Winter Wonderland it isn't

It's thirty-seven days to Christmas, and at this time of year my local town gardens are traditionally festooned with seasonal trappings designed to draw in visitors (and their wallets), and generally get people 'in the Yuletide mood'. Today, I decide to pay a visit for some twilight photography to capture the colour and excitement.

My arrival is greeted with neither. Okay, it's late Monday afternoon and the place is deserted; most people are still at work, but this year's light show is rather dismal by comparison with recent years. Clearly, council budget restraints are biting hard. Composition wise, the helter-skelter and Observation Wheel is the best I can come up with. 

© 2025 

Out on the weekend

The final stages of wooden groyne replacements along the length of Poole Bay have been underway for a few weeks, and are scheduled to be completed by March next year. So far, any winter storms arriving in the UK have largely missed the south coast, and the team doing the work is able to take weekends off.

© 2025

Open for debate

 

I hadn't expected to photograph anything on this morning's walk. I even debated whether or not to take my camera bag, such was the weather forecast for early part of the day. At the last moment I opted to do so, and I'm glad I did.

© 2025

Not thinking

It's on days like this that I have the beach to myself. Okay, there is the periodic dog walker, or hardy early morning fitness enthusiast that passes by, but that's it; there's nobody trying to work on their suntan. 

It also looks like rain.

From time to time I get enquiries: "Just what are you photographing?" is a common probe from the bemused, clearly of the thinking that such drab conditions are likely to produce anything worthwhile. I gesture towards the scudding clouds and rolling surf, and more often than not they walk on none the wiser.

But then again they're not thinking in monochrome.

© 2025

Coincidence, or just the truth?

No doubt it's purely coincidence, but it seems that the best skies for early morning photography can be found a few miles along the coast; in this case at Branksome Chine beach. Maybe there's some truth in that, and the shape of the bay does have a significant effect on cloud formations. All I know is that this morning it didn't disappoint.

© 2025

Seeing double

Good landscape photography is mostly all about waiting for something to happen. If at all. When it does, then there usually follows a frantic few moments as I try to make good images before the light changes and the mood is lost.

But there are times when it's quite possible to walk into a picture that's just waiting to be photographed, as with the gorgeous light and double rainbow that formed as I arrived on a local pier.

© 2025

On the prowl

During the winter months I'm often prowling the local seafront well before first light, in the hope that something out of the ordinary will materialise to produce a good photograph. Today looked promising as overnight rain gave way to the cold light of dawn, but there was no dazzling display of colours this time.

Cloud and wave patterns saved the day.

© 2025 

No more BST (at least for now)

Night photography is something that I rarely do, which is a shame because the results can be rewarding. Now that the evenings are drawing in - BST* ended last weekend, taking advantage of darkness arriving at a civilised time is something I may well pursue over the winter months.

*British Summer Time

© 2025

The end of the beginning

British Summer Time has ended; Storm Benjamin has skimmed the south coast and moved east; the sky is clear and it's low tide at dawn. It's the combination of the last two that has me out well before first light, in search of a subject to photograph.

Finding a tide pool for a composition is one thing, but it staying pristine before it gets trampled on by dog walkers (and their dogs), and early morning exercise enthusiasts before the light is right, is another. 

Today I'm lucky.

© 2025

Blue

                                                                                   Blue wall, blue sign.

© 2025

A fleeting glimpse

When going out in the early morning with heavy cloud cover there's always the chance that I will return empty handed from a photo shoot. It nearly turned out that way today, but for the ten minutes of light immediately after sunrise. 

After that the sun rose above the distant cloud bank and disappeared for the day.

© 2025

Beach reclamation

The summer holiday season has all but finished and the beaches are being reclaimed by the locals. Seafront cafés and entertainment installations are either being dismantled, or abandoned until next spring.

My season has only just begun.

 2025

Work in progress

Comissioned street art is becoming commonplace, with murals sprouting up everywhere I look. This one, on the wall of a beach facility, is a work in progress.

© 2025

On the lookout

I'm rarely alone on a beach when there's the expectation of something worthwhile to photograph. And why would I be? We all want to get take good pictures (and preferrably something others don't get), but the two or three fellow photographers that are set up before I arrive are in a cosy clump; all with long lenses pointing in the same direction; all getting roughly the same shot; all waiting for the sunrise.

Instinctively, I move further along the seashore in search of something they will miss, and I start shooting  before the sun has risen.

 © 2025

Investment protection

             Violin shop window.

               .

© 2025

Okay, let's go!

The sun is now rising far enough to the south east to make the beach interesting again; seascape season has begun. I usually start a couple of weeks later in the year when shooting this type of image, but today I thought I'd chance it as the weather forecast looked favourable.

© 2025

Wall art

 

The ever increasing presence of wall art in towns and cities is, to my mind, a welcome addition to the urban landscape. Not to be confused with the mindless scrawling of anybody in possession of a paint rattle-can, this work was commissioned by the local council and adorns the walls of a local subway.

© 2025

Cornfield

                                                  No elephants were available to accurately judge the height.

© 2025

Four Winds Farm

                                             Four Winds Farm, Throop, taken during an early morning ride. 

© 2025

Wandering lonely

 

© 2025

Reculver

It's just past 7 a.m. on the North Kent coast, and the thermometer reads 26º C; another heatwave is sweeping across Europe. We're out (and back) early to beat the heat of the day.

The ruins of the 12th Century twin towers of St Mary's Church sits on the clifftop at Reculver; the same spot where Barnes Wallis made a nuisance of himself for a while during World War II, and the place where the Romans built a fort in the 2nd Century.

© 2025

Big fat tyres and everything...

Not exactly an immediate replacement for the last one - which some thieving magpie took to its nest four years ago, but now I'm suitably equipped to get out into the countryside again.

© 2025

Spring trees

                                                                            On Ballard Down, Isle of Purbeck

© 2025

In preference

This rock groyne (one of many built to reduce longshore drift), has been a starting point for my seascape photography this winter. Providing foreground interest and texture, it has featured in a lot of the images I've produced during the season.

Today there's a weak sky, so I use the feature as the main subject. I liked the original colour shot, but came to prefer the monochrome conversion.

© 2025

 

Painted ladies

At this time of year I find the beach to be almost irresistible when there's the promise of good light at sunrise. All that drama - and so early in the day - draws me in time and time again.

Today, the light is great, but the sky not so. I'm determined not to waste the glorious conditions, and look for an alternative subject. The brightly painted beach huts in front of Boscombe Spa Village provide just that.

© 2025

The blue hour in black and white

It's not often that I prefer a monochrome landscape image over the original colour shot, especially when taken at either end of the day, but there are exceptions. The sunrise itself was still two minutes away, but apart from the warm tones in the sky, the rest of the scene had a predominantly blue tinge. 

The conversion to black and white had little consequence as a final image, as the original was just a variance of blue hues and shadows.

© 2025

In the early light of day

As often as not, the success of a shoot can turn out different than planned. I've taken a super-telephoto lens to the beach in the hope of a spectacular sunrise, but the near-cloudless sky dashed all hope of that. 

Turning the lens inland. I spot the beach chalets glowing in the early morning light.

© 2025 

Two bites of the cherry

"Unpredictable as weather..." goes the line of a song from a well-known Rodgers and Hammerstein musical that has the word 'music' in the title, but it's true. At least here in the UK.

The pre-dawn light was nothing special, but as I began to set up my camera on the beach I quickly become aware of a soft magenta light enveloping everything as sunrise approached. It's not that unusual at either end of the day, but the trick is to be at a suitable location when it happens.

The hue is ephemeral, and moments later it fades away completely. The sky becomes a uniform grey, and thinking that's all I'm going to get light-wise, I leave the beach. But nature isn't finished yet, and as the cloud breaks up I'm treated to another dazzling display. The whole episode lasted a mere 9 minutes.

© 2025

 

Nowhere has a place to tie-up

                  Early morning beach.

© 2025

Preferential treatment

In the past decade or so, replenishment schemes have built up my local beaches to the point of taking away the exposed expanses of foreshore at low tide. Ripples in the sand, and reflections in tide pools once left by the ebbing sea (and very photogenic), were replaced by a subnstantial sandbank that extended to the low water line. 

But the current increase in winter storms, coupled with high tides, is beginning to shape the shoreline back to the way nature (and I) prefer.

© 2025

Midwinter blues

Midwinter, and the coastal mist adds to the feeling of drabness. I had considered rendering the scene in black and white, but instead I partially desaturated what colour there was to enhance the mood of the day.

On a lighter note, the days are beginning to get noticeably longer. 

© 2025

No excuses needed

There's something about black & white photography that is timeless. Even with today's ubiquitous hi-res colour imaging, the genre is still widely practiced.

I took the photograph of the zipwire tower in colour as the sun rose over the sea, but the monochrome rendition has more impact.

© 2025

Getting the ball rolling

I'm roughly half way through my seascape season, and the weather isn't playing ball. It's either heavily overcast, or any pre-dawn cloud simply melts away with the sun just below the horizon. So I'm posting what I got, not what I would have liked, just to get the photographic ball rolling for the new year.

© 2025