Beautiful Weybourne Beach

In my last post I mentioned how much I love Weybourne, for it's ruggedness and reasonably isolated position along the North Norfolk Coast. There are a couple of things that really strike you about the place. The cliffs to the East, and the proximity of the sea to the beach. The waves crash onto the shingle, only a matter of yards from the car park, so there's no long trek over the dunes to reach the sea, (although there's nothing wrong with that if you want a nice walk). 

I've wanted to try and capture a fairly simple image of a Weybourne vista for some time, and I managed to finally spend a few hours there a couple of weeks ago. Shooting West along the beach/sea line seemed to offer the best combination of composition and beautiful, soft fading light, which was just catching the tips of the waves as the sun started to dip below the shingle bank. A slowish shutter speed of 1/4 second recorded motion throughout the waves without them becoming 'too misty like', which I felt would have reduced their power somewhat. Shooting with a much faster shutter speed however, almost certainly creates a very static image, where the motion of the sea can be lost, something I wanted to try and avoid. The Fuji X-T1 was set up on a tripod with a cable release, and a Lee two stop hard grad in place, positioned across the horizon. As the waves crashed in I tripped the shutter, reviewing the images on the LCD. I ended up with three that I really like, taken over a six minute period. What's quite amazing is just how much the light has changed in such a short space of time, completely affecting the feel of each image.

Warm light at Weybourne

Crashing waves 

Last Light 

Notice how the light has become a steely grey by the time we get to the last image, taken just six minutes after the first. I love the movement of the retreating sea in the second image. This really sums up Weybourne beach for me. And finally, notice the little sea creature in the first photograph, which looks like a Common Sunstar. 

I love this place, and I know I'll be visiting again real soon.