Early Morning Landscapes at Cleethorpes.

I am building a portfolio of images for an assignment for my photography degree and had a few shots in mind that I hoped to secure this morning; unfortunately the sunrise had other ideas and I didn't have the lighting that I could have wished for.  However, it was still a lovely morning and pleasure to be out.  It was still dark as I made my way across the marsh and out to the dunes frequented by the snow buntings.  The idea was to secure some traditional sunrise shots looking through the dune grasses and also some looking back towards Cleethorpes in the early morning light.  On looking back towards the town, the lights were still on and I decided to take a shot.  As the lens was focusing I noticed that just out of focus an interesting abstract could be obtained so I switched of to manual and just defocused slightly to see what it would look like.  The result is shown below.  In the dark I could hear curlews calling, one of my favourite bird sounds, evocative of wild places.  Geese could be heard calling as they made their way back out to the mudflats to feed.  As it began to get light I could see two other figures out on the Dunes and it was good to meet up with Don Davis and Dave Bradbeer out looking for and photographing the snow buntings.  Yesterday Dave had seen a superb male hen harrie ; only the second sighting here in 30 years.  The snow buntings were about again but very flighty and there was a large flock of linnets.  Little egrets were feeding in the marsh.  A wonderful morning and good to return home for breakfast.

To see the images large, click on a thumbnail.

Experimental shot looking back to Cleethorpes with the lens slightly defocused

The same view slightly less defocused

Taken towards the sunrise.  I liked the way the mackerel sky was lit by the sun.
10mm 1/50 @ f16

As above.

Close up of rope.  59mm 1/100 @ f5.6.  I found that using a wider aperture isolated the central orange fibres from the background.

 The following shots are all taken looking back towards Cleethorpes in the early light.  I was hoping for better light.  Still, c'est la vie!!

Cleethorpes Pier. I used the 10-20mm lens 1/40 @f16 and used the vertical alignment tool in lightroom to correct the sloping uprights.

Cleethorpes Pier.  A conversion to B&W was made and the blue enhanced to make the most of the clouds.  I feel this makes a more dramatic image than the colour version.