It was going to be a nice October evening as far as the weather was concerned. Was heading to Eastbourne on business and threw the camera gear in the back of the car. That evening headed down to the coast at Birling gap for a low tide sunset.

Birling Gap Beginning

It was at Birling gap where my interest in landscape photography first began. Back then was just choosing nice locations to go out for a walk due to health reasons and took my camera along. Used to only take the camera when travelling and it was one of the reasons why enjoyed travel, the photography, not realising at the time, could do that not far from home. Since being into landscape photography, have travelled a lot less.

Low Tide Sunset

Have visited Birling Gap a few times as part of walks over the Seven Sisters on the east Sussex coast. But never really had any good seascape photographs from there. Tonight was not really planned, while in Eastbourne I checked the tides and around dusk it was going to be low tide.

Low tide around sunset is always a good time to visit the beach and coast. The white chalk cliffs of the seven sisters are iconic and can only be viewed from this angle at low tide. Love being on the beach during low tide at sunset or sunrise.

Composition Searching

Even in this small restricted beach area of Birling Gap, was frantically searching around for compositions. The light was changing every minute. Wanted to capture the golden light of the sunset catching the white chalk cliffs of the seven sisters.

It reminded me of of the Norfolk Hunstanton sunset seascape shoot. Where the composition was of the cliffs and the sun behind rather than facing the setting sun out to sea. There were lots of people on the beach and they were hard to exclude from the composition. But sometimes including the silhouette of a person can add scale to an image. Another thing that needed to be excluded was the many footprints in the sand.

Focus Stacking

Technically was focus stacking the foreground interest, the rocks, sand ripples and seaweed, then the cliffs in the background. Post processing though at f11, found from focusing on infinity everything was in acceptable focus. Was firing off many shots rather than concentrating on individual shots, checking focus, manually adjusting etc, was not doing that, not felt I had the time.

Its funny searching compositions that not thinking panoramic especially for the cliffs. Could have zoomed in so the frame was taken up by the white chalk cliffs and got the whole range of the seven sisters from Birling Gap. Considering the recent high weald walks inland with a compact camera have been predominantly about panoramics.

Unplanned time place

But the whole seascape shoot at Birling Gap was unplanned, it was a bonus just being there during low tide and dramatic lighting conditions. Certainly lots better than any previous Birling Gap pictures I have taken and was much more about being in the right place at the right time. But I took my camera with me and was outdoors.

Into Blue Hour

Stuck around into blue hour and then darkness. After sunset everyone disappeared off the beach. Pointed the camera out to sea to capture the sunset, stopped down my aperture to F16 to try and capture a sunburst.

But wanted to include the cliffs so as to be able to identify the location. So many compositions in one small area, compositional explosion, spoilt for choice.

Also experimented with some motion blur of the rising tide now coming back into shore. Need to be careful in these situations that you dont get cut off by the rising tide. Had my wellington boots on so could stand in the deep pools of sea water.

Lovely evening spent on the beach capturing dramatic seascapes during low tide at Birling Gap east Sussex. Cant wait to return.