Hopton Rocks

It’s only a 15 minute drive from my house, but I’d never visited Hopton Beach as a photo location before, choosing Gorleston Beach as my go to seascape location, as Hopton was always very similar. However, whilst the beach at Gorleston has grown and grown, Hopton has suffered the opposite fate, and has been eroding quickly.



2013 saw the beginning construction of the sea defences by the Potters Resort owners, installing hundreds of tonnes of granite reefs to protect the highly vulnerable cliffs below it. Not only has it given Hopton the protection it so desperately required, it has also given the beach an identity of it’s own.





Photographically it is an amazing location. I visited it around midday on a very overcast day with a view to have a look around and assess photographic possibilities, I found myself staying well past the hour I had originally planned, and even when I left two hours later, I felt as though I still had more shots I could have taken.



There was very little detail in the sky for much of the shoot, so I concentrated on the reefs and in particular rocks which were covered in seaweed as foreground interest, the green contrasts with the otherwise grey colouring of the scene. I tried a few long exposure images, the longest here being 255 seconds, but a majority were between 1.6 and 4 secs, to help accentuate the movement of the sea as it recedes.



That in itself requires patience. One composition took nearly 30 minutes of waiting for the right wave to come in to make the image work, but the results were definitely worth the wait.
For the photographers reading this, all images were shot using a 2 or 3 stop ND Reverse Grad to balance the sky with the foreground, a polariser to bring out the colours in the seaweed and reduce any glare, and either a 3 stop or 10 stop ND filter to increase the shutter speed.



I'll definitely be back to Hopton again. So many shooting possibilities there, it would be a shame to miss them!