Blog — bear martin photography

So I’m going to start with a recent shoot I took one mild winters morning at Cuckmere Haven.

I had planned to capture a few sunrise images and use the low light to my advantage for some long exposures of the water movement around the breakwater posts. I love long exposures.

I checked the weather and the tides and everything seemed to in my favour. Even the temperature looked good, well it wasn’t freezing so that was a good start.

I woke up early and drove to the Coastguard Cottages carpark. As I parked, I could just see some colour starting to form on the horizon with a few clouds dotted about and I had a feeling it was going to be a good sunrise. I grabbed my camera bag and power walked down the gravel road with my trusty head torch lighting the way past the cottages and onto the beach.

I set my tripod up where the water would run underneath it to maximise the water movement but by the time I had found a dry post to hang my bag on and get my camera out the tide had receded and my tripod was high and dry. So I clipped my camera on and reset in the tide again and fired off a few shots. It was blue. Very blue. Almost pre blue hour blue. But there was a small golden glow growing a little bigger with each minute.

Below is one of the first images I shot in that early blue hour.

cuckmere haven image 1

Nikon D3300
ISO 100
2.0s
F11
22mm
12/2/19 6:54am

The tide was now racing out and I had to move my tripod every few minutes which meant having to find a new composition. It was made a little easier by the sky being filled with an amazing red/pink light. Another dash into the tide again to place the tripod left me with one wet shoe but I managed to get a couple (20ish) shots of a tighter view of the old posts and some more moving water.

The image below is one of my favourites. The sky is a beautiful colour and reflects on the moving water. I love how the water is highlighted as it moves around the stones making them look smooth and still while the water rushes around them.

I just wish I had changed composition so the single post wasn’t in the frame.

cuckmere haven image 2

Nikon D3300
ISO 100
1.0s
F14
17mm
12/2/19 7:12am

So I had one wet shoe and was trying to decide if I was going to call it day or not but I quickly decided not to and realised that after chasing the out going tide, my bag was half way up the beach. So I took a quick walk to fetch it and try and squish the water out of my sock.

When I returned to my camera the water had once again receded and I was time to recompose. I wanted the cliffs in the back ground in for few shots so I singled out this post and lined up another composition. The wind was starting to pick up now and it was blowing the clouds about and thinning them out which made for more colour again reflecting in the tidal pools. I like this image. I love the light on the pebbles in the foreground and the sky is amazing but the post is too dark and I couldn’t get it to look natural in post.

cuckmere haven image 3

Nikon D3300
ISO 100
0.6s
F11
17mm
12/2/19 7:22am

As the sun rose above the clouds, the direct sunlight shining straight down my camera lens was just a bit too bright for what I was looking for so I decided to call it a day, as with the clouds breaking up the colour was rapidly disappearing. I took a few more shots but the sun just emphasised how dirty one of my filters was so I packed up and made my way back to the carpark.

As I made my was back I snapped a few hand held shots of the cottages as I have a few ideas brewing of how I’d like to photograph them on another trip. I like the composition but it has been heavily edited with me having to add lots of colour to the sky as it was pretty grey and flat by that time. It’s much more edited than I like usually like but it’s a little insight to a future photo that I’ll be taking when the weather is right.

Nikon D3300
ISO 100
1/320
F7.1
55mm
12/2/19 8:41am

That’s it. first blog done. I hoped you liked it. I think it’s going to be pretty typical of what you can expect from these blogs. A break down of a photo shoot. Not too long and with a few pictures to look at.

Thank you. Please come again.