Last week saw story weather striking the south coast of the UK. I was in Devon and took the opportunity to travel to Dawlish Walsh. The sun was not hidden behind opalescent clouds but the water was being violently tossed around by the gale force winds. The groynes in this picture are at the top of the beach and seldom get wet. On this day, they were over run with wave upon wave.
I was in Stockholm at the end of last week and wondered down to the harbour in search of a morning shot before the working day commenced. The weather forecast had stated it would be a clear, sunny day, yet as I stood on the quayside, it started to snow gently. As the opalescent cloud drifted off in a south easterly direction, the dawn light emerged along with some dawn colours.
The second shot below I took a short while later, with a Lee Filter Little Stopper (x6 ND filter), to lengthen the exposure. I lost the colour in the clouds but the movement of the ferry and sky made for an interesting alternative version of the same scene.
After waking up early for a dawn shoot, I was a little dejected by the lackluster weather. However, using a Lee Filter Big Stopper to slow the scene down and generate movement in the clouds, whilst making the sea turn more glassy.
The delicate orange glow below the morning clouds, behind the pillar of land at Ladram Bay in Devon made for a rather haunting scene.
The dawn of a new day in southern Patagonia. This shot pf the Moreno Glacier was taken a few years back when I was working and travelling around South America. I purchased a lovely Fuji GW690 that took no time at all to get the hang of, along with a huge bag of medium format, 120 roll film all around the continent.
This shot was taken a short while before the sun progressed over the mountainous horizon behind me, illuminating the whole Moreno Glacier in a glorious morning, amber light. Definitely should be a place one’s bucket list to visit and watch sunrise.
Early yesterday morning, I stood opposite the London Eye to watch the dawn of a new day in London. The shot above is a panorama of four shots stitched together of the south side of the River Thames. The image is almost 18k pixels in width.
The shot below was taken a few moments before that, as the first light of day broke behind the Wheel. The maintenance team still had the red lights on the wheel switched on and the so too for the Marriott County Hall Hotel.
Still in the Canadian Rockies, I tried to shoot the famous Moraine Lake, situated close to Lake Louise, a few times but to no avail. In the end, it took me three attempts to capture this dawn scene. First time, I wondered into the forest jutting out into the lake on the right. I was spooked by a bear and decided a shot was not worth a mauling. The second attempt was marred by terrible weather. Third time lucky. The light lasted about 5 minutes before clouding over.
The solitude of the morning was somewhat dispensed with when I was interviewed by a Japanese film crew, who turned up too late to capture the dawn and wanted to use my photographs.
I was staying in a small motel in Banff and had scouted this location out the previous day. The light was falling to my right on the lakeside but I loved the dawn vanilla skies above the mountain on the other side of the lake.
Whilst out one evening in Devon, I was walking along the Jurassic coastline when the light made me stop in my tracks. Using a Lee Filter Big Stopper, I softened the rolling waves into silky smooth wisps, lapping against the groyne.
As the light changed, the waves became ever more energetic. Soon, the pinky orange hues gave way to the grey blues post sunset, making the whole scene feel palpably colder.
West Witterings – Shot 4
Last shot from West Witterings beach in December last year. This shot was taken using a Lee Filter 3 stop ND filter and polariser as the storm moved off towards the east, along the beach.
West Witterings – Shot 2
Following on from my last entry, here is another shot from the sequence I shot in West Sussex, at West Witterings beach in December 2015. This shot was taken using a Lee Filter Big Stopper about 10 minutes after the previous shot. You can see the rain falling in the distance, beneath the cloud. Quite a surreal scene.
West Witterings – Shot 3
Shortly afterwards, the sun climbed high enough in the sky and started to light the clouds above the main bank. I had to wait another half an hour until the sun had completely cleared the main bank of cloud in the scene and that created a completely new view of Witterings. Truly a stunning morning.
All Terrain Photography 