I met two other photographers at Shingle Street in Suffolk for sunrise.
A 04:35 rise and shine was required to get there early to walk to location before the sun would rise.
We would target a less popular part of this location which meant skipping the classic lagoons and cottages.
An objective was to look for shapes, be creative and look for something different.
The shoot
As we walked over the road from the parking location, we made our way along the creek to the shingle banks and began to explore.
For my first shot, I put my 100-400mm lens on so I could zoom in to the shingle banks across the water.
One of next captures I’ve edited and converted to mono using Nik Silver Efex Pro.
I was continuing to look for shapes and I’m quite pleased with this next shot with one exception.
Although I like the curves and shapes, the shingle is completely out of focus.
Learning point: What I’ve realised is that shooting with such a long shutter speed (in this instance 76secs) and despite being on a tripod, the shingle underneath is regularly shifting with the water. Next time, I need to bump my ISO up and shoot at a much faster shutter speed.
I wandered a little further down the shingle bank to shoot across the water to what I believe is Orfordness transmission station.
I was finding the long lens a little fiddly to adjust and use so decided to switch to my go to favourite lens, my Nikon 24-120mm lens.
As I walked back up the shingle bank, I noticed an amazing cloud where it appeared there were three layers of differing tones, which I hurried to capture.
This bank of shingle was to be the feature for several more images, and I quite like this next one for the birds on the right hand side.
I decided to do a wide shot and long exposure to see if I could get movement in the clouds.
For final shot, it was another of the shingle bank just capturing the moody clouds.
And that was a wrap.
We wandered back along the creek and back to our cars.
A cup of coffee and a biscuit and a debrief about the morning was most enjoyable.
For two of us, we would now drive to East Lane at Bawdsey to see what was on offer there.
East Lane
We arrived at East Lane and made our way to the beach – a high tide was about an hour away.
We were heading for the tree that’s resident in the sea.
While my fellow photographer wanted to get a closer shot of the tree from behind it, I thought I would concentrate on shooting it from a distance away.
The tide was incoming and we had already decided to keep an eye out and tip each other off if we felt the sea was encroaching on the small line of shoreline that the sea hadn’t yet reached.
I took a few shots of the tree while trying to get my preferred motion shot of the sea.
I quite like the next scene which is a wider shots to capture the drama in the sky.
We decided to make our way back to the clifftop as the tide continued to come in and it was getting quite blustery.
From the clifftop, I grabbed my final shot below looking at the beach and trying to catch the drama and roughness of the sea.
And that was a wrap! The second of the day.
We walked back to the car park, had some food and a cuppa and chatted about our morning.
I had enjoyed it so much, I didn’t want it to end. I thought about walking back to the beach but I was squeezing blood out of a stone, and realised I was on a post-shoot high but actually knackered.
With an hour and forty minutes drive home, I set off and got home nine hours after I had left at 05:10 in the morning.
I got in and went for a nap.
It had been a very enjoyable morning out and having had little interest in returning to Shingle Street, I know consider it somewhere I’d be happy to revisit, and the same for East Lane.
Post shoot and post production thoughts
It’s interesting to observe differing thoughts at different times.
Post shoot, I felt I had loads of great shots.
Post-production, I thought I had nothing from Shingle Street and two or three from East Lane.
Following a closer look, I believe both shoots delivered one or more keepers.
Onwards and upwards…