August - A farewell to Summer

It has been a challenging month for my 12 in 12 photo challenge in August. Conditions have been far from favorable and the Island has been so busy with visitors it has been difficult to relax and enjoy time out on location. Even in the mornings when normally it would be quiet I have found wildcampers on beaches and the downs and in the evenings there has been large groups with loud music in lots of the locations making enjoyment of being out difficult.

This has definitely impacted the photos, both the quality of them as it was difficult to wander the locations to find the perfect compositions, but also how I feel about the images. Each photo I look at has a memory of me not enjoying the time out attached to them and I think it is fair to say the August image will be my least favorite of the 12 when I come to make my final selection.

So how have I got on with the project this month, well these are the 4 images I captured for August

1) Ventnor

My third visit to Ventnor took place on the 1st of the month, nothing like starting early. However I arrived with low hopes as there was low cloud and not the most interesting sky. I decided to shoot from the hill at the Western end of the Prom with the view over the Spyglass Inn and the esplanade beyond.

What an amazing pre sunrise show I was then treated too, it was short-lived but the colours in the sky were incredible for a couple of minutes. I was very happy with the image I captured and I think my favorite of the month.

Ventnor Esplanade at Sunrise

2) Brook Down

It has been odd during Summer as I have been visiting some locations for the third time and yet Brook Down I had still only visited once in Spring, Its winter visit awaits in December. So I was starting to get a little worried and therefore headed up there one evening. There were a lot of people up there and I suspect many were camping at Compton Farm in the valley.

My pervious composition for this location did not work in summer, the mid gound was full of messy weeds and I found it really distracting. I therefore moved slightly lower down and focused on the track leading down to the farm in the valley. There was a slight sea fog forming and this was blowing off the sea and up and over the down creating a lovely atmosphere as it drifted across the sun.

A hazy misty sunset at Brook Down

3) Compton Beach

I should have known this would be a bad location for summer! its a really popular beach and therefore lots of people have beach bbq’s here in the summer evenings. I had therefore avoided the location in the evenings. What I hadn’t expected was to arrive in the mornings and find the beach filled with wild campers.

I had almost given up on the location for summer when we had a really cold evening towards the end of August, this combined with a really low tide allowed me to venture to the far end of the beach which is quite a walk from the car park and therefore generally quieter even on a nice evening. On this cold day I found the place deserted and I was able to take advantage of the pools the receding tide had left behind to capture this image.

A cold summers evening at Compton

4) Firestone Copse

At the monthly call we have on the project at the start of the month, a discussion was had about how difficult this time of year can be with people out and about. A suggestion was made that a good place to go in Summer was woodland, and I was happy that I had a woodland location in the project that I could visit.

I headed there on a rainy August day when the drizzle was thick in the air creating an almost mist like atmosphere. I captured this image of a tree that looked to have been damaged in some summer storms we had at the start of the month. The light was filling the opening and the rain was creating a lovely soft atmosphere. I was happy with the shot I captured.

Summer woodland at Firestone Copse

5) Headon Warren

I wasn’t happy that my previous image from Headon Warren for summer capture the essence of Summer in the location, however it is another difficult location for Summer, it only really works in the evening when the light will catch the headland as the sun sets. There was a lovely display of heather this year, so I decided to try and improve on my image from earlier in the year. I actually made several visits to the headland during August to try and capture an image I was happy with. The first was early on in the month when it was really windy. The Fastnet race had started from Cowes that day and you could just make out some of the slower boats on the far side of Poole Bay.

I had this composition in mind from a visit last year, however the heather and gorse had grown and covered a bare root that had been on the right hand side of the image that I really liked. I think that disappointment along with the experience of sharing this lovely location with several large groups playing loud music has really impacted my opinion of this image. I have never been happy with it. Aside from that I think the image does suffer from having too much of the bare green area on the right hand side of the image. Unfortunately I couldn’t move left to minimise this. I also wanted to get closer to the branch on the right to use this more to lead into the image, but as I did that I started to lose the Needles behind the bush so had to remain higher up to capture the Needles.

Headon Warren Heather

I therefore made a few more trips up to the headland but found similar issues with groups each time. Towards the end of the Month the Needles Attraction hosted a fireworks party to celebrate the coming end of the holidays. I decided this might present an opportunity and I headed up with the camera. The resulting image is quite fun, but I’m not sure it would meet Ansel Adams description of a significant photo that inspired this project, so I’m not sure it should be included. but it was nice to see the return of an event after all the cancellations over the last 18 months, and who doesn’t love a fireworks display. The Cows seemed to enjoy it anyway!

Fireworks at the Needles from Headon Warren

So that was summer, already the freshness of Autumn seems to be creeping in with cooler mornings. It will still be several months until Autumn really shows itself here on the Island with the leaves not turning until late October and into November, however I am excited to get round my 12 locations again, although slightly sad that this is the start of the final lap of the project and for most of the locations this will be my final visit. I have really enjoyed the project, despite the challenges of the last couple of months. I’ve already started thinking about what to do for 2022 as having a project has definitely been a great motivator to get out and shoot this year.

Thanks for reading and look out for the next update at the end of September.