From Grey Skies to Colourful Skies

Winter on Dartmoor is often my favourite time of year for photography. Sunrise isn’t too early, and you can shoot sunset and still be home in time for dinner. The colour of the Dartmoor landscape is also particularly photogenic.

This winter has been tough though. Lots of overcast damp days. I can work around most weather conditions, but there are some conditions that make photographing Dartmoor really challenging. It’s not that I haven’t had some good days on Dartmoor this winter, but they have been few and far between.

Sometimes you need to take a different approach. Or in my case, a different location. Having spent what seemed like hours, if not days staring at forecasts over the winter, I concluded that I was perhaps focusing too much on Dartmoor. I’m surrounded by amazing coastlines so why aren’t I out there photographing it! The weather can be a bit more forgiving on the coastline as you can benefit from even the smallest of gaps on the horizon for the sunrise or to make the most of a darker, moodier sky.

To get myself back into coastal photography I decided to head back to an old favourite, Dawlish Warren beach. A location I have photographed many, many times. It’s also close to home and given I haven’t photographed it in over a year it seemed the perfect choice.

Looking at the weather forecast for that morning it didn’t look great but when I analysed the cloud coverage, I could see there might be the possibility of gap between the horizon and the lower clouds. If all went well the rising sun would break the horizon and bath the scene in light before it disappeared behind the cloud.

It’s not often that a specific analysis like that transpires into reality but in this case it did exactly that.

**Dawlish Warren #2, Devon** - Nikon Z8, Nikkor Z 24-120mm f/4 S at 120mm, f/11, 30 sec at ISO 64, Kase CPL and ND.

**Dawlish Warren #4, Devon** - Nikon Z8, Nikkor Z 24-120mm f/4 S at 120mm, f/8, 90 sec at ISO 64, Kase CPL and ND.

As you can see, the light was beautiful. It was also very brief. It can’t of lasted much more than 10 mins. But what a 10 minutes it was! With the soft pastel colours of the scene, I went for simple compositions which work well when combined with a long exposure.

There is something special about the coast, something which I think I’d forgotten and returning to Dawlish Warren has reignited my spark to photograph to it. Of course, not every visit to the coast will result in good photographs, but that’s not a reason not to explore and photograph the hundreds of miles of coastline I have access to.

I’m also going to print and hang one of these photographs. What better way to celebrate a morning photographing the coast than by creating a print.

Do you photograph your local coastline? What does it mean to you? Let me know in the comments below.