We had our first decent sunrise in weeks this morning, so I headed down to Whitburn to photograph the famous arch. Unfortunately, the tide was higher than expected and I couldn't actually get to it, so I settled in the bay just around the corner.
My 3-stop soft grad struggled to keep the sun under control without crushing the blacks in the rocks to the right. At times this like this, I could really do with another soft grad to layer on top, as the hard grad just isn't suitable for this kind of shot.
I wanted a shallow DoF shot of the wet pebbles, so I had to use a whopping 14-stops of ND to get a long exposure at f/2.0. The result was quite nice, though I would have liked to have experimented a little more. Unfortunately, I was kneeling in the surf at this point, with my precious camera about 6" above the water, and the sea-spray was quite overwhelming.
I always kick myself after taking shots like these, as they say nothing about the surrounding environment - they could have been taken anywhere - but I just find rock formations like this absolutely fascinating!
Click on any of the photos to see them full-size against black, and please do leave a comment below if you like the photos.
