Photo Outing - December 2020
Now it's time I made headway on a glut of photo outings that haven't been given the blog treatment, until now! As you can imagine, there's lots to get through, even though my time in the field with the camera has been very limited during the last few months. You can blame the new website for keeping me and my camera apart ha!
So here we are, with first of my RETRO blog entries. I'm writing this blog entry today, 15th April 2022, but the actual photo outing to Hartlepool took place back in December 2020. For all you readers who aren't quite sure where Hartlepool is, well, it sits on the North East coast of England, approximately 30 minutes drive from my base in Houghton-le-Spring, Tyne & Wear. It's a place I seldom visit, for no other reason that it has nothing of much interest to me, even as a photographer. On this occasion though, I attempted to break the spell and photograph the moonrise, behind Hartlepool Headland. With the help of my trusty Photographers Ephemeris app, I done some research earlier in the day to prepare me well for the task ahead. I'd pinpointed a pier not far from the headland and this would be where I would shoot the moonrise from. It was a perfect vantage point to line up the moonrise with the headland and the dominating spire of St. Hilda's Church.
I rocked up shortly before sunset, as the plan was somewhat of a double header. Firstly I wanted to shoot the sun going down, followed by the moon coming up. From a spot on the headland I set my gear up and caught the sun dropping behind the horizon, with the Pilot Pier in my foreground. It was a half decent sunset, with decent colour on offer, so the double header got off to a fairly good start, with the main event to follow shortly. As dusk set in I found myself set up on Middleton Pier, facing east towards Hartlepool Headland. There was quite a few fishermen set staggered along the pier and one nearby said my tripod would be ideal for his fishing rod to rest on. He commented on how sturdy it looked and how I must have paid a few bob for it. He went on to ask what I was photographing, as I pulled out my camera and 15-600mm Sigma lens. I mentioned the imminent moonrise and he said "There's a lad gets down here with his camera, he does a lot of night shots and he sometimes sends them in to the BBC and ITV weather charts. His name is Ash and I think he's also had his photo's on the Children In Need Weather Calendar".
I had a little chuckle to myself and said something along the lines of 2Oh that's good, he must be a very good photographer". There was one or two similarities, that's for sure!!! He then said2He's called Ash Foster". I remembered the name for another time, eager to check out this lads work.
Within 5 minutes or so the moon was up and over the rooftops. It looked immense and I took no time at all in tripping the shutter. Job done! A nice little run out, it has to be said. Maybe Hartlepool isn't that bad after all. One for future reference...maybe more of the Headland or even a look around the marina. Definitely somewhere that deserves a second look.
Cheers, Ash
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