Seafield Beach, Kirkcaldy, Fife.

I drove to Seafield Beach in Kirkcaldy this afternoon with Betsy. I usually go to this lovely beach at sunrise or sun sets. But today I decided to go and get some seascapes during the afternoon. I checked the tide times and low tide was at 1450, I got to the beach at around 1530.

I took around 20 images with my DSLR and my 10-24mm Tamron lens. I used a 10 stop ND filter. The sun was about 90 degrees to where I was standing. During a low tide, this beach has very nice rock formations, and has an old harbour wall. After scouting around taking various images on the beach, I ended up taking a few long exposures on the tripod.

The crumbling harbour wall made a good subject to photograph on the tripod. I had various compositions, sometimes the sun made the conditions a little harsh, so I waited until the sun disappeared in the clouds, to diffuse the light, before pressing the shutter button.

I used a 2s timer to prevent unwanted camera shake when I pressed the shutter button.. My focus went to manual when I put the 10-stop filter on. My exposure was 20s with the camera set -2 stops for the exposure in the camera, this prevented the highlights being blown out. I always shoot in RAW, this gives me more freedom to edit in Lightroom. I set my camera to monochrome for most of my images today.

Old harbour wall, Seafield Beach. 20 second exposure with a 10-stop ND filter. F16, ISO 100, 10mm focal length. Manual settings. DSLR on a tripod.

I love how this image turned out, as I was standing close to the old wall, it made me feel a little uneasy as it was around 4 meters high. I had my wits with me in regards to the tide coming in, and made sure I was not going to get cut off by the tide. With the long exposure, it made the water silky. At the bottom of the wall, it created dark shadows, as the sun came in from behind me on my right shoulder, looking at the wall. The wall had lots of nice textures, and the sand too. The wall was placed on the line of thirds with pretty much the horizon at dead centre. The rock in the foreground added interest, was it a rock or a tree stump? My eyes go from the bottom centre to the left corner, then along the image where you can see the end of the wall. You can see more rock formations along the right side of the horizon, then my eyes are drawn back to the large rock, then down water and sand patterns to the bottom of the image. The black and white image was so much better than in colour today.

I will be going out this week again to take images, maybe the next image will be from my drone?