For this assignment I elected to photograph Flamborough Head and particularly North Landing and the lighthouse area. Although larger than an acre, this is a very discrete area and hopefully it is in the spirit of the brief. I have not strayed beyond the bounds of the head itself and have concentrated on the small cove of North Landing. It is an area that I have known well for many years having been scuba diving there, made visits with my family and for bird watching/photography and have also taken many groups of school children there for geography and science field trips. I spent a long weekend there early in May just as we changed from a poor spell of weather to an excellent one.
After much deliberation here are the images for my final submission for this assignment.
I believe that as photographers we make our own luck - if you are not there, you cannot take the picture, but occasionally 'Lady Luck' also has a hand. We had arrived at our chosen campsite on a very showery Friday afternoon and managed to set up between periods of heavy rain. The north westerly air stream brought with it regular heavy showers, interspersed with sunny periods and these provided the conditions for wonderful rainbows. As a whole rainbow is difficult to portray I decided to zoom in on this section which frames North Landing (the white buildings) and also a ship out at sea.
I was up early the next morning and walked down to the cliff top for a dawn shoot. I had hoped that the sun would rise along the line of the cliffs but this was not to be. I have chosen this image because of the warm early morning light on the cliffs leading to North Landing, which is tucked in just before the end of the line of cliffs. Also in the picture is the iconic lighthouse top right.
At North Landing itself now. I have used the old fishing cobble to lead the eye down to the beach. It also mirrors the line of cliffs and caves in the background. I thought about cloning out the figures on the beach but on reflection left them in as it is a tourist destination and so I felt that people in some shots would illustrate this fact.
Many opportunities for close ups at this small location. I took lots of images of the old rusty chains that are used to secure the cobbles to the steep slope of the slip. I selected this one as it has plenty of texture in the chain and a pleasing diagonal line through the shot.
Another close up, this time of part of the side of one of the old abandoned cobbles. I wasn't sure about the original image because some parts were out of focus (see notes on original short list). I kept coming back to it, however, and eventually made a slight crop to arrive at this final picture.
I wanted a picture down on the beach showing its pebbly nature. There were quite a few people on the beach at the time and initially I was waiting for them all to move out of the way when I saw this mother with her young child start throwing stones in the sea. I took the shot when they were the only two people in it. Initially I wasn't happy with the picture as I have missed off a little bit of the kelp in the foreground but I decided to include it as the kelp leads the eye to the couple and makes a pleasing s-shaped curve with the cliffs and tideline.
I felt that it was important to feature some of the wonderful seaweeds exposed at low tide. I really like the colours in this and have chosen a vertical format to emphasise the way that the seaweeds are leading into the frame.
One of the features of North Landing are the arches and caves. I took several shots of these but this is my favourite. It looks back to the beach and its enclosing cliffs.
I wanted to show the rocky nature of the beach and chose this view as the rope leads the eye towards the old jetty and the cliffs in the background.
The fishing cobbles are an important feature of North Landing and I took many images. I finally chose this one. I wonder if it would have been better if I had included the top of the mast but zooming out to include this removed some of the intimacy of the picture.
It is impossible to visit Flamborough Head and, particularly North Landing, without noticing the seabirds, especially in spring and summer. I was originally going to use an image of the waves with a gannet flying through them but I just wasn't happy with any of the shots. I just felt they were too 'nothingy' (see notes on short list). I had, however, done a lot of bird photography during the weekend and I have chosen this shot of gannet courtship. I like the diagonal line it forms and hope that it fits a landscape brief with its background of cliff and sea.
No set of images of Flamborough head would be complete without on of the lighthouse. I chose this low viewpoint wide angle shot to give the impression of it towering above the observer. I included the patch of red campions in the foreground to give some perspective.
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