As I knew we were expecting rain and winds of 50mph along the coast I thought, " Got to get down to Boscombe Pier ASAP"

The Pier is about a 20 min drive for me from my home on the South Coast of England in the county of Dorset. Driving over in the torrential rain gave me plenty of time to think about what I would shoot and how??

By the time I got there I had made my mind up that I would take images from under the pier as this might afford me some shelter from the elements. Getting from the car to the pier meant I was already soaked but the camera was dry inside my jacket. I normally use a tripod for all my landscape work but in this instance I went hand held instead!

See my video clip here...  https://tinyurl.com/yxqck428

Having got under the pier I just had to take a minute to appreciate the majesty of this storm evolving right in front of me! I positioned myself right by one of the pier support columns so that the camera wasn't being buffeted by the wind. 

As a photographer I knew that taking a meaningful image was going to be difficult technically. Under the pier the roof was in darkness and the whites of the waves were very bright. In order to capture detail in the whites I had to expose very critically. Then there was the fast movement of the waves to consider... so all in all not easy. I finally decided to lie down on the sand so that the waves would be shown larger and have more impact in the composition.

Luckily there was no one else around to see some idiot lying on the sand, close to the edge of a storm taking photographs! When I got home I was totally exhilarated and tired from this fantastic experience out in the landscape.

Its great being a photographer!