Last weekend I went to Kimmeridge Bay on the Jurassic coast.  I arrived just before 5:00 am and it was only a 1 minute walk from the car park to the beach itself, so carrying all my equipment was a nice easy.

There was a sliver of the moon in the sky, but enough to see where I was walking. It’s a beach with lots of varying size pebbles, so definitely take care when venturing to the shoreline. I started playing with 90 – 180 second exposures with the ND8 filter attached.  I was really quite pleased with the results. Silky smooth water and a nice glow from the left of the picture as the slightest light was on the horizon.  I’d arrived at just as the tide was starting to turn so.  As a result more and more of the rocky outcrops were becoming visible as time moved on.  I love being in a place where the environment is constantly changing

As you’ll see from the gallery on https://www.eyeforimages.com/ I took a number of different shots in different places as the sun came up, there were common features throughout the set, but the light changed from a rich blue of night through to a pinky glow of dawn… I definitely chose an amazing shooting location and would recommend this place to all.


After I’d finished down at Kimmeridge I had a couple of hours to spare so decided to head along the coast to Tyneham, an old Ministry of Defense base that was given back to a local trust.   Around one mile from Tyneham on the coast, you could access Worbarrow Bay, not a single person in sight and there were some amazing cloud formations overhead.  In the woods on the walk back to the car it became apparent as I was about 2-3 weeks away from the Bluebell carpet being in full bloom. I’ll definitely be heading back this way for some shots of the bluebells. 

Headed back to the car and decided to head further down the coast to Lulworth Cove.  By this time the sun was facing straight into the cove so decided to play some more with HDR shots, pretty interesting shooting into the sun, the results can be so varied, but the high dynamic range of HDR makes this a much more easy task to achieve.  Time to buy a new filter CP filter for my Cokin system, I think the results would have been a lot better with that.

It was time for one final stop before heading off for home, Durdle Dor.  I always love visiting Durdle Dor, but the trek to the beach was a real pain with the photography equipment, but the journey is always worth it once you get there.  I was able to hide from the Sun to get some movement in the water by sitting in the shadow of the dor.  It really is a magical place and if you haven’t been there you should take the time to make a trip… The Jurassic coast is full of surprises, get down there, spend a day, spend a week… hell get yourself a little beach house and spend the rest of your days…

TTFN
Paul Stoakes
Main Site: www.eyeforimages.com