Exmouth beach, one of my favourite places to shoot, deep in the blue hour as the last remnants of the day concede to the inky blues and blacks of night time. This was well after sunset but the image of the moon almost perfectly aligned above the groyne gave this cool blue scene a sense of symmetry.
Taken a couple of weeks ago at Bantham Bay in Devon, the tide was receding, which allowed me to chase the water line without worrying about my footsteps. Unfortunately, there were no crashing waves on the rocks in the foreground.
As the light faded from golden hour to the blue hour, I took the shot below. The rocks on the right were already beginning to reflect some of the light from the rising full moon.
This is a shot of one of the stone jetties on Dawlish. The sky was overcast but there was some really interesting light breaking through. My HiTech grad filter has a purple cast to them, much like Lee filters have a slight blue cast, which coloured the sky. Juxtaposed next to the polarised sea, which looked green after a chopping night and the colours look other worldly.
Back in Devon, I started my series of 4am wake up calls, to get out and capture the early morning sun over Devon. On day 1, I headed down to Teignmouth, south west of Exeter. I chatted to a few dawn swimmers, including a lady who was in her eighties and had been pursuing a dawn bathing for over 40 years, which was the reason she moved to Teignmouth in the first place apparently.
The shot below was taken about 45 minutes earlier of the same scene, as the dawn light was breaking across the maritime vantage point. The sun never quite broke through the clouds but the sky was a glorious amalgam of purple, orange and pink hues.
Whilst in Cornwall, I visited a lovely little beach called Spit beach Par, just to the west of St Austell. To the right of where the footpath arrives at the beach, is a lovely expanse of sand. However, to the left, is this interesting, rocky area.
The evening when I was there, a local camera group were out in force, which did not surprise me as it was a great spot. The time of year to shoot the beach would probably be in the winter, when the setting sun would be more out to sea instead of over the land, as you can see in the image below.
Walking through the streets of London a few years ago armed with my compact camera, I saw this picturesque scene of shafts of light emerging between the trees of Bedford Square Garden, close to Tottenham Court Road.
Another weekend down in Sussex and I wanted to find an alternative view of Bosham harbour. As the sun dropped behind the village with its iconic church depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry and said to have been built on the crypt where King Kanute was buried, I chanced upon this scene. In the foreground, the seaweed looked more like the webbing of a giant spider, blanketing the exposed wetlands at low tide.
Over the weekend, I was down in Devon and had hoped to be able to shoot a more natural setting than my recent London city images. However, the weather had other plans. On Saturday evening, the miss rolled in and even before I arrived at Budleigh Salterton beach to shoot the end of day scenery, the fog meant that the view was very limited.
With the limited vista available, I ended up taking long exposure images of the waves lashing the shoreline. With no fixed point in focus, the end result is more reminiscent of a painting than a photograph. It also goes to show that even when you have poor light and limited options, there are still photographs worth taking.
This is a shot from the Serengeti in north west Tanzania. There were a load of people standing around the scene, so I found a knoll next to the small body of water that elevated me just above the height of the foliage. The water was full of hippopotamuses and crocodiles, which was another reason I wanted to put some height between me and them.
Several tourists stood perilously close to the edge of the water, even though they had been expressly told by their guide not to do so, putting them in the perfect position for a croc to grab a late snack. I kept my camera poised for an action shot…
All Terrain Photography 