Landscape Casuals

The landscape casuals is a group of club members who like to go out more often than the once a month official club programme provides.

The clue is in the word casuals… anyone who fancies a trip out, or is planning on heading out for a shoot can post a message and invite others which means we get to do more shoots together and create more of a community sharing our ideas and a bit of male bonding (thump those chests now)! 😂

For this weekday summer evening, we choose Happisburgh.

Happisburgh – not again?

Happisburgh? Not again you could easily cry. I’ve done two blogs already in the last few weeks for the same location.

You’ll know there’s the famous and iconic lighthouse, and also the groynes and remains of sea defences on the beach.

So why again? Well, other than you can never visit this location too much, there is something new to see!

Time and Tide Bell

The bell is the creation of sculptor Marcus Vergette, it is one of 13 installations for the UK coastline, intended to highlight rising sea levels and global warming.

Quite poignant for for such a location which is being ravaged by the sea very aggressively.

It was a fellow club members idea (thanks Bill) to focus on this sculpture for our evening trip, and with the tide looking favourable we met up there around 7:30pm.

We headed straight towards the bell and began shooting. As always, I was looking to capture detail in the sea. My best shot of the night is below and shot with a one second shutter speed.

My best shot of the evening

Although it’s likely to be one of the most popular shots, I had to grab my own copy of this one straight on with a slow shutter speed.

24-120mm @ 120mm, f/13, 8sec, ISO 64

ICM (Intentional Camera Movement)

As I’d enjoyed the output from my ICM zoom burst attempts on a recent visit, I had another try and was quite pleased with these three…

Three ICM shots which offer a more arty view of the Time and Tide Bell

I took a few of these shots and really like the one below thanks to the colour blend in the image, and textures in the sand.

If Jackson Pollock did photography…?

And with those images, that was it for that evening…. But there would be more images to bag from Happisburgh.

Sunday evening fly by visit

My wife Kathryn wanted to see the bell and the following Sunday, we were having a lazy day and decided very last minute to call by so raced up there just as sunset was starting.

I checked the tide and saw it would be out so this offered a chance yet again to get a different shot.

I couldn’t be bothered to take all my gear so just dropped the Fuji in the bag – no tripod, no filters, just the camera. This was an evening walk not a photography excursion.

As we arrived, the golden hour light was really nice so we just had to do some shots of the field and the lighthouse.

Some nice shots handheld, minimal effort

Edit – Photos that you risk ruling out

I have subsequently talked to fellow club member Pat who really liked the shot below that I posted online.

Out of focus flowers – judges may not like it, but viewers do!

We had a chat about images which may not be technically perfect in the eyes of a photography competition judge, but are visually appealing and tell a story.

Since talking to Pat and hearing his views on the image above, I’ve come back to this blog and added it here, as I thought it worthy of mentioning.

Casual shots of The Bell

We wandered down to the beach to see the bell in its full glory with the tide out.

My favourite shot thanks to the colours in the sky

I then blatantly copied a shot Kathryn got with the reflection of the bell in a water pool.

Copycat Reflection shot

The final shot was more diagonally on and when the blue hour had arrived.

Nice colours

So, after two visits, totalling four within the last few weeks, Happisburgh has certainly delivered.

Far from being bored by it, I hope to be back soon.

Onwards and upwards…