Moody Photos in a Ship Graveyard

Okay it's happening guys, I've got my window. I certainly won't want to be caught on that little island. You'll be screwed. The weather band's gone over that way, more inland. I should have joined the circus. I might have to pivot on this one guys. Crikey guys, that channel comes in quick. Because of the saturation it's really made them colors pop. So guys today I'm after a graveyard full of ships. A sort of sunken skeleton kingdom. There's meant to be lightning and thunder and rain today. It is in the forecast and I thought having the ships in the foreground with this beautiful sky in the background would be incredible. But it's just a perfect beautiful summer's day so just have to see how that all turns out. Well guys look at this, just jetting out of the ground like rib cages. It's absolutely incredible. This is right up my street. What an incredible place. So weathered and beautiful. The old nail's sticking out. It literally is like a graveyard. That ship there, I think most of that's underneath the ground and this is part of the same ship where the ground has swallowed it and took the ship back. Absolutely incredible. Loads of worn out metal and rotten wood and it's all being reclaimed by nature. It's absolutely phenomenal. It's between that point of complete destruction and decay and nothing being here, but it retains just enough of its anatomy so that you can tell it's a ship. Absolutely wonderful. It's in that sort of golden spot. Wonderful. So this whole ship graveyard actually started because of a landslide. Back in 1909 part of the river bank here in Purton gave way, just behind the river bank in the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal. So there was a real danger that the River Severn could eventually break through into the canal, meaning we had about 10 minutes before we were looking up at Atlantis. So the canal engineer called A.J. Cullis came up with a rather unusual solution. Old ships. So he started bringing old ships here and sinking them along the river bank on purpose. They even knocked holes in the boats so the tide could get inside and slowly fill them with silk and mud. So basically these old ships became part of the river bank and it worked. Whenever the bank needed more protection they brought more ships in and that's why they're still here today. So these aren't just ships that somebody abandoned, they were put here on purpose and now more than 100 years later they're slowly disappearing into the river bank. Yeah these ships are all in different states of composition. I mean this ship that I'm looking at here, I'll just turn you around, you can't really tell that it's a ship. So I think the way to go about this is to find something that's not too badly rotten away and still has that sort of typical ship arrow at the front leading off into the sky. But this is incredible. Look at this ladder there guys. This is, this literally is a spooky graveyard. It's incredible and if the clouds play ball we can produce something very incredible. Maybe even some black and white, I don't know. See what happens with that sky. At the moment the sky's not really playing ball but we just have to see how it goes. There is a ship out in the, in the water there but if my only intent today is to meet my maker then I'll go shoot it. But there's no way I'm going out there guys. I love you to pieces and I want to produce some great work. There is absolutely no way I'm going out there. Take two minutes. Oh ----. So guys I'm going to sit here, eat my banana and get, take some stock. So we've got an interesting foreground. It all hangs on the sky. Now blue you can convert in black and white and make that quite dark. There is, like I sort of said, there is meant to be thunderstorms and a storm front passing through. I think it's better to pick one ship and have a reasonable photograph than try and do half-assed four or five. But we'll see how the weather picks up. So I don't think that the storm that's forecast is coming through guys but I think this video is just going to be entitled make the best of a bad situation but it goes like that sometimes guys. If I don't come away with anything today then it's always a chance to come back. I particularly want to come back when there's windy conditions as well. So here we are on the ship graveyard again guys. Completely different day. Last time, if you can remember, it was quite hot, quite muggy, high humidity, not much in the sky going on. So I'll come down today, completely different conditions. Hopefully walk away with a moody image but I've got no idea about the tide times. Typical John James photography fashion. No research, grab everything, right time to go out and wing it as I go along. But we'll see what we get anyway guys. We've really got something here. There's beautiful textures. I'm going to try and get it in the frame of this beautiful boat here leading out. I'll try and frame that up guys. In actual fact this looks better because of the rain. Because of the saturation it's really made them colors pop. So let's frame this up guys and see if we can get something here. Here comes the rain guys. So what's happening now is we've got our subject. This really does work with all the textures and with the saturation of the water. Now what we need to do is we need to finesse this. We're like, as photographers, we're like, I don't know, sculptures and what we're taking is our block of marble and we're just chipping it away, chipping it away, chipping away. For example, I think that this scene works much better in portrait orientation and now I'm adjusting the height so that I can get, sorry guys, I'm just trying to protect the filters, so I can get that top cabin in. So I'll adjust the height, get that top cabin in and look at that sky guys. Lovely bit of mood happening there even though it's a nightmare guys to keep the filters clean and stuff. This is where the magic really really happens. I'll just try this one more time just to say guys, I'm trying to juggle. I should have joined the circus. You've got to sort of hold the the brolly there. Obviously some spots get the filter in front but what can you do. There's some beautiful textures in the sky but I just want to just give a little bit of movement but I don't want to completely turn them to lush. Five, four, three, two, one. Let's see how this comes out guys. Now do I stick with this composition or do I move on? It's a tricky one. I think what I'll do is move on just to see if there's a different alignment. The sky is interesting over there. It's not, it's not too bad over there but that's where the weather's going to come in off of South Wales so it's best to face that direction really. Damn it with this ship man. I just can't leave it alone. It's just so full of, it's just got so much character and if that sky plays ball, well I've already got, to be honest with you, I think I've already got something in a portrait orientation but yeah it's just the textures and I think actually it looked really well as a black and white. It's just stunning, that's just, I love that feeling as I keep probably, you've probably heard me say this quite a few times, of just time and just mood and atmosphere and just basically old stuff. I love old stuff especially decayed stuff. I think it's got so much beauty in all the colours and in all the textures and the wood as it rots and all of the structural integrity is all left behind but the structural bits that made the actual ship, like the nails and stuff like that, you can actually see how the ship is made. I just find that absolutely fascinating guys. I don't know about you but I just, that really floats my boat. No pun intended, too early in the morning for that. I don't really know what to do guys to be honest. Well there's another band of weather about an hour and a half away that's going to come in. I've framed up so many compositions and each one seems to be working and it's going towards the weather so, but then I've got an hour and a half so I might walk around for an hour and a half just to see. Yeah we've got an hour and a half guys so what I do or what we do, have a look around see what we can see and see if there's another composition with a ship. Just a quick note from today's sponsor, don't have one but you can change that. A like and subscribe goes miles on YouTube. The fact that you're even taking your time to watch this video, I can't thank you enough for and I hope you get something from it and I can inspire you with the work and you can learn from my mistakes sort of thing. But yeah just hunting around for some more ships guys and see what we get. Yeah I don't think any of the ships are as good as that ship that I originally started with because it it's decayed enough but it's still got its sort of shape of a ship. There's this ship it's quite nice but it's encased in this um fence to preserve it so it's lovely because you can actually see the whole of the shape of the ship but there again it's not facing the right way anyway um how dare it um yeah go back to the original ship because that's got enough that it tells you it's a ship but it's also got the distress factor. Crikey guys that channel comes in quick I've never known anything like it there's a little island out there I'll put up some b-roll I certainly won't want to be caught on that little island you'll be screwed. I might have to pivot on this one guys because where I'm actually facing out towards the channel there the sky is quite there's not much going on all of the action is happening parallel to the ship so what obviously I'm not going to go and shoot it parallel so what I'm thinking about doing is perhaps that ship over there now that ship over there is a sort of concrete ship it doesn't have as much character as this broken down wooden ship but it's sort of facing the right direction a bit more that's the only thing I can think of doing the weather band's gone over that way and pushed more inland into England off of Wales. I don't know guys artistically I like that ship 100% I don't know. So now we've just got to wait and wait and wait but we've worked out the kinks we know where to put the tripod we know the boat that we're going to use the composition we're going to use we now know the shutter speed we're going to use we've worked out all the kinks now if the sky plays ball all the waiting will pay off and if it doesn't we still walk away quite a nice image and a nice day out of course. Okay it's happening guys I've got my window right quickly put a battery put in my teeth oh sorry guys so if you can remember guys we worked out that 40 seconds was a sweet spot so it's because of this sort of blueprint that we built now we can just when the conditions are there and it's coming into the ship we can really use that to our advantage and speed up the workflow. Wow guys so what's happening is the clouds are splitting on either side it's a bit like a Moses right down the middle bang and I'm hoping to get the shafts not not shafts but the well I suppose they are shooting out of the right side out the left side and the ship leading you in I've taken all sorts of angle angles micro adjusting trying to find compositions it's just I don't know about you guys but it's that sort of stressful moment where you think to yourself well the lights there are not light but the clouds and everything else don't screw up sort of thing you can only do what you can do it's like it's a bit like the weather the weather will be what it will be you do the best that you can do you see how it works so guys I've gone for 30 seconds instead of 40 seconds to just give it a little bit more texture and I've framed this in such a way where I want you to be able to reach out and touch this on the right side of the photograph so you're really sort of really in there and having that sky coming over so you can actually feel the textures this is this is something special it just keeps getting better and better guys it's what an absolute blast I mean it's beginning to sort of fizzle out now um yeah so what I'll do is I'll put up a few images I won't put up all the images that I've done because I've done quite a few but it's always in these moments guys I don't know about you everybody's different but you you sort of question yourself you sort of think to yourself am I good enough as a photographer to capture this oh get what I've got in my head you know you sort of think to yourself did I get focused did I get exposure right more than likely you have but I suppose it's that fragility it's that that sort of fragile moment that that you know is there and it doesn't have permanence and then it's gone and you're sort of you just got to sort of put your hook in go for the ride and then you you let go again and you're scared that you're going to sort of mess it up but I'm sure that they've come out all right I think I'll call it there guys so I've said the like and subscribe in I I'm doing well today see twice unbelievable I've had my wheat a mix today guys right then I'll see you in the next one guys take care