Heavy Rain over Pier Hastings UK

My daughter and I took a walk on our local seaside town in Hastings UK and got caught in a beautiful heavy rain shower.  At first the rain hit and then the hail came down with force shortly afterwards.  Needless to say, we had to run for cover at the nearest opportunity especially as I had left my home wearing shorts believing that the summer sun would prevail on this particular day.  It did offer me the opportunity to witness that beautiful light which occurs during heavy thunderstorms or freak weather patterns.  The battle between the sun trying to break through the heavy cloud formations and the beauty of the rain shadows dancing on the horizon was spectacular and begged to be photographed. My daughter insisted on pushing forward at every given opportunity and she was the sensible one wearing a hooded jacket anyway.

Hastings has a seaside Pier which you will see in these images which was built in 1872 and enjoying its prime in the 1930s, though becoming a popular music venue in the 1960s, it received major storm damage in 1990, closed to the public between 1999 and 2002, then closed again from 2006. Efforts continued to save the pier, which was in need of much investment. In the early hours of 5 October 2010 the pier suffered from a devastating fire (the second in its history) that destroyed 95% of its superstructure. You can clearly see this in the images I have uploaded. Efforts are now in place to rebuild the Pier once again and hope to revive it again in the next couple of years.

The original 2,000 seater pavilion was destroyed by fire in 1917.This was eventually replaced in 1922 and played host in the 1960s and the 1970s to notable artists such as The Rolling Stones, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Genesis, Tom Jones, Ten Years After, and Pink Floyd. Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett played his last ever show with the band here on 20 January 1968.

Photography: Heavy Rain over Pier Hastings UK

I took my Fuji X-E1 armed with the 18-55mm lens on this particular occasion.  I have to say that this little camera is truly proving itself to be a worthy member of my photography weaponry!  Setting aside the slower nature of its operation in terms of focusing and also getting used to the electronic view finder, the images this little system is punching out is nothing short of spectacular.  I had believed that perhaps this camera was more suited to people photography and portraiture, but these latest images are proving that it is more rounded than expected.  Plus the bonus of carrying such a small amount of equipment around really helps when hiking around at any location or chasing your 4 year old daughter in the rain!

All images were shot using the large JPEG setting on the camera and I dialled the ISO down to 100 to capture the best possible resolution.  As the lens has VR inbuilt, I was not concerned with any lens vibrations while shooting, although there was ample light on this particular day.  All images were shot at f5.6 and either shot full wide at 18mm or zoomed in to the maximum 55mm which in the real full frame world is either 27mm or 85mm.

I hope you enjoy and experience some of the magical effects of the light and cloud formations that both my daughter and I experienced.