Out With The Old...

Photography is my hobby, so having a day job and a family means I’m not able to head out with camera in hand whenever I like. When my annual Christmas break comes around, I try to head out as much as possible to make up for the shortfalls. As far as Christmas 2021 was concerned, it wasn’t full of too many opportunities. A very wet and dull spell certainly did dent the amount of shoots I could do, but I did manage some….
Three trips out, two providing images (Gorleston & Gunton) the other (Hopton) didn’t, but it was a pleasant trip out into the fresh air all the same. The beauty of mid-winter is that sunrises are at a much more sociable time and sunsets don’t seem to be too far behind, meaning I could get a mid-afternoon shoot, before heading home to catch a cheeky cuppa and a slice of Christmas cake whilst curling up on the sofa. The other point to make is that cold days often provide the cleanest of light, by that I mean that the air doesn’t have the haze that we experience is summer, so the scenes are often crisp and sharp. It’s the best time of the year to shoot (as far as I am concerned).
Let’s move onto the shoots themselves…..

GORLESTON BEACH - SUNRISE
Gorleston beach at sunrise was the first of my three shoots and actually ruined the other two, simply because of the amazing conditions I was fortunate enough to witness.


A fleeting sunrise made this shoot a short, but beautiful one.

Those that follow me will know that I’m not the keenest of sunrise photographers, but given that December boasts the shortest days of the year, my alarm call won’t get any later, so I really had no excuses to get up and out. That said, I am quite a meticulous planner when it comes to my shots, particularly if it means committing to a sunrise shoot. As it happened, 29th December, looked like a good shout for an early rise and trip to the beach. I chose Gorleston due to both the proximity, and also that I am very familiar with the location, so finding a composition quickly would be much easier. It was a brief shoot. I arrived as normal at first light, around half an hour before sunrise at 8.00. I was quite excited to see some colours developing amongst the clouds as I arrived on the beach. Nothing was taken for granted however, too many times the conditions have flattered, only to deceive and evaporate at the crucial moment, but this day was one in which Nature decided to deliver what she was promising. The colours were beautiful to witness, and were made all the more special by the interaction with the clouds that had formed. Where the sun was due to rise (to the south-east), was actually beginning to be covered over by in a thick mass of cloud, which prevented me seeing the sun, but what that did achieve was some colourful glow and reflections in the clouds and sky to the east of the beach. I only managed two compositions. The first is looking south east-is, and shows the area where the sun was rising, but as this became engulfed by the cloud bank, I turned towards the north-east the track the dawn glow at it’s peak. As is often the case the display only lasted a short while before evaporating to leave the light flat and uninteresting. Thankfully I had arrived just in time capture the best light.


The sunrise colours were losing the battle with the ever thickening cloud, but they were an impressive sight all the same.

GUNTON BEACH - SUNSET
My final landscape shoot of 2021 was on New Year’s Eve at Gunton Beach (North Lowestoft). I headed out fairly relaxed about what I may or may not capture. The recent images captured at Gorleston a couple of days earlier were going to be difficult to top, especially given it was a sunset shoot on the east coast, conditions would have to be pretty special to compete. I managed to arrive on location much earlier than actually needed for sunset, as I wanted to have a play with some extreme long exposure shots. The groynes at Gunton are mixture of those that reach the beach and you walk up to, and some that are surrounded by water much of the time. It was the latter that I was after. The result was this image of the groynes, using a 6-stop ND filter to achieve a 20-sec exposure. As you can see, this extra long exposure flattens out the movement of the sea to give a glass like effect.


A 20 second exposure time was enough to flatten out the sea in this black and white shot.

As sunset got closer, I returned to my usual type of images, still long exposure, but a much shorter shutter speed. I did get some lovely light at sunset . The sky was quite clear over the cliffs behind me, but there was a nice amount of cloud offshore which picked up the sunset colours and were turned a mixture of subtle blues and pinks, my favourite colour palette. It was a great way to finish 2021, it certainly beat a dull, grey, flat sky which could quite easily have happened!


Gunton provides a flat landing for the waves, allowing some dramatic beaching and receding of water.


The sky reflecting the colours from behind me to give a beautiful show of pinks & blue.


My final seascape image of 2021. The sunset colouring the sky and sea.

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LIMITED EDITION PRINTS
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