Pastel power
Louis Stacey captures a dreamy selection of
landscapes at his local water’s edge, using
the Spinnaker Tower as a focal point
MISSION: Capture foggy photos to be proud
of, using the Spinnaker Tower as a focal point
PHOTOGRAPHER: Louis Stacey
LOCATION: Gosport, Hampshire, UK
KIT USED: Nikon D750, Sigma Art 18-35mm,
Hoya PRO ND1000 Filter
WEBSITE: http://www.instagram.com/louisstaceyM
y journey into photography
began in the summer of
2017, when I was after a
telescope to look at the stars
and the moon. Knowing this
wasn’t going to be easily portable, I ended
up getting a Nikon P900 bridge camera
with a zoom equivalent of 2000mm – This
gave me the reach I was after. I learned to
shoot the moon in Manual mode, thenbegan trying landscape astrophotography
and instantly found myself wanting more.
A few months later, I had my first DSLR.The waiting game
I live near to the Spinnaker Tower in
Portsmouth, and have always wanted to
shoot it in the fog with some colour from
the sun just about breaking through.
I remember seeing a similar image on
Instagram, and thought I could come up
with my own take on this rare, beautiful
scene. I only live a 10-minute drive away,
so it was easy for me to get to, but I ended
up waiting a year for the weather to be right.
There was fog a few times, but it never
cleared in time for sunrise.
At the time of the shoot, I had only
planned on taking the one image, but uponarrival I could see a couple of compositions
before me. The light was changing rapidly,
so I knew I had to work fast. I ended up
trying a few shots from each angle, using an
aperture of f/8 and fast shutter speeds to
save more time. The two landscape photos
were taken first, as the water was rather
calm and I liked how it looked [1 + 2].
Here, I went for a faster shutter speed.
The portrait image was shot with an ND
filter (ND1000) because the water started
getting a bit more choppy and I wanted to
smooth it out – and I do love those long
exposures [3]. I also closed the aperture
to f/10, in case I wanted to brighten some
of the foreground in post-production.
What I like about these images is the
subtle gradient between the pastel shades
of pink and blue in the sky, the feeling of
isolation I get from looking at it and the fact
that the fog has covered everything, leaving
only the tower. In my opinion, it makes it a
more prominent subject and a cleaner
image. I also included a touch of foreground
to try and add to the depth of the fog. You
couldn’t see as much colour at the time of
shooting, as the sun was so bright at times,
but I was pleasantly surprised when pulling
the highlights down. Having just a touch of
foreground made the fog stand out more.
If I were to take these again I would try
to capture some moving boats passing
through, and would play around with trying
to capture some long exposure trails.Camera: Nikon D750
Lens: 18-35mm f/1.8
Exposure: 1/125 sec, f/8, ISO100YOUR STORIES
[1] This landscape captures the
mellow mood Louis wanted to catch.