Sunday 19th August was designated as World Photography Day and I wanted to get out and take some photos at the coast. We planned to walk at Seaford Head and down to Cuckmere Haven via Hope Gap - a favourite spot of ours. We were in need of the exercise and the sea air.
The weather was dull and grey, with drizzle in the wind as we left home. Arriving at Seaford Head it was very windy and the drizzle seemed to be trying to become something heavier. Feeling keen for our walk, we set-off as planned and with the camera and tripod despite my wife suggesting that maybe it wasn't going to be the right sort of day for it.
On World Photography Day, I was determined that I would not fall into the fair weather photographer category. When we got down to beach level, the tide was just past low tide and starting to come back in. The waves were being whipped up by the wind, not making them particularly big but creating enough for them to splash well when they crashed against rocks etc.
Looking at the surroundings, I decided I wanted to capture the movement and the spray and the crashing waves. I set up my tripod and set about creating a pleasing composition via the live view on the back screen. Using ISO 100, I needed to use 1/15sec to give me around f22 for good depth of field and thus the shutter speed used allowed me to get the movement of the water.
I moved a little nearer to the main beach after the above, 'cos the incoming tide was trying to give me wet foot as several waves came along in quick succession.
My next composition saw me trying 1/8sec to see what it gave me in terms of movement and again I was very pleased with what I captured.
As we continued our walk, I noticed one particular rock that was creating a nice splash as the waves hit and decided on this as my last composition. The two below are the most pleasing, but again several turned out well. The light had improved a little and I was still using 1/15sec, but 2secs shutter delay (to minimise camera shake) meant that what I got was mainly down to my timing when pressing the shutter - I had to press a couple of seconds before the wave was going to hit the rock and the results are very pleasing as far as I am concerned.
In summary, a successful afternoon and a good lesson learnt about trying to make the most of what is in front of you. I am very glad I was tempted to try and to experiment.