The busier I get, the stronger my desire to get out and take pictures. With a focus on local seascapes I was determined this weekend to expand my usual locations and find some new vistas to capture my imagination.
The cliff walk from Portrane to Corballis beach to the south has great views over the Irish sea from Howth to Rush and Rockabill lighthouse in the far north. Venturing south of the car park at Tower Bay, Portrane, the walk takes a maintained cliff path past many small inlets and a rocky shore.
I decided to try some new compositions along this stretch and as soon as I setup my camera heavy clouds opened to the first falls of snow this winter. So I took shelter with the path above me and my back against the bank to take this new scene.
I only had an hour so I wasn’t able to wait for sunset… until the next morning.
Even in the winter with a later sunrise I’m finding it hard to get out of a warm bed at 6:30. I have to fight the voice telling me “the weather is not right, try some other time”. Is it just me or is the hardest part of landscape photography getting out of bed?
High tide was approaching but I still hoped I could get down to my favourite location just one bay south of Tower Bay. The tide was too high so I stayed higher up the cliff and started to figure out a good composition for the slowly colouring sky above the stratified rock formations before me.
As the sun started to bath light on the rocks I felt something special was about to reveal itself. The rocks were getting warmer before me and needed recomposing. More sky or more rocks? I’ll let the light decide.
The strong leading line to the left suggested a portrait view might work. I needed to crawl a little closer, staying just above the start of the wet rocks. Regardless of footwear, these rocks are treacherous when wet! The high tide and sea swell from the northerly wind meant slipping was not an option today.
It may seem like this image was 3 days in the making, in fact it’s more like 3 years. My first processed image from this location was January 2012. That was also after many failed outings in the general area since 2007 when I first started using a DSLR camera. Maybe I’m a slow learner, or maybe developing a local vision is one of those ten thousand hour things. I’ve still quite a few more hours to log if that’s the case. For now though, I’m happy with this weekends efforts.
