An Old Friend is a Best Friend

I have photographed the beach at Dawlish Warren a lot. It's probably my most visited location. Since I started this blog I've written about it several times and I'm made several videos for my YouTube channel there. You can read why I keep going back and watch my latest video from there in my blog article Shoot, Print, Surprise!

However, the more I photograph Dawlish Warren the better I get to know it. As my knowledge of the location increases, I need to think less about where I am, freeing up my brain to focus on the creative and composition aspects of my photography. Rather than repeat visits becoming boring they do in fact become more productive. An old friend is indeed a best friend.

Something Old, Something Special

The trip to Dawlish Warren for this blog article was actually postponed several times due to poor weather. It's not that you can't put the bad weather to good use. Just have a look at my articles on Bad Weather Photography and Let's All #EmbraceTheGrey. However, for this particular trip, the conditions needed to be a little more forgiving.

My father-in-law, who is a keen amateur photographer, had managed to score himself a day out with a professional photographer as part of a magazine feature. Fortunately for me, I was asked if I wanted to tag along. I could do my own thing at each location, but I would also have the added benefit of some good company.

After what felt like weeks of poor weather we finally got a break and we all met up at Dawlish Warren car park. The conditions looked good and we all felt very positive. In fact, it turned out to be one of the best mornings I've had at Dawlish Warren.

It was one of those mornings that you look forward to as a landscape photographer on the coast. We were treated to some beautiful morning light, calm winds and a gentle sea. It was one of those mornings where you think that if this is the only image I get today I'll be happy.

I took a number of images that morning using varying shutter speeds. Here a couple of my favourites.

Nikon D850, Nikkor 16-35mm f/4 @ 18mm, f/11, 3 seconds at ISO 64.

Nikon D850, Nikkor 16-35mm f/4 @ 32mm, f/11, 8 seconds at ISO 64.

You can see how my father-in-law got on with his photographs by checking out this months issue of Digital SLR Magazine (April 2018).

Something New

I'm not much of a daytime shooter. I much prefer dawn and dusk than midday. As we headed to Teignmouth to photograph the pier I had already decided that I probably wouldn't shoot it. I've only photographed Teignmouth pier once before and while I liked the location, it was at dawn when the light was better. I wasn't sure that shooting it during the day would suit my personal style.

When we got there about 11 am, it all looked a bit different than I had envisaged. The sky had a good coverage of clouds and the outgoing tide was leaving some nice white lines in the sand as the waves pulled back. So I thought stuff personal style and got the camera out!

Nikon D850, Nikkor 16-35mm f/4 @ 19mm, f/11, 2 seconds at ISO 64.

As it turned out I would have missed out on creating some pleasing images if I had just left my camera in its bag. Yes, I much prefer the light at dawn and dusk, but taking those images did show me that these aren't the only times I should be looking to take landscape images. It appears it wasn't just my father-in-law that was learning something new that day!

So what are your favourite times of day to shoot? Do you have a favourite local location? What location have you discovered recently? Let me know in the comments below.

The Best of the Rest

It was hard to pick just a couple of photographs to feature in this blog article. So rather than leave the other images out of the blog, here they are in a gallery. Enjoy!