England photography!
A different adventure for me this weekend saw me shooting at RPSB brampton cliffs and flamborough head.
I try and keep up with my family as much as possible, and this weekend was an opportunity to see them for an early father’s day weekend.
We decided that, as my dad has a bit of a soft spot for puffins, to go and try spotting seabirds at Bempton Cliffs RSPB site. This is a site in east yorkshire that has amazingly high sea cliffs, composed, I am told by my geologist wife, of chalk amongst other things.
We spent a day at the cliffs and I had a great time, despite the unusualness of shooting south of the border!
I took the opportunity to use one of my favourite lenses, my Nikon Z 100-400 telephoto. This is a lens which I initially purchased for taking on an african safari, but was also at home using it for photos of seabirds along the cliffs.
Take a look in the new section on my gallery and you will see how it did taking seabird photos! Particularly pleased with one close up shot of a gannet in particular.
On the subject of gannets, these are among my favourite sea birds. I actually grew up near a massive gannet colony in the firth of forth, and always really enjoyed watching them hunting by diving into the sea at incredible speeds hunting fish.
One thing the cliffs didn’t do well for me with - heights! I’m rather terrified of heights, and standing on top of enormous cliffs, at times hanging my camera over the edge for shots, really did trigger my vertigo! However, I had a great time taking photos of the amazing wildlife at the cliffs, and would highly recommend to anyone who enjoys bird watching.
Having done my wildlife for the day, like a kid finishing his vegetables, I allowed myself to get back to some landscape photography! Went along the cliffs at flamborough head (despite the rain) to get some landscape shots, as my wide angle lens was starting to feel left out having been in the bag so far!
There are some pretty wonderful places, including a really nice beach near Flamborough lighthouse that really had amazing chalk cliffs. The best thing about that? It kept my wife distracted whilst I was busy taking photos. It’s one of the secrets I believe to a happy marriage - have overlapping interests.
After dinner at a nice restaurant with the family, I decided that, given it seemed there would be a small weather window, I would try and do something unique to the time of year - get a sunset photo over the North Sea. This is a phenomenon that initially seems impossible, as you may be thinking, the sun sets in the west. However, at this time of year in latitudes such as the uK, the sun actually sets to the extreme northwest. Given the direction of the cliffs at Flamborough, with a northward facing section near the lighthouse, at certain times of summer, the sun sets over the cliffs, giving an illusion of the sun setting over the north sea. Something I haven’t managed to photograph before but which I was really glad that I got a weather window for. You will have seen the photo I got attached to this post.
Then Sunday it was a long trip north to go and view a house back in Scotland - watch this space as I may have a new photography office soon!
