Hopton-on-Sea was the pick for this weeks sunrise trip with a meet time of 06:45.
Following the recent print competition round where my drone shot ‘Beached Whale’ had received top marks (10/10), I was well up for another visit here.
Hopton has given me two ten out of ten shots with Beached Whale and Alligator Rock, and it would be great to achieve a triple set of top marked shots.
I was interested in having another attempt at pound sign rocks as I wasn’t fully content with the image I got last time.
The Shoot
We made our way down the staircase to check out the beach to find the tide wasn’t as far out as we had thought looking at the tide times.
We decided to hop over some of the inbound waves to go further up the beach to do a reccé.
I copped for two successive waves throwing water into the top of my wellies but soldiered on!
Some fellow photographers stopped on the beach, others stayed near the steps, and I opted for going up to the clifftop to find pound sign rocks.
Initially I had an issue finding it amongst several similar curvy rock bays but looking back at my blog helped me identify surrounding features and pinpoint it.
My first shot adopted a similar composition but I was intentionally trying to get decent wave motion/texture in my capture.
There are some tall twigs peeking up on the right hand side but I did not seriously consider breaking them off as I would’ve rolled down the cliff.
I spent a lot of time in this spot hoping that repeat captures with differing settings might inspire me.
I was also trying to capture less of the foreground grasses and by this time the morning sunlight was providing some wonderful warm colour tones.
A more extreme crop doesn’t work as I feel it loses the pound sign shape.
I was sacrificing a potential different scene with the morning sky but I had committed to this intention, but it was time to move on.
On a theme of repeat visits and shooting the same thing, I decided to check out my beloved Alligator Rock, so headed back down the staircase to the beach.
I am very pleased with this next shot and I took care to get some detail in the water.
Of course, this is nowhere near as epic as the original but I like it and you’ll note the ship on the horizon in a most convenient place for ones eye to stop having looked through the scene.
I’ve cropped the sky out just to see what a difference it makes.
I thought I should try some different angles and compositions which made me think there could be some other potential captures which would hit the spot.
The morning was coming to an end and I saw some of the guys waving from the clifftop heading back to the car.
I grabbed my macro lens and fired off a few shots of nearby rocks to catch some detail and textures.
I started with a section of the alligator body.
Then I went for more closer ‘intimate’ shots.
And that was a wrap!
Wandering back to the cars for coffee and debrief, everyone had a good time and for one or two it was their first visit to Hopton.
A most enjoyable shoot had by all.
Onwards and upwards…