I was delighted to join three other photographers for a sunset shoot at Snettisham.
One of those photographers (Emma Steele) I had not met before and they have won awards for their minimalist images so it would be an interesting shoot.
We met in the car park and got ready to walk the 1.5km path to the beach.
My RSPB membership card was useless this time as the machine was out of order and so couldn’t scan the card, so I paid up for a parking ticket.
As we got to the beach, we observed the tide far out as forecasted and lots of water pools and shapes for us to explore.
We all did our own reccé and then got to it.
I was struggling at first so took my time to wander while shooting some random stuff.
First up was a close-up of the cracked mud and this plant remains just sitting there.
I had tilted this image in post-production to make for a more interesting viewpoint.
There was the emergence of a dramatic sky in the distance with rain clouds and I grabbed an image with my longer lens.
I decided to look for face shapes as I had done on my previous visit last August.
While wandering around and chatting with my fellow photographers, I told them what I was looking for but one of them could not quite get the concept, but they did once this image was published.
Two of us had spotted a twisting leading line in the mud and while my pal decided to shoot it side on, I went for the straight up angle.
I was trying to use the small green plant as an additional point of interest strategically place opposite the line.
I tried a wider version to see what that would look like but these captures weren’t ringing the jackpot bell.
The sunset was arriving fast now and there was quite a dramatic sky in the distance.
I spotted what to me looked like a pair of eyes, or rather the lenses of a pair of sunglasses.
I turned around and went back to the leading line spot to try again and this is where I think I got the best composition.
While I love the golden light on the mud, this image was crying out for a mono conversion.
I threw this into Nik Silver Efex and picked an effect which I felt best drew out the texture of the mud cracks.
We were reaching the end of the evening now and I had one more spot I tried to grab something interesting.
This one doesn’t do anything for me and I think I needed to be a lot lower down to shoot it.
And that was a wrap.
We all wandered back to the car park chatting about our evening and a cup of tea and snack back at the car, we had enjoyed our trip out.
It was time for the hour+ journey back and that satisfying feeling of having some images in the bag with potential.
Onwards and upwards…