Marine and Coastal Photography

Both marine and coastal photography are both subjects which can be very picturesque as well as the complete opposite. Seascapes can often be quite normal and a typical thing for a photographer to try out at least once in their career as it can open up many career paths. Some of the work I have looked into is absolutely phenomenal and highly interesting.

2020Vision

The first thing I have looked at is a website called 2020Vision (http://2020v.org) which is a group of 20 wildlife photographers who have all joined forces to create one big gallery of work. The work on the site is produced by a range of photographer with different titles and styles; there are some underwater photographers, wildlife photographers, environmental photographers as well as general nature photographers who do work based around anything nature based.

The images I have chosen to look at from the 2020Vision website are both water based pieces which include the life within it. I love the piece on the left as it's very informative as to the sort of animals and life in our oceans. It makes you think about what we're doing to the ocean in the sense of ruining it and polluting it as it doesn't just look bad but it also harms the marine life. The other photograph (right) is just a very lovely shot with great contents.

Seascapes can be very beautiful to look at but before taking them you need to prepare for what you’re going to be doing. You need to have the correct equipment as it’s very specific especially when dealing with slow shutter speeds. You need to have a good tripod as when your shutter speed is slow, you don’t want to be moving. You can also consider filters and different lenses. As you’ll be working near the seaside and the ocean you’ll need to be prepared for all weather which includes waterproofs for you camera and bag. As well as thinking about equipment for seascapes you also need to think about formal elements and lighting. The best lighting for seascapes is early morning and late in the evening as you don’t get a horrendous glare. A good thing to do is to look for reflections as they can often look very appealing. The formal elements you need to think about are the same as always, colour, shape, line, tone, angle and focal point. Controlling depth of field and movement can be very important when working with marine and seascapes so you need to consider aperture priority as well as long exposures to capture movement of waves and clouds in the sky.

Jonathan Chritchley

Jonathan Chritchley is a fine art photographer who has work in galleries and exhibitions worldwide. He often produces work for Ralph Lauren, P & O Luxury Cruises as well as Hilton International. He is the founder and proud owner of Capture Earth and Ocean Capture which are two companies which specialise in high end photography workshops and tours across the world. His images are often of seascapes and our surrounding oceans. His work is very beautiful and is very moving. I personally love the piece below as it's so fluent and the pier stands out a great deal. I love how he's used a very slow shutter speed to capture a clear/fluent ocean and sky. It's a very dynamic image regardless of it being fluent and slowly captured.

Chris Burkard

Chris Burkards work is very dynamic and full of life. He does a lot of environmental and nature work and often focuses on detail within a big shot. He captures all elements in his work - land, ocean and sky - which also gets a lot of detailing within it. He captures a lot of shadows and reflections in his work which is partly why the work is always so dynamic.

I chose to include the image below as I think it's a really eye-catching shot. I love how it has a very deep background and the mountains make it look big. The water makes the images look huge and over a big space as the shadows double the size. The figure standing on land in the foreground also adds dimension as the person is tiny in comparison to everything else. The composition is very well planned as you can see that the rule of thirds has been used. There's a midway point at the join in mountain and water so it's very structured. The tone in the piece is very fluent as it includes a large variety of colours and depths.