17/11/2020: Speaker – Joe Houghton

One of the rounds in our ‘Themed PDI Competition’ later in the season is ‘Long Exposure’. The talk given this week by Joe Houghton was, believe it or not, on long exposure. You would almost think it was planned that way ... !

On the night, however, it almost didn’t happen. As normal the ‘doors’ to the Zoom meeting opened at 7:00 with a slow gathering of the members coming in early for a chat and a catch-up. The Zoom ‘host’ would announce everyone as they arrived in the ‘waiting room’ to be admitted and eventually said that Joe had just logged on. As soon as Joe entered there was a sound of mild panic in his voice as he announced that his MacBook had been ‘grabbed’ for an iOS upgrade and would take 10 minutes to complete - yeah right, we all know that updates always take longer than they say!

Unperturbed Joe moved to another room and another machine. In no time he was back up and running with time to spare for him to start is talk.

In Joe's introduction he cited Ansel Adams as being one of his hero's, at which point I felt quite at home as Adams is one of my favourite photographers - and I can only wish to capture stunning landscapes in a similar manner (perhaps I should go and live in Yosemite ... ). And in a true Adam's style (I felt) Joe delivered the mantra for the evening:

"Photography is a process, not just an instant in time."

This is certainly true for long exposure shots. You can't just 'rock up' to your chosen location, take your picture and 'rock off' again (not that we serious photographers just turn up and go home straight away). With long exposure you have to plan, and plan, and plan some more. Preparation is key, you have to be able to visualise your final image because, in Joe's words "Long exposure is about taking photo's you cannot see!" So when you get a nice sunny day with fluffy clouds and a light breeze pack your kit and get out there - oh and don't forget your tripod and the dark bits of glass you can't see through (aka a 'big stopper' or more correctly a 10 stop neutral density filter).

(Just as a slight aside - does that mean a 15 stop ND is an ‘even bigger stopper’ and a 5 stop ND is a ‘not so big stopper’ ...?)

The talk was full of little nuggets which all go to help produce those images of moving clouds (as they drift across the sky), moving water (wait for the sea to recede before taking the shot) or just moving people (because you don't actually want to see them!) Probably the most important is to take the 'regular' shot first so you can see what the colours like on the day allowing you to make suitable changes if your stopper produces a colour cast. The same applies on a night shoot - take the regular shot and expose for the highlights then take your 'light trails'. Any blown out highlights in your final composite can then be rectified with the 'regular' shot and the magic of your processing software of choice.

Astrophotography is another great way to try out long exposure but this came with a word of warning which is highly recommended to be heeded or it could prove quite costly - don't do a 2 hour exposure of the night sky because the sensor in your camera could overheat and be severely damaged when powered for that amount of time if done too often. It's far better to to take lots of much shorter exposure shots and stack them later in the warm comfort of the inside of your home.

The two hour talk seemed to just fly by but I was left in no doubt that long exposure is clearly a process and not just about an instant in time.

Please follow the links on the right to learn more about Joe and follow him on the various social media platforms.

20 November 2020