click photo to enlargeIn a small sea-front garden, off the Tower Esplanade, in the Lincolnshire resort of Skegness is a diminutive pavilion with a ridged, blue hexagonal roof. At the apex of the roof is a spike, on top of which is a mirror ball. As mirror balls go it's a respectable size. As seaside, promenade mirror balls go, especially compared with the 20 feet (6m) diameter of Blackpool's (the largest in the world), it is fairly insignificant.
However, as I passed it the other day I thought I'd try a shot similar to the one I'd taken in 2006 of the whopper at Blackpool. The resulting photograph of some of the thousands of tiny mirrors on part of the sphere has an abstractish, pixellated quality that pleases me. At the top of the image is the blue sky with an aircraft's ragged, wind-blown vapour trail. On the horizon are the varied and colourful buildings of Skegness's promenade. Below them is the green of the lawns and the grey/brown of the paths in the small garden where the pavilion is located. The very bottom of the shot shows a segment of the ridged, blue roof.
One of the virtues of visiting a glitzy seaside resort such as Skegness is that even in winter a photographer can guarantee to go home with a memory card packed with shots exhibiting the sort of vibrant colours that you can only usually get in the other three seasons of the year.
photograph & text (c) T. Boughen
Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On
