Photographing a Lyme Regis Legend - Harry May

Tuesday morning I was out early to meet up with someone that can only be described as a Legend when it comes to Lyme Regis ... Harry May.

Just as with the Scallop Divers, for one reason or another, including Harry having knee replacement surgery, it had taken almost 2 years to get him in front of my camera, but it was so worth the wait.

What a super nice guy!

Honestly ... despite it being the first time we'd met and spoken in person, it felt like I'd known him for years. In fact, when Harry arrived, it was easily a good 20 minutes if not more that we chatted, before I started taking photographs. Sorry for keeping you waiting, Steve 😃

Keeping It Simple, Keeping It Classic

The brief for this one, set by me, for me, was simple: keep it classic.

It was a glorious sunny morning with just enough cloud cover to give beautifully soft natural light. To match that softness, I used my 4x3ft Westcott Softbox, positioned about one and a half arm's lengths from Harry.

I shot at f/4.0 to soften the background slightly. Rather than using High Speed Sync (HSS) to let me shoot at a wide aperture in bright light, I opted for a 4-stop Neutral Density filter instead. The light was consistent and I'd had everything dialled in well before Harry arrived, so there was no rush and no need for the extra flexibility HSS gives you; it's simply a different way of solving the same problem: too much ambient light for the aperture you want.

• Did you see my High Speed Sync versus Neutral Density Filters Infographic ? ( LINK )

My Westcott FJ800 strobe handled it perfectly, run in TTL with +1 stop of compensation added.

Natural Direction

If you've ever been to Lyme Regis, there's a good chance you've spotted Harry leaning on the railing further down by his Fishing Trips board. So, having him lean the same way where we were shooting felt completely natural to him. Direction was barely needed, just "lean yourself on there and get comfy."

That's really the whole trick with portraits like this: find the pose someone already does in real life, and let them do it.

The Stunt Double

Before Harry arrived, my mate Steve Healy stepped in as stunt double, so I could get the lighting and exposure dialled in properly. That meant when Harry turned up, we were ready to go straight away rather than running test shots on the actual subject.

Three Shoots, Five Days

I'm on a high right now. This was my third shoot for my "I am Lyme" project in the last five days, and the best part is word is starting to spread. More people are hearing about the project and wanting to be part of it.

About "I am Lyme"

"I am Lyme" is a community-focused portrait series centred on the coastal town of Lyme Regis. The idea is simple: capture and celebrate the local faces that give the town its character, from fishermen and restaurateurs to B&B hosts, cafe owners and more…

LYME REGIS - My Special Place (Short Film)

A short film I put together for the "Video Creators Virtual Summit 2024" about my Special Place ... Lyme Regis, Dorset in the UK

I hope you like it
Glyn

Short Film about my Medicine ... Lyme Regis

It’s less than one week until the launch of the very first, and FREE VIDEO CREATORS VIRTUAL SUMMIT and I”m really looking forward to present (for the first time ever) 2 classes on using Adobe Premiere Pro.

This is a completely new area of teaching for me so I can’t wait to share the classes I’ve put together …

• Masking Essentials in Adobe Premiere Pro

• Plan, Record, Edit | Creating your First Video

I’ve had such a blast putting these classes together and definitely have some great, fun memories with friends from the Masking Class that I”ll be sharing at some point.

The ‘Creating your First Video’ class has actually been quite an emotional journey though … but in a good way I hasten to add.

I decided to treat it as a way of giving myself an assignment and then sharing the process from planning, recording and editing.

The assignment I gave myself was to record a short film about my favourite place of all which happens to be the area where I live, Lyme Regis, and try to portray why it’s so special to me.

Anyway I thought I’d share it here too, so I hope you like it …

Photographing Storm Agnes with my iPhone 15 Pro Max

So although in the South West we didn’t get the full force of Storm Agness last week (unlike Ireland and parts of Wales) , what we did get still caused some pretty impressive scenes.

Timing couldn’t have been better on Thursday last week as the tail-end of the storm also coincided with a high tide of 4.5 metres at Lyme Regis Sea Front.

This was also to be my first time out ‘in anger’ with my new iPhone 15 Pro Max which I used to photograph the storm along with the ReeXpose App from ReeFlex.

I only had a few mintes to capture whatever I could before the heavens opened and heavy rain joined the party, but here’s the results …

Both results are a blend of several long exposures ( 0.5 seconds and 1 seconds ) taken with my new iPhone 15 Pro Max and the ReeXpose App from ReeFlex and edited in Lightroom Mobile / Cloud and Photoshop.

One of the BEST pieces of advice I was given when starting out as a Portrait Photographer was to move around ... don't take photographs from one spot ... look how the light changes as you take a step to the left or a step to the right.

Since the Covid Pandemic when I first ventured out into landscape and seascape photography as a means of keeping active and keeping creative, one of the most important things I've learned is ... when you find a composition make sure to LOOK BEHIND YOU

This is how the 2nd results came about with the tail-end of Storm Agnes and was what was happening behind me whilst I captured the first.

My camera is ALWAYS with me ... thankfully

Now when I say camera, I mean the camera that, because of apps, I can do other things on like email, check the weather, browse websites and all that kind of stuff … you know the one I mean right?

Anyway, thankfully it’s always with me, and thankfully I always keep a tripod in the car, which meant when I popped down to Lyme Regis for a couple of hours yesterday afternoon I didn’t miss the opportunity to take some photographs of a superb incoming tide of crashing waves …

For this image I took. a series of 0.5 second and 1 second exposures using both the Lightroom Camera and ReeXpose, and then blended parts together in Lightroom and Photoshop to end up with a scene that for me best represents what it was like being there, as wave after wave crashed into the rocks.

Lyme Regis by iPhone

Mornings like this take some beating …

Now that we’ve relocated , our favourite place of all ( Lyme Regis ) is literally just down the road and yesterday morning I headed down early to catch up with a friend (Steve Healy) that I’d not seen for quite some time.

With no agenda other than catching up , we walked along the sea front , sat on a bench looking out to see whilst drinking coffee and eating a delicious pork bap and took the occassional photograph … Steve with his Fuji kit and me with my iPhone.

Here’s a series of photographs taken wth my iPhone 11 Pro Max ( still waiting for the new iPhone 14 Pro Max to be in stock ) and editied in Lightroom Mobile … such a great , convenient combination

Bringing along just a small amount of kit , I also had my Insta 360 One X2 camera with me to capture some video. In a couple of days I have the new X3 arriving so I can’t wait to check out the quality difference.

The great thing about 360 cameras is that nothing gets missed … as you can see here 🤣

Once I get the new iPhone 14 Pro Max I intend to do a lot of photography around this coastlineand maybe look at adding some Lightroom Mobile editing videos on my YouTube Channel because this really is so much fun and makes photography even more accessible for everyone.

Cheers
Glyn