Aberdeen Beach
Groyne and Tree Trunk
21st June 2017
I took a walk around Footdee (pronounced "Fittie" - an old fishing village at the mouth of Aberdeen harbour) and Aberdeen Beach over the weekend. It was a very hot day, unusual for Aberdeen, and the beach was very busy. I don't particularly like to include people in my landscape photography, so this added some extra challenges to finding a good shot. I doubt I will ever move into street photography...
Walking around Footdee, I couldn't help thinking that I could get a better image if it had been raining. However, working with the fine weather, I took several shots of the receding paths and then took them into Corel Aftershot Pro 3, to see what I could do. I reduced the saturation to give the photo an almost back-and-white look. The final result is OK, even if it is not my favourite image from the day.
Footdee ("Fittie")
Footdee has a large sea wall protecting parts of it from the sea. The wall curves over and is very reminiscent of a wave. Unfortunately, there were a few people enjoying the weather and set up on the beach at the foot of the wall, so this meant I couldn't get anything there. I will have to go back on a more intemperate day and see if my creative side can find what I was really hoping for.
Along the top of the sea wall, there are a row of tiled roofs. These gave me the next shot, which is far more abstract. The roofs have several moss patches on them and I had expected to raise the saturation to give them some real punch, however, having toned down the colours in the first photo, I felt that this one also benefited from the the subtle approach.
Footdee Roof Tiles
From here I moved on to Aberdeen beach and I was struggling to find anything that didn't feature crowds of people. Fortunately, the tide was out far enough the groynes were well exposed and they are nicely weathered so this gave me some interesting textures and receding lines to play with. The first photo in this post is my favourite from the day. The tree truck resting against the groyne adds an unexpected twist to the image and the weed on the groyne itself finishes it off nicely. I had considered converting the image to black and white, but after playing around with it I think it works best in colour.
The final image is of the Aberdeen Beach wall. Again, I have taken the image down a more abstract route, focusing on the shapes rather than the scene. This one certainly benefited from the conversion to black and white. The people in the background had quite colourful clothes, and even the blue sky was a distraction. The black and white image highlights the lines on the wall and even the demarcation between the cloud and the blue sky adds an interesting effect.
Aberdeen Sea Wall