I had enjoyed my weekend seascape photography and walking excursions along the Suffolk coast in east Anglia.  Now I was pushing further north along the east coast of England into Norfolk with my base being at Hemsby.

Norfolk Weekend Accommodation

I was staying in a chalet in a holiday park in Hemsby that I found off AirBnb. This was a change from staying in hotels which I had done in Suffolk.  More an experiment as self catering.  Plan was to be up early in the morning, get breakfast out the way and catch a sunset on the beach.

Horsey Gap Norfolk

That first evening I took a wander along the beach and into Hemsby nothing outstanding so decided to take  a drive to Horsey gap, just with my compact and try and catch some seals and a sunset.

It was the summer solstice or the longest day of the year when I caught the sun setting over the sand dunes of Horsey gap along the Norfolk coast.  I took many sunset photos with my compact but most suffered from sunflare which happens when you point your camera directly at the sun.

Horsey gap is famous for its seals.  I caught a few bobbing their cute heads above the waves, but needed a powerful zoom to fill the frame.

Hemsby Beach

The next morning I was up early before 5AM but still too late for sunrise on Hemsby beach.  But the early morning sky was dramatic.  The Norfolk coast does have nice wide sweeping sandy beaches and sand dunes.

Just handholding the camera, but opening up a stop to get a fast shutter speed.  Keeping an eye on the shutter speed when reviewing the shot as ideally needs to be 1.6 over the focal length given a cropped sensor like the Canon D80.

Winterdon Sand Dunes

The plan was to walk all the way from Hemsby beach along the Norfolk coastal path back to Horsey gap passing Winterdon beach and sand dunes along the way.

At Winterdon I headed into the sand dunes searching for compositions. I got a little distracted in the sand dunes of Winterdon before heading back to Winterdon on Sea for a cooked breakfast in a beach side cafe.

After which I fell asleep in the sand dunes before heading back to Hemsby.  A good beach walk along the Norfolk coast, some good shots nothing spectacular which is often the case with these first time trips somewhere new.

Great Yarmouth

After my morning walk along the Norfolk coast and then a rest I headed back out that afternoon to Great Yarmouth.  Just with my compact camera, the plan was to maybe catch the golden mile all lit up during blue hour and have a few beers and some fish n chips.

With all the cars, compositions were difficult along the golden mile of Great Yarmouth.  So ill share my mobile phone photography of Great Yarmouth as hosted on google photos.

California Cliffs

My last morning in Norfolk, I got up a bit later and headed along the coast in the opposite direction from Horsey gap, back towards Great Yarmouth passing Scatby and California along the way making it to the outskirts of Caister on Sea.

It was a warm warming but a nice breeze blowing in off the north sea.  A nice beach walk but not as nice as walking north pass Winterdon which is more remote and more seascape compositions to shoot.

There’s is a nice cafe on top of the California Cliffs where you can get a cooked breakfast and it opens at 8AM.  Checkout was at 11AM so needed to be back at my chalet in Hemsby for 10AM to clean up and pack.

Norfolk on the Landscape Map

So that puts Norfolk on the map for me.  This trip would be the first of many along the Norfolk coast while I was based in Stevenage Hertfordshire.  I base these walks on those found in the AA and Pathfinder guides.


I then fine tune my routes taking seascapes and landscape viewpoints into account using OS Maps online.  Without  OS Maps online installed on my mobile phone you will get lost using the guides alone, so I highly recommend it.

After trip Post Processing

I always shoot in RAW format with my camera.  This then applies no jpeg visual enhancements.  Raw images always look dull especially if pushing the exposure to the right ETTR.   Rather than automatic jpeg enhancements I manually post process my images after a trip in Adobe Lightroom.

Finally, after editing, I do save my images as JPEG at maximum resolution and zero compression, these photos are then hosted as part of my portfolio on Shutterstock where they can be downloaded.