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Dorset photo trip

Tomorrow is the day. Me and Martin will set off to our second photo trip and I am truly excited about it. After all, in my books, spending time shooting with a best friend who is equally passionate about photography is as good as it gets. Couple of years ago we went to Lake District and really enjoyed ourselves. And we even managed to take some great pictures.

What we learned last time

Despite the weather, the photo shoot in Lake District was great and we both had fun. It was our first trip of such kind so it was as much about fun as it was about our learning. In hindsight, it is clear that next time we want to do some things differently.

Firstly, we wanted to visit too many places in the limited time we had. There’s simply so much to see and shoot over there. But the constant rush to visit as many interesting locations as possible forced us be on a constant move. And as good lighting conditions normally exist only in the morning and then late in the afternoon it meant that we had only an hour or so at each spot. We were both excited about what we saw and wanted to capture it as best as we could, but we did not take enough time to think and plan. We rushed ourselves from one place to another because we felt we were missing out on something. So we learned that this time we need to give ourselves a bit more time at each location to get the best light, to plan, to talk, to shoot and to enjoy. After all, as with any art, photography needs time.

Secondly, we realised that even though we do remember a lot from our first trip, lots of the details about where we went, what the conditions were, what challenges we faced or how we felt are now gone as we did not maintain any diary or log. So this time we plan to write daily Field Notes to capture all this. We will publish them daily here on Vertical Paper as well as on Martin’s and mine 500px stories pages. That way we will not only later remember all that’s worth remembering, but can also share it with others.

Where we go this time

These photo trips were meant to be an annual thing, but last year we somehow failed to find the right time. But this year (in fact tomorrow!) we are setting off again and this time we are heading south—to Dorset. The Jurassic coast is a beautiful piece of England and offers a number of great opportunities for landscape photography. After a bit of research we came up with this long-list of places of interest:

Lulworth and surrounding

  • Lulworth Cove
  • St Oswald’s Bay
  • Man o’War Cove
  • Stair Hole
  • Worbarrow Bay & Pondfield Cove

Kimmeridge and surrounding

  • Chapman’s Pool
  • Clavell Tower
  • Clavell’s Pier

Swanage and surrounding

  • Old & New Pier
  • Peveril Point
  • Quay
  • Anvil Point Lighthouse
  • Corfe Castle
  • Old Harry Rocks, Handfast Point

Others

  • Durdle Door
  • Portland Bill Lighthouse & Pulpit Rock
  • Colmer’s Hill

Clearly there’s no way we can visit all these places so we still need to do some serious “prioritisation” today. I think we should end up with maximum of four to six locations to give ourselves the opportunity to “explore” them properly.

We are leaving tomorrow early in the morning (in an attempt to avoid most of the traffic) and hope to reach Lulworth about three hours later. Our first Field Notes will be published tomorrow night so watch this space!

Milan & Martin

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  1. milanjuza posted this