Beach and Pier, Cromer, Norfolk
The Photo
My childhood memories of Cromer and its pier are ones full of sunshine, sand and sea. Go down onto the beach on a sunny day, point your camera, click the shutter, and you'll probably capture all my thoughts without too much effort. For this photo I still wanted to capture these memories, but at the same time I wanted to create an image that was different to the typical postcard scene. An image devoid of deck chairs and sunbathers, one that showed a gentle sea caressing a golden beach, with the pier projecting towards the horizon under a clear blue sky.
Planning and Preparation
The premise of the idea above may sound simple, but reality never is. I no longer visit Norfolk that often, so had to chance my luck with the weather - taking as much kit as I could to give myself maximum photographic flexibility. Of course the fickle nature of a British summer means that when the sun does shine the beach is a crowded place to be - finding an empty stretch can be nigh on impossible and requires patience. On this occasion the only quiet section of beach was just to the north of the pier - backing away from the pier as much as I could meant using an ultra wide angle lens to capture its full length.
Visiting the coast inevitably means sand and salt water spray - neither of which qualify as a camera's best friend! A cloth, air blower and brush are useful accessories to have, as well as a sealed bag in which to keep equipment whilst not in use. Take care on location and allow some time when you return home for a thorough clean.
Technique
As expected, test shots showed that a typical straight shot resulted in the waves looking too frozen - the eye was drawn to the detail of splashes and spray, detracting from the mood I wished to convey. The problem was too much light - even with an aperture of f22 and ISO100 the shutter speed was just too high. There are those who say that digital photography means that you don't need filters, but on this occasion a 3-stop ND filter was required to give sufficient blur on the water - allowing this photo an exposure time of 1/3sec.
The breaking of waves, even small ones, can never be easily predicted, and so a number of exposures were made - the image above proving to be the most successful of the shoot. Reviewing the image on the computer also revealed an unexpected detail, one that I confess to not having spotted at the time. Tucked in under the pier, just where it meets the sea wall, perches a solitary fisherman - only just visible on a web-sized shot, but an important compositional extra on a large print.
Final Thoughts
I have a number of landscape photos of Cromer Pier, taken at different times of the day, different times of the year and from many different spots. From an artistic point of view some are more powerful than others, but it is the shot above that brings back my childhood memories - those happy care-free days spent digging in the sand and splashing in the waves.