Arriving on the beach before dawn my first view was of a large amount of sea-foam blowing along the beach, it would seem that overnight there was a great swell in the water, I hadn’t even been aware, despite being parked up close by overnight and exposed to the full elements, I had no idea arriving that I was going to be greeted by such fantastic seascape conditions for sunrise.

I was back once again to the same location I was at the night before, however this time the conditions didn’t resemble the conditions I had previously, the sky was dark and foreboding, the waves were crashing strongly on the beach, the rocks I had photographed the evening before being gently lapped by the waves, were now in the middle of a bombardment of powerful waves, so, of course, these had to once again be my subjects for photographs.

The power of the waves at this spot was perfect for moody seascapes, so I set about composing my first shot, the first set of shots I took looked fantastic on the back of the camera, the light hadn’t come up yet, however above the angry clouds, it had, which created some superb texture and depth to the clouds, combine this with the fast-moving waves, the dark rocks being punished relentlessly by the onslaught of waves, and my own ability to compose and capture a shot in these conditions, I felt like I was on to a winner.

Next, it was time to turn my attention to the rapidly rising sun, rapidly rising behind the clouds that is, however, a small gap to the east created a portal to the upper clouds to reveal a golden glow. This was then reflected on the wet sand, from the receding tide, allowing me to set up my camera, wait for a wave and catch the contrasting elements in the frame.

Now I’ve said many times before that you are not a seascape photographer if you aren’t getting wet, and today was going to be one of those occasions. Watching the waves as they arrived on shore I could see where they were reaching so placed my camera more or less at the top arch of their flow, this would ensure that I wouldn’t get caught out by rushing waves. This plan is a good plan generally, however, what you always need to be aware of is double waves, these are two eaves that come in quick succession, the second wave rides on top of the first and as such is allowed to travel further up the beach. this is exactly what happened and before I knew it I was knee-deep in water. My Wellies would protect me from most waves, however, given that this wave had gone over and above, it was now time for me to have soggy feet. This was of course caught on camera so you can watch the full extent of my soaking in the vlog. Worth it however given the conditions I was now photographing.

While recording my second piece to camera, and talking through my shot, I noticed another one of these such double waves coming, so a quick retreat was needed, and thankfully I did as this one would have gone hip high, meaning a total socking no doubt. Happy again with my second set of shots, It was time now to turn my attention to the vast array of rocks to my right, each was being pummelled by waves and creating some great surges of waves upwards. I just had to try and photograph these.

As the light was rising behind me, I hoped that I would get a break in the clouds and it would light up the cliffs, alas it didn’t however in the bigger scheme of things it didn’t matter that much. the many rocks that lie just off the cliff face here were plenty to keep me busy, wave after wave arrived and smashed against them, creating large plums of water that shot up in contrast to the dark sky behind. Switching to my 70-200 would mean that I could get closer to the action in the frame without rushing a third soaking, it would also allow me to fill the frame with all of the glorious action. I decided that I would need to record some video of this action while there so switched my camera to video mode, while still using the 70-200 and hit record. the sequence of waves that arrived during this time was fantastic, and once again, this was while the tide was going out, what sort of action happened here overnight I thought.

As I waited now for each wave to arrive and hit the rocks, I had my camera setup and framed, all I needed to do was hit that shutter just as it was about to crash into the rocks, to see all of the movement present itself in front of me and of course on the back of the camera. I changed my settings for this to 1/4 and also 1/2 a second exposure, this would allow the wave motion to be captured during this short time on the sensor, while the rocks and cliff remained static. I had hoped I would at least capture one or two shots here, but what I got exceeded those expectations by a long shot. You can see some of the final frames in the gallery below

While I was on location the night before I wondered what views would be available from on top of the nearby cliffs, so took the short walk up and over to finish off this incredible shoot, I didn’t know what to expect from up there and as I approached the top and took the short walk along the path and around the edge, I realised two things. one was that it was incredibly windy, far windier than I had experienced at the beach or the night before and two that finding a composition here was going to be a bigger challenge. The cliff face was more or less hidden below me, and the rocks below me weren’t much of a striking composition either. I could have gotten down lower by scrambling down the cliff face, however, opted not to do so given my back was only just recovered and I still wasn’t sure if it would improve the composition.

My option now was to put my 16-35 back on, plus add my 10-stop filter, to take an ultra-long exposure. This ended up being close to 3 minutes, possible due to the dark and moody skies of course, and when it had finished cooking I knew I was done.

I had captured a superb variety of shots from this morning, and even though I never got any real light, it didn’t matter, this morning was all about mood and of course wet feet. So as I took the short walk back to the van, I was very excited to see what I had managed to capture and when I finally got back to base to look at them I was more than happy with the results.

You can see the images I managed to capture in the gallery below or watch the adventure on the Youtube video from Sunday at 5 pm