very excited about secret spots its nice to surf where there aren’t many people and it feels lovely to think that you are accessing something exclusive. the issue is that the people here, especially in these difficult time, need all the visitors that they can get.

So my recommendation is that you seek this wave out, and go along and buy a coconut and a beer, hang out, make friends and watch the brilliant PSOI team training. You can talk as much bullshit as you like.

You might see @deniblackboys performing his magic with huge grace.       

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Or like this, this is my favourite shot of the day.

And you might catch a bule on the nose.

The Technical Bit

OK, so this is where it all went to shit. It was a little bit rough getting in and I think i may have knocked the shutter speed dial. The result that these phots were all shot at 1600th of a second, with the usual f9 and auto ISO. I have come to the realisation that whilst the auto ISO is amazing in my camera is amazing I think surf photography might be the most challenging environment for it. The difficulty is that most of the time the camera is under the water, where it’s dark, and only comes out of the water to take the picture.

I’ve been thinking about this and come to the realisation that if I am in the water for 2 hours and I take 300 pictures at 1000th of a second I am actually only doing surf photos for 300 1000ths of a second, or .3 of a second. That seems grossly inefficient. There are 7,200 seconds in two hours and 7,199.7 of those are completely wasted.

The result of all of this is that the ISO tends to default to certain ISO’s within the maximum that I have set, which is 1,000. These shots are all at either 500 or 1,000 and they are all under exposed. Underexposed is bad, it’s really hard to pull anything back from the RAW photos in editing. They all look muggy. 

This is the second set of photos that I gave to my new editor and she has frankly performed a miracle, thankfully. 

Anywho, this was the day that I decided I can be managing the ISO in the water and thats what I am doing. On bright sunny days it works best at around 320 – if it’s cloudy it can go up to 800 – and I am happy with that. The other realisation is that screens are a really shit way of taking and showing photos. in the water I have the back screen on full brightness which means that the images look over exposed, so I have to factor that in when I take the photos and review them whilst I am in the water.

What should you do if you found this interesting or useful?

You should subscribe and you will get these images and ramblings in your inbox. You could also check out my Instagram and comment and like some of my pictures.

And say hello if you see me in the water 🙂

 

Martin henley

Martin henley

Occasional Photographer

On a mission to become more active and mindful with my photography; to leave the house more often with the intention of taking photographs; to find attractive, interesting and engaging ways to share the images, videos and solutions I discover with others.

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01 PSOI - 21st October-6
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4 Kuta Reef - 11.10.20-6
5 Kuta Reef - 11.10.20-8
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Glassy, Airport Reef, 16th October 2020

If you are only interested to see the pictures you will find them all in the slider above or below. You are welcome to use these images in your social media especially if you could take a second to add a link to my Instagram account @_supersharp and maybe like and comment on a few pictures 🙂

What you want, if you get out of bed at sparrows fart to go surfing, and maybe especially if you go to shoot surfing, is for it to be glassy and for there to be waves.

This was a month ago as i write this so I can’t remember how big the waves were but I don’t recall being disappointed, so there must have been waves. I certainly wasn’t disappointed by the glassiness is that a word?

I think it gets glassy when there is no wind. 

Otro-Modo-surfschool.com describe glassy like this:

“Glassy refers to the surface of the water when surfing on days without wind. On these days, the water is as smooth as a mirror, no matter how small a bump in the wave disturbs the surfers when surfing. From clean waves with glassy water dreams every surfer. And every surfer who has ever experienced perfect waves with Glassy water, knows the feeling then to feel every little movement of the surfboard in the turns. Like a speed skater with freshly cut skates on a freshly prepared rink.

Glassy is the opposite of Choppy.”

The English isn’t great but it gives you a good sense of how it feels to be in the water when its glassy.

Personally I hadn’t consider that it made that much of a a difference to the surfers.

I just know that its really nice to be in the water when its glassy and the reflections really add something to the shots. There is something weird about how the waves can be throwing up so much disruption in the water but the reflection still happens. 

If I had known I would have paid more attention to this phenomena and focussed a little more on trying to capture it. 

As it is this is the only picture that really captures it:

This is probably the best shot of the set. Marko is always pleased if I manage to catch him on the nose. It would have been better if he hadn’t been looking so serious and he had his arms down, but what can I do about that?

The light was also fantastic and its nice to have some clouds in the sky, I really like this:

16th Airport Left-20

The Technical Bit

I cant tell you too much about what was going on here technically cause I’ve had a fucking nightmare with my machine which means I have lost the RAW files. 

I suspect that this might be the last time that my mask worked as I was nice and close to the surfers. I may have resolved that issue now so there is no need for any more comments supporting me on that – I actually received zero comments.

Actually, I have recovered the jpegs from the Lightroom previews including the metadata so I can tell you this happened before I started dicking around with the settings, these images were all shot at f9, at a 1000th of a second with auto ISO. 

The other thing thats happened is that I have recruited an editor to fix up the colours for me cause of the colour blindness and all. She is absolutely brilliant and I am really pleased with what she is doing. 

I hung on for as long as I can but tried one last time and managed to make the sky purple, my previous best was green.

I’d love to know what you think in the comments. I’d love to think that somebody might actually be reading this 🙂

What should you do if you found this interesting or useful?

You should subscribe and you will get these images and ramblings in your inbox. You could also check out my Instagram and comment and like some of my pictures.

And say hello if you see me in the water 🙂

 

Martin henley

Martin henley

Occasional Photographer

On a mission to become more active and mindful with my photography; to leave the house more often with the intention of taking photographs; to find attractive, interesting and engaging ways to share the images, videos and solutions I discover with others.

* indicates required

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Insane Sunset, Balian Beach

Insane Sunset Balian Beach
Insane Sunset
Balian Beach, Bali

If you are only interested to see the pictures you will find those below.

This is another example of why I think of myself as an occasional Photographer. If I hadn’t bumped into an old squash buddy in the supermarket, if we hadn’t spoken about the fact that I haven’t been to his place in Balian – I wouldn’t have experienced this sunset, I wouldn’t have taken these pictures.

I don’t know if I should be beating myself upon for not being out shooting, I have been in Bali for a couple of months and I have been out maybe 10 times. In fairness I have other things to do and I have been pretty productive and successful with those so maybe its OK. Also, It is rainy season, so it isn’t necessarily the best time to be taking photos, although you could argue that there is never a bad time to be taking photos in Bali.

Anyway, it seems like I need a push to be taking photos and thankfully I got one, and here are the pictures.

I actually know what the obstacles are currently. I have recently replaced my kit, and I am having to learn how it all works. On top of that I spent a few months in the UK at the back end of last year and spent a fair amount of money on incidental kit, gadgets like lights, triggers, flashes and filters and I don’t really have the first clue how any of that works. I am happy to practice and I am sure I will come to terms with it all in the longer term, but right now it feels like I have option overload.

I have wanted to shoot with filters for a long time, and maybe because of that I want to use them all of the time. I have a thing about being bothered to do the extra thing, so immediately I arrive somewhere currently I take the trouble to put the tripod up and get the filters out. The trouble is that I don’t know how to use them, and I am often using them when it isn’t appropriate or required. 

This sunset was really insane, and thankfully it occurred to me to take the filters off and leave the tripod and have a wander around, the pictures got much better then.

I am aware that I take too many similar photos and that I am often in too much of a hurry to take a lot of photographs and I shoot at the extremes, the widest or narrowest apertures, the shortest or longest exposures, the highest or lowest ISO’s. I really want to get out of that shitty habit. I really want to slow down and think more about every shot.

Anyway, I am really glad that I got to experience this sunset and take these images.

If you have any tips on how I can slow down and take better photos please let me know in the comments.

Martin Henley

Martin Henley

Occasional Photographer

Struggling to be take better photographs more often and to find beautiful ways to present and share. 

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