Upon looking at upcoming weather, sunset and tide times I made a plan to go on a trip to Bosham - a beautiful harbour village that sits at one of the northernmost tips of Chichester Harbour and a place that I have visited many times before but not really ever captured a proper decent sunset.
The forecast sun duly shone as I drove down to Bosham, with my plan being a walk around the harbour at low tide and to eventually be in a good spot for sunset that was due to coincide with it almost being high tide.
I managed to park in the village car park, despite it being 50% taken up by a large quantity of yachts that had been removed from he harbour for safety over the Winter and despite the payment machines having minds of their own and making it extremely difficult to actually pay for the parking ( I wasn't the only person by a very long way to experience this difficulty).
Camera in hand, I set off for my planned walk around the harbour area and caught a few nice angles of the village set behind the mud flats and grasses that low tides reveal.
Whilst looking for further angles, some clouds rolled in and a brief shower ensued from which I sought shelter under a large tree.
This large tree soon became the prop for me to frame the village within for a further totally different angle.
A few pictures were shot and the rain stopped, so I started my walk back towards the car where my lunch was waiting for me along with my tripod that I would require nearer to sunset.
What hadn't been forecast, or therefore expected, was the torrential and prolonged shower that caught me before I was anywhere near reaching the car. I had a decent jacket on, which got quite wet as did my lined walking trousers which are thankfully reasonably quick drying.
I made it back to the car, quite wet and very cold on the exposed hands and face and stowed my gear in various places to dry off as best it could ( the camera was all ok and the backpack has a good rain cover ). I dried out gradually as I ate my packed lunch, while the rain continued to fall rather heavily outside.
Eventually the sky on the horizon looked a bit brighter and with plenty of time remaining before sunset would be due, it looked like I might still get the sunset opportunity I had originally hoped for.
With the rain having ceased and the sky brightening, I grabbed my gear and a different jacket plus the tripod to head back out around the harbour to see what possibilities might exist or occur.
The tide had come in a fair distance while I had been sheltering from the rain, but what immediately became obvious was that the Winter sunset is going to occur more to the South of the village and not behind the buildings etc. My anticipated shots were not likely to become reality, so I had to adapt to what was actually going to be available.
That meant that my sunset view was going to be looking pretty much South across a stretch of the harbour, with mainly trees as my background as I had wandered further South than the village area.
I took what I could and experimented a little with my Variable ND filter, before heading back towards the village seeking further angles from which to shoot.
A few looked promising but didn't really deliver and then I made my way round to the village side of the rapidly filling harbour, via the road which floods at high tide.
Using the secure hard ground of the road as my temporary base, I took a few really pleasing photos in what is called the blue hour ( the time which follows actual sunset) and a time in which I haven't normally tried shooting but which was mentioned in a magazine article as being worth trying.
The magazine article was correct, though I have more to learn and experiment with to get the best from it - but a few were very pleasing.
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