June - the half way point

June, traditionally a difficult month for Landscape photography with early starts and late finishes due to the sunrise and sunset times. Despite this I have been cracking on with my 12 in 12 Photo challenge. Its amazing to think that we are already half way through the project, and that I’m already visiting some of the locations for the penultimate time (although there are also some I have only visited once so far!)

So in June I captured 4 more images for the project.

1) Havenstreet Shrine - A dash up the hill

This location really is local to me, and I can get there very quickly from home. I had always envisaged a summer image with a blazing sunset sky. One evening in early June whilst doing a few jobs at home I suddenly realised the sky was catching fire as the sun set. I quickly grabbed my camera bag and headed out. A few minutes later I was stood, slightly out of breath at the Shrine and captured the image. I’m quite pleased with the image and its certainly what I had in mind for summer at this location.

Havenstreet Shrine

This image is doubly special as it was the first image captured for this project with my new Camera, during June I upgraded from my beloved D800 to a Nikon Z7ii. I must say I am really enjoying the new mirrorless system and the improved sharpness and detail captured. Very happy with the upgrade so far.

2) Headon Warren

This year seems to have been the year of strange weather, after having frosts into April, which is unheard of for the Isle of Wight, we then had days of fog in June. On the first day the fog arrived I was checking out the webcam at Alum bay to see how thick the fog was, and noticed that whilst there was fog on the Needles headland Alum Bay was clear. I quickly headed to Headon Warren to see if I could capture a shot of the Needles as a gap in the fog appeared. Unfortunately the fog continued to thicken and after waiting for several hours I didn’t get the clear spot I was hoping for. I’m still really happy with the image captured and its probably my favourite image from June. Shortly after capturing this image the fog became really thick and you couldn’t even see the end of the Headon Warren headland never mind Alum Bay or the Needles. It stayed like that for 4 days straight before finally clearing, very strange weather!

Sea fog over Alum Bay and the Needles from Headon Warren

3) The Duver

I really like the first image I captured from The Duver, but there was one issue with it, the Sun was on the opposite side of the image to the Beach huts that form the main subject, and therefore was competing with the main subject as the eye tends to go to the brightest spot.

I had always intended to capture the summer image during June with the sun rising at its most Northern point and therefore behind the Beach Huts. In the third week of June I had an early morning trip out to The Duver and captured the image. It wasn’t the best of mornings with thick cloud, but there was a brief moment of light as the sun found a gap in the clouds and lit up the cloud, before hiding away for the rest of the day.

The Duver Beach Huts

We then had a week away, it was lovely to be off the Island for a week for the first time since our Scotland trip in September. We had a lovely week down in Dartmoor, with amazing weather and some lovely walks on the Moor. Although it wasn’t a photography trip I of course had the camera with me and managed to capture a few images.

Windy Post, Dartmoor

4) West Ashey Farm

After the week away it was back to the project on the last weekend in June. It was another strange weather day with mist and fog forecast for the early morning. I headed to West Ashey farm to capture the three trees from my last visit in their summer plumage. It was a lovely pre sunrise scene with the valley full of mist but the three trees in their slightly elevated position clear of the mist.

It was slightly surprising to see the trees looking quite bear, I had expected them to have much more foliage on then they have.

I am really looking forward to my final visit to this location to see them in Autumn colours.

West Ashey Farm full of mist.

So that is my June update. I am already thinking of options for July, we have the round the island race at the start of the month so I’m thinking some of the coastal locations might look good with the boats of the race featuring, will have to see how the weather goes on the day.

Thanks again for reading and following along with the project.