Contrary to popular belief, I do sometimes shoot photographs in daylight. Historically, I have been drawn to shooting images at night with lightpainting and landscapes in the dark being my favourite thing to do.
So when you're away for a short weekend break on the east coast of England it would be remiss of me not to take along a bag full of camera gear.
We stayed on the Norfolk / Suffolk border which is in easy reach of my planned itinerary. I even made a list, but as usual weather got in the way!
So while I grabbed quite a few shots, it's not nearly as much I wanted. There's always the next time!
Danger! Sharp spikes near Groynes!
I had my intended shoot locations all mapped out and as usual a curveball came along and messed everything up by raining! Plan B was this beach local to where I was staying which turned out to be an epic beach full of old groynes.
I stood in front of these for ages trying to avoid getting wet and failing!
I tried a few different points of view as the light changed and tide flowed over my feet!
Behind the scenes....
I don't normally shoot with a tripod with the centre column extended so high. The results are prone to camera shake as the wind or water wobbles the tripod. There doesn't have to be much movement to mess up a shot!
An Hour on Corton Beach
I've shot in this location before and the last time the wind was howling a gale. Try as I might, I couldn't keep the damned camera still long enough for long exposures.
For this visit, the light was great and importantly the wind was light too!
Happisburgh Beach dodging the sea spray
This is a focus stack of two images and is somewhat of a miracle shot for me. Every now and then a wave would come crashing over the foreground rocks meaning I had to abandon the shot and dash up the beach to keep my camera from being destroyed!
I shortened the exposure times for both images and managed to fire two shots off before the next big wave arrived!
This is a 17 x 9 crop, something I've been experimenting with lately.
Wild tides on Happisburgh Beach
I spent a sunny Sunday afternoon on Happisburgh Beach just after high tide.
I learned a valuable lesson about this beach in that it is best to arrive maybe two hours after high tide and not one hour when the high was way too high!
I was there to capture long exposures, but the crashing waves were impressive!
This is a 65 x 24 ratio crop. Looks great on photo websites or even printed but not so much on "regular" social media sites.
Slow shutter to fast shutter
This shot shows the difference between the above fast exposure and this long exposure image. This is a 10 second exposure, just enough to keep some textures in the water but long enough to blur the motion of the wave crashing against these old groynes.
The Tide was High
During this trip I encountered tides which were higher than I was expecting. Of course this is spring time and the tides even at low tide were higher than I wanted.
Here I couldn't get on the beach so had to settle for shooting from on high!
About me:
I usually specialise in shooting lightpainting images but occasionally dabble in landscape, urbex and artistic model photography. I like to collaborate with other photographers and occasionally shoot outside my comfort zone.
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