I have been wanting to go to the coast on a windy day to see what I could capture photographically, and have seen many photos from Newhaven and Seaford area on Twitter etc so that seemed like an obvious choice.
I saw that the forecast was for strong winds throughout the day, with high tide due around 11.46 a.m., so my plan was coming together nicely especially as it was supposed to be mainly sunny.
I was, therefore, rather disappointed initially when I arrived at the Tide Mills car park at Seaford and was greeted with dark clouds and a sudden cloud burst. I could immediately see, though, that there was blue sky behind the dark clouds so I sat in the car and waited for the rain to blow past - which didn't take too long with the wind that was blowing.
Grabbing the camera, I set off for the beach. The waves were crashing on shore and creating a lot of sea spray, which wasn't going to the best thing for camera and lenses. I son started shooting, with the aim being to look along the waves to capture them crashing ashore and the subsequent spray. The wind was blowing from the West, so looking in that direction made it appear that the waves were hitting the shore and then continuing a journey East along the beach - the effect looking like a line of firecrackers being set off.
Having taken a few that looked reasonable on back of camera, I returned to the car to drive around to West Beach, Newhaven where I hoped to capture waves crashing into and over the harbour wall. Access to what I considered to be potentially the best angle was not possible, so I settled for various positions on West Beach and varied my shots by where I chose to point the camera. I had opted to use my 100-400 zoom for this part of the day and was very pleased with what I managed to achieve. The timing here coincided wit the high tide and the waves were fierce and high. The wind was very strong, so much so that sometimes it was job to stand still.
Several different angles were taken, with quite a large number of pleasing shots. After about 45mins of being battered by the wind here and getting caught with quite a lot of sea spray, I decided on a change of location.
Back to the car and wipe off the spray from my equipment, then I drove to Birling Gap. I knew I would be limited to car park level at the top of the cliffs and not be able to get down the steps to beach level cos of the high tide, but the shot from up top was the general view that i had in mind when I set off to go there.
I grabbed the camera, now equipped with the 24-70 zoom, and went to the top of the step area as planned. The sea was very rough, with the waves rolling in on the still quite high tide, and I was able to take several shots to hopefully capture what I had in mind. Again I was struggling to stand still and hold the camera still, the wind really was that strong. Again though, I got what I had set out to capture and was quite happy.
My last port of call was the sea front at Seaford, at the Eastern end near to Seaford Head. At that end of the beach, there is a small part of a jetty that has seating for the public. This concrete platform stretches out into the sea, though it is fenced off for access before it reaches the sea. The amount of access available allowed me to get a view almost looking along the line of the waves as they continued to crash ashore. The rough sea was visible behind the waves, while I was able to include a few of the sea front houses on the right and could still see the cliffs at West Beach at Newhaven in the distance (below) - this particular shot one of my favourites from the day.
I shot a few more from on the beach as I walked back towards my car and then saw a row of brightly coloured beach huts, with these contrasted beautifully by the very blue sky behind.
It was a scene that was crying out to be photographed, so I set about taking a number of pics. I varied between vertical and landscape composition, while also changing my viewpoint so that I could vary the colour of the nearest beach hut. The photos were very pleasing and something a bit different from the rest of the day.
Driving back along the sea front, I noticed that the waves were still being blown up and over the harbour wall and sometimes over the lighthouse at the end of that wall. That angle had not been possible from West Beach, so I parked up safely and refitted the 100-400 to allow me to zoom in as much as I could to try to capture the waves going over the lighthouse. It would still need some cropping in the computer, but at least i had also taken that type of shot. Again I really struggled to stand and hold the camera still.
Finally, I decided enough was enough and headed for home to clean my gear and grab a much needed coffee.
Downloading the photos asap after arriving home, I then started flicking through what I had taken. I was very pleasantly surprised with many of the angles - a good first attempt at this type of photography.