I enjoyed a summer’s afternoon on the Suffolk coast with two fellow ‘social photographers’.
One of those photographers is local and often visits Covehithe and he suggested we visit when the tide was in and challenge ourselves as to what we could capture.
This suggestion would mean an early afternoon with the forecast sunny and bright but with some cloud.
It’s unusual to do a shoot in the daytime because we’re usually aiming for a sunrise or sunset for optimum light conditions, or the ‘golden hour’.
The last visit to Covehithe was back in the winter time (Jan-24) for sunrise – see here for that blog post.
We made our way along the beach to the spot where the tree remains were scattered across the beach.
The shoot
lt was hot, sunny and bright with some clouds visible.
We were waiting for the tide to come in and cover the tree remains, and it wasn’t a hardship to sit on the sand, enjoy the glorious weather and have a chat.
The tide did not come in as expected so we decided to get our cameras out and start making the most of what was in front of us.
First shot below is none too shabby with a longer shutter speed to capture some cloud movement.
I picked another location just a few feet in the opposite direction, and after a few clicks, decided to go for a super long exposure.
To get that exposure above, I needed my big stopper (10 stops) ND filter plus a little stopper (6 stops) ND filter and a graduated filter to reduce the risk of blown out sky.
Next up, I went back to the opposite direction where I started, and took two shots of this tree trunk.
For my final shot, it another shot of the dead tree that I started with but looking in the other direction.
And with that shot, it was a wrap!
We walked back via the woods and then the last bit of the beach before heading home.
It was an interesting afternoon shooting in very bright conditions, and with that and the subjects and no-show tide, we had pushed ourselves to bag some keepers.
Onwards and upwards…