I have vegetated of late, not in a totally senseless coach potato sort of way but nevertheless still vegetative when compared to my normal MO.
Christmas came and went and I got stuck into the post production work on the 20 latent images referred to in my last post. That was very productive and so was getting involved with beta testing the new Galleria add-on from The Turning Gate that is now in full production version on the rest of my site. Backlight has enabled me to offer up galleries of images in different formats. I like the way Matt and Ben provide a toolkit for busy photographers to create and manage their websites.
Anyway, what with that going on, we have had some grim weather and inappropriate low tide times to warrant getting out there with the large format gear. After a wholly inclement and persistently wet day here yesterday in Suffolk there was a glimmer of hope in a relatively windless, dry and suitably cloudy forecast coinciding with low tide for this morning (aheadĀ of a snow warning). Enough said. The first shoot of 2018 was on the grid.
As I pulled out of the garage, a totally red sky greeted me fleetingly and I prayed for the cloud cover to remain. The sun’s quadrant at this time of the year means that no cloud cover equals shooting directly into the sun during hours of daylight at my destination. Yes, I was going back to Cattawade, only glimpsed of late from the track bed as trains have sped me towards London or home.
I was not disappointed. Two sheets of Kodak Portra 400 in the can, two sheets of Ilford HP5+ in the can also on account of the almost totally monochromatic scene before me. Rarely do I take the digital gear on a film shoot but I did this morning so here is a reference shot taken on a Nikon, complete with a short stopper train traversing Cattawade Creek. The presence of settled ice from a saltwater creek is evidence enough of the coldness.

I’m hoping that my numb fingers had locked everything down on the Ebony. They have thawed out enough to cross them now so once the remaining eight sheets get exposed then I’ll be well and truly back into action.
I just have to wait for the wind, tide and cloud to align as always.