Gorleston Beach - A Bonus Shoot

This shoot was never in my plans. I had already visited Caister (add link) the day before, and Hopton (add link) that morning, and was feeling a touch jaded, but one of my sons wanted a lift to Gorleston seafront late afternoon to meet up with friends. I said I would drive him there, but as it was close to sunset I decided to take my camera with me to see if I could capture any shots until the inevitable lift home was called for.
The late afternoon light was quite subtle, which I thought I would try to keep and capture in the resulting images. The sea wasn’t offering a huge amount of motion either. The incoming waves were quite tame (to begin with anyway, but more on that later), so it was a bit like a game of cat and mouse, for long periods, as I composed an image then had to wait a while for a bigger wave to fill the frame. Sometimes it didn’t happen, despite my patience, so I found myself having to move closer to the sea, recompose and wait again. It could have been frustrating, but it did make me think about and improve my compositions. Along with the fact I didn’t have too much time between arriving and sunset, I knew I wouldn’t be making too many images during this shoot. But as I said at the beginning of the piece, this was never planned, so any photos I got from this would have been a bonus.



Let’s talk about the images I did capture. The first two are very similar in composition. These are the shots where patience was the key. I spotted the stone in the foreground, which I thought acted as a nice focal point with the water trails as lead-in lines to the groins and background. My starting position was further back from the spot where I shot this images, I was forced to come further forward because I was too far from the water’s edge. However, I did still have to wait for long periods for the sea to come far enough up the beach to actually engulf the stone. I’m not sure if this is entirely predictable, but I have noticed that there will bigger wave once in say 6 or 7 waves, with the rest being smaller, but, unfortunately, not every ‘big’ wave made it to the stone. I got there in the end, with enough images captured to be able to pick out the most suitable ones.
Given that the look I was attempting here was a subtle one, I though a black and white edit may work. I’m still not entirely convinced that it does, I am more happy with this effort than images from other shoots.



Talking of big waves, the next image captures perfectly what I mentioned earlier.
Whilst I was looking at the developing sunset colours in the sky to the south and thinking of trying a different composition to fully embrace them, I noticed the waves on the section of the beach just past the groins I had been shooting were reaching further up the beach. I positioned myself the other side of the groin posts in the first two images, and set-up the next composition. This view is one I fall back on quite often during the winter months. At this time of year the sun sets to the south-west, and so the colours from the setting sun will often catch the sky and high level clouds to the south. This was what was happening on this day. Again, I wasn’t expecting anything too dramatic, but warm light is always very appealing, and I was a little too drawn into what was happening in the sky to pay attention to the rogue wave that decided to beach itself, soaking me from mid-shin level and below! Luckily I was set-up and ready, with shutter release cable in hand and I managed to get the shot as the wave receded back to sea. It’s definitely my favourite shot from the shoot. I think you can get a real sense of the energy of the wave when looking at the movement in the bottom left hand section of the image. The direction of that was pulls the eye towards the breaking waves in the middle of the frame and onto the warm cloud colour in the upper part.



The second shot of that composition is a little more tame, but I do like the little loop patterns created by the waves interacting with the stones in the foreground. I think if I wasn’t soaked with very cold legs and feet, I may have stayed a bit longer to see if I could improve this. I think I only managed a few more shots before admitting defeat and squelching my way back the car to get home and dry off.



Two things were learned that day:
Number One - always keep an eye on incoming waves, although I have been caught out on many occasions in the past, this was the first time I’ve had water actually in my walking boots.
Number Two - wellies are a must for coastal photography. Fortunately, I was on Santa’s good list this year, and am now the proud owner of a pair of thermal wellies, so I shouldn’t have the same issue again…..we’ll see!

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