Interview with Jed Pearson

Hi Jed! Tell us about yourself in two sentences - who are you?

I work in Public Sector Housing and over the years my role has become more and more office based and photography gives me the opportunity to get out and enjoy the natural world. Having been brought up living on the coast it is this environment that really excites me and I love to capture the weather fronts that roll in over the Irish Sea creating opportunities for my favoured long exposure techniques.

QWhat's the weirdest situation you've found yourself in while taking a photograph?

AI completely miscalculated the tide on a recent visit to shoot some old wooden sea defences at sunset and when I arrived the tide was much further up the beach than I’d expected. The sky looked very promising and I’d driven for an hour and a half to get to the location, so to get a good composition I waded out into the water with my tripod fully extended and stood for half an hour waist deep in the sea to get the shot I wanted. This much to the amusement of my wife who sat on the beach laughing at me. When I returned to the car I was soaked and didn’t have a change of clothes so drove home in soggy boxer shorts and a coat - the things we do for the love of photography.

QWhat do you shoot on? What's your favourite set up?

AI upgraded my camera to a Canon 5D mkiii about 2 years ago and absolutely love it. The full frame sensor is ideal for landscape photography and the high pixel count allows for cropping without too much loss of image quality. For landscapes I favour the Canon 17-40mm F4 L USM, it’s lightweight and gives great image quality, I use Lee filters for a lot of my long exposures particularly the Big and Little stopper, ND grads and polariser. I have recently acquired a Hi-Tech 15 stop Firecrest filter which is great for times when the cloud movement is slow and I want the clouds to streak right across the frame. This can mean exposure times of 8, 10 or even 15 minutes so you have to be really happy with your composition before taking your shot as there may not be an opportunity to take another as the conditions change.

QWhat's your number one tip for an aspiring photographer?

AIt’s two tips really, get to your chosen location early and wander around to find the composition that you are after, don’t ry to emulate the shots of others from the same location but look for something that makes yours unique. My second tip is to learn how to use the digital darkroom. If you shoot in RAW, and you really should, your images will need to be processed but remember less is often more when it comes to saturation and vibrance