Kathryn and I were looking at a coastal walk and thought the Blakeney to Cley walk looked good.
We have done this walk before so knew what was in store.
First visit – Fuji X100 handheld
After checking there was no high tide due during the time we would be parked on the Blakeney car park, we started our walk.
Similar to Brancaster Staithe, Blakeney is well known for people getting their cars stuck in tidal water. Despite plenty of publicity and warnings, it still happens to some people every year.
The incident of stranded cars are generally tourists so that means for a “lukall”, we would not want to be caught short!
As we walked along the path, I scrambled down the bank quickly to grab a few clicks of this rotten and decrepit remains of a boat.
I grabbed some flower shots and attempted an ICM shot too at 0.5s.
ICM is challenging with the Fuji as the camera has a fixed (non-zoom) lens and no image stabilisation.
Through experimentation, I’ve learnt that the Fuji is going to blur images below 1/30s and I used the built-in ND filter to allow me to drop to half a second. ICMs on a fixed lens are obviously more about the movement of the camera in-hand.
We were on the last bit of the path now heading towards Cley and the clouds were gathering threatening to throw down a rain shower.
I quite liked the stormy sky that was on show and I tried to make a feature of this with the dyke acting a leading line with its deep groove in the landscape.
The above image has been slightly re-edited as the one I posted on Instagram had a blue band across the horizon. A sloppy miss of the sky and inverted sky filters I used on the original.
Of course, it’s the law that when in Cley, you must take a shot of the mill.
I wanted a try and get a capture that had moving foliage in the scene and I quite like the following shot, again another reflection from my original Instagram post which was a different shot with the mill more central.
I took quite a few shots of this scene while walking this part of the path and one of them came out well as a mono.
I grabbed another shot as I felt the pattern of grasses in the field was interesting.
We wandered into Cley and popped into the pub for a cold one.
🚨I need to ‘fess up to one of my fellow photographers that I succumbed to the lure of an ice cold Hazy IPA which was surprisingly nice. This follows a chat where I declared my dislike for American influenced fizzy and citrusy ‘ales’. 🚨
We made our way back along the same path and midway back there were some impressive sun rays emerging from the clouds.
We were approaching the car park and I couldn’t resist trying to capture the curves and shapes in the water channels.
As we got back to the car, I thought I’d grab a shot of Blakeney harbour as there were some nice reflections in the water.
It had been a really enjoyable walk and I was pleased with the images I had captured although I did miss being able to stop down the shutter a bit more and the option to do a zoom burst ICM.
Second visit – Nikon Z7 and 24-120 lens
We were back two weeks later to repeat the walk with Kathryn’s brother.
I had chosen to bring a different camera this time for a bit more flexibility.
This time we parked at the Wiveton Farm café and had a really good lunch the started our walk from here.
We were passing the boat again so I just grabbed a shot from the path.
I thought I would have a play with some multiple exposures and grabbed a few nice creative shots.
I should multiple exposure shots more often.
I did quite a few multiple exposures shots of Kathryn and her brother as I was hoping there’d be one to print at a later date.
There were some interesting water pool shapes but nothing awesome.
Once again, I couldn’t help but take some images along the path as the reeds and grasses in the field were very colourful.
These scenes provided some interesting shapes and patterns.
I scrambled down the bank and took a shot trying to use the reeds as a kind of foreground viewing area.
We wandered into Cley and guess what? Yes, you’ve guessed it. It was a refreshment from the pub and a very enjoyable sit down in the beer garden.
This time it was a pint of traditional bitter in the form of Wherry.
We wandered back to the car along the roadside path from Cley to the Farm Café and it was home time.
Both days out and walk were really enjoyable and I enjoyed experimenting while doing some casual photography. No doubt we will do this walk again – we will definitely be visiting the café again.
Onwards and upwards…