We decided to meet up early on a Friday evening at Thornham in North Norfolk for a sunset shoot. As a bonus, the tide timetables told us that there would a very high tide.
At Thornham, a very high tide means that the incoming tide floods the road leading up to and past the old coal shed, making for a more dramatic photo opportunity.
The weather forecast was very favourable and there would be clouds for detail in the sky.
I have never seen the high tide at Thornham so I was really looking forward to this shoot.
We parked up, got our wellies on and thought we’d make a start with some shots around the coal barn, with my first shot below.
I wandered over to where the boats are moored and took a shot of the barn looking back into the sun.
To the right of the shot above, I took the following image which I quite like.
We could see the water levels getting high near the boats. The tide here, like many such locations, can creep up on you without you realising.
We walked back to the road, and there was a nice scene of the barn with reflections in some water on the road – I thought a portrait orientation looked good here to emphasise the reflection of the sky.
We could see the tide was now arriving on the road surrounding the coal barn.
While the guys made their way back along the road, I took the shot below as I quite liked the shot of the road disappearing under the water.
The water was steadily moving in now and I adjusted the tripod to a low position to bag another shot.
As we headed back up the road, water was now covering the road so we started to take the shots we’d been waiting for which was the coal barn with the road flooded, and the anti-parking posts as a leading line.
One of my best shots of the evening is below, and I didn’t realise until I started edit this image back home that there is some grass or debris floating on the top of the flood water. The slow exposure (only 2.5sec) here gives the viewer an idea that there is movement, which I like.
The road was so flooded now that walking back towards where we had parked our cars meant the water was just under the height of our wellies!
We all did several different shots from slightly different angles.
One of best views is below, which David tipped me off and suggested I capture.
At this point, the light was dropping off fast and blue hour was rapidly approaching. I managed one last shot which I’m pleased with as it capture the barn and the harbour boats.
I was done, but I could see the guys and another photographer up on the sand bank/path so just hung around and chilled.
We all made our way back to the car to find that water was creeping up to the where our cars were parked but we had time to decant our stuff into our car boots, and have a debrief.
With dusk having arrived, and the tide still progressing round our cars, we called it quits, and decided to head home.
This had been a fabulous evening shoot and we agreed we need to come back again at high tide.
Onwards and upwards…