I left home Monday 17th July at 10.15pm as I wanted to be at my first composition for both dawn and high tide. I needed to be, therefore, ready to shoot by 4.30am on Tuesday morning!

Allowing myself enough time to get there proved to be quite fortuitous as I immediately saw the warning signs on the motorway saying that the top of the M3 where it meets the M25 London orbital road was closed! This meant I had to go through the back waters of Surrey to rejoin the M3 at Runnymede.Anyway,about 4 hours after leaving home I parked up right by the side of my first location: The lighthouses at Dovercourt which is near to the busy port of Felixstowe in Suffolk. It was 2.30am, quite light but no pictures could be made so I settled down with an eye on the clock for a 4.30 am shoot.

The image above is of one of the light houses that sit not far off the beach along where I was parked. I shot this pre-sunrise at 4ish. The sunrise was beginning to take place and I had to move quite fast to try and shoot a couple of different compositions before the sun became too bright. The images below are from this moment in time.

Dovercourt is only about 5 miles away from my next location; the sea defences at Felixstowe. The only problem was that there is no ferry across the estuary!. I had, therefore, to drive over 30 miles around to Felixstowe before the high tide receded and made the next composition look not so great! Fortunately I made the location in just about enough time to shoot a couple of great compositions. Climbing on top of a large sea wall, moving over slippery rocks, setting up the tripod,, holding an umbrella to shield the lens and timing the exposure was quite an experience. I'm really pleased with these images... hopefully you are as well?

Final location was goung to be Shingle Street which is a very interesting location. The beach area comprises of huge shingle banks that remind me of a similar location close to where I live in Dorset; Chesil beach. I waited for quite a while for the tide to change as it was out when I got there. This is a location that I will revisit, preferably at high tide and at night as the images will look truly amazing!