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Sincere Flattery

When I first started 'getting serious' about photography, I coined a very irritating phrase - Cliche is my friend.

What I meant by this was that my preferred method of learning was to look at the work of others and see if I could replicate it - deriving the mysteries of settings and composition through an attempt at creating a similar photograph to one that had captured my imagination...

However, upon meeting and talking to some of the photographers whose work I so admired, I came to realise what an insult it was to term their work 'cliched'.

Of course, what I was meaning was some variation upon the phrase 'imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.' Fool.

Anyway, having met the wonderful Justin Minns on my trip to Iceland, I was delighted that I finally made my long-intended trip to Felixstowe to visit Cobbolds Point. This is a location that Justin shot in one of my favourite pieces of long exposure photography - a shot so good that it was featured on the cover of the seventh Landscape Photographer of the Year collection.

Anyway, the conditions on the day were such that I couldn't get as close to the water as I would have liked and the stormy sea didn't give me the calm effect I was hoping for... but... having perched on a freezing rock for about half an hour - and shattered a NiSi ND1000 filter in the process - I've ended up with a shot that, while not perfect by any means, is another important waypoint on my own little journey.

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Uploaded on March 19, 2018
Taken on March 17, 2018