Sunday 17 October 2010

Sunrise, Littlehaven, South Shields

After my recent comeback in sunrise photography I was so pleased with the results that I just had to get out there again and get some more under my belt. Again it was decided that a visit to the north-east coast of England would be my best bet, so off I went. This time I shifted further up the coast from my previous sunrise shoot to a location in South Tyneside, a place called Littlehaven near South Shields. The harbour mouth is situated here and this is where the River Tyne meets the North Sea, with Tynemouth Priory sitting on the cliff edge directly opposite.

My visit wasn't a fruitful one to be honest. The sun was nowhere to be seen because of the thick cloud cover on the horizon, so I took a few shots just for the hell of it. The first shot (shown here) was one of my favourites from a half dozen half-decent ones. I used an ND grad to slow down the motion of the incoming tide, which is something I'm getting into a habit of doing more and more recently. Mind you, it seems to work quite well.

My second visit to Littlehaven was one of 'Unfinished Business' in a way. Not content with colourless photo's from my last visit a few days ago I was at it once again at the same spot. Today was a different ball game altogether. The sun came up shortly after 6am and it cast a brilliant orange hue over the water towards me. I was the only person on this stretch of beach near the Groyne Lighthouse which was a bit surprising considering what a lovely calm morning it was. Quite often you'll see dog walkers on the sand but today it was desolate. Never mind, I wasn't complaining.

Anyway, the second and third photo's on this blog entry were taken during my second sunrise shoot at Littlehaven and once again it was worth the effort in getting up very early to make it happen. I'm already planning another early start next week for more sunrise shots at Souter Lighthouse near Whitburn, Tyne & Wear. Let's hope I get another good one, eh.

Thanks for reading!
Ash