It’s the first day of our Scilly’s trip. And so far, I have been filming shots of the journey. It difficult to know how to record the sense of travel in a creative way. I wouldn’t want the shots to look too boring.
The first shot I went for was of the Ferry arriving in Penzance. I wanted to capture St. Michaels mound in the background as it hinted the location without the aid of signs.
The sky was over cast was on the brink of being blow out. But I exposed just below peaking so that it still retained detail, allowing it to be adjusted in post. Shooting with this in mind it not how would usually like to go about it but it getting the mid-tones perfected, enabled an even exposure throughout, with plenty of detail in the shadows.
A shot I saw on the spur of the moment was the name of ferry being revealed on from behind a box on the harbour wall as the ferry moved closer.Â
I felt that the two men on the front of the ferry didn’t really make pleasing visual. Had it been lots of holidaymakers than maybe. So not much of a fan of this shot.
Before Michael and I decided to get on the ferry. I took the opportunity to get some shots of the sports fans and holidaymakers making there way to the ferry. I liked the shot as the church in the distance gave harbour view bit more variety. Â
I also took the same situation but with a different frame. Not so keen on this one a there almost seems to be too much empty space. Also the affect that the church has is far less. Too much space and not enough content!
A shot to show the journey from Penzance to the Scillies
The white water created by the ship was something that I wanted to photograph as it aided the sense of travel. This shot was taken landscape. I soon remembered that sideways movement wasn’t the Canon 5D MK II forte. The rolling shutter prevents sideways movements from being smooth and ends up looking blurred and generally hurts your eyes to watch. Â
So I tried turning the camera the other way round. The movement was now directed downwards and was a lot smoother. I included a window in the frame as I felt the reflection in the window added a nice touch. It was a dodgy shot as it meant that I had to lean far out over the railings and risked loosing my camera
 to the dark depth’s of the Atlantic Ocean. But it was worth it
Upon arrival to the Scilly’s I filmed some shots of the harbour. The weather wasn’t that great but at least it had some detail in the sky. I felt like I should be shooting more shots of the landscape, but I felt that to do it justice it would have to be done on a sunny day as people would want to see nothing more than the iconic turquoise waters and lush foliage that fill books and postcards. I filmed the scene with a gig team training as a reminder of why we were here.
After lugging all of our equipment to the over side of the harbour, we waited to see if we could see if any of the Caradon crew, as we had been told they were just out training. After about 30 min they arrived at shore. They placed all their ores against the harbour wall. Which made an interesting shot. I wanted to get lower but my rig denied me this. It so hard to remove the camera from the rig as the screw thread ceases up. I really think they need to design a camera rig with a quick release plate!!
Later that evening we walked up and over the headland to where many of the teams were observing their teammates training and to also see where the where the battle of the gig’s would take place.
On observation many of the Caradon crew would stand and stare out to sea. It allowed me to easily film around them to portray the situation. The main challenged that I faced was keeping the horizons, strait, as I was filming with a shoulder mounted camera rig. I felt this was a challenge, as if I was to take my concentration away from the horizon if would end up crooked. But if concentrated too much on the horizon the content of the rest of the frame may suffer.
I liked this shot as the gig rowers were rowing past as he looked out to sea. I used a 70-200mm lens to compress the landscape.
This image shows a slightly lower perspective. I didn’t really think that the horizon should being going through his neck. Plus I don’t think there’s really enough detail in the sky to make it a major feature in the frame.
The rest of the team would sit and observe the other boats .
