St Audrie's Bay

Have you ever had one of those days when you can’t quite decide where to go? I had just that experience in Somerset earlier this month and my solution was to open up Google maps and see what jumped out at me. AS luck would have it, this led me to rediscover a pin I’d dropped in the app last year marking St Audrie’s Bay as somewhere I should visit - problem solved!

My reason for saving the location was the waterfall which tumbles off the cliffs there. I’d seen photos which had piqued my interest so I parked up at the caravan part on top of the cliffs and began picking my way down the steep path to the beach. It’s a private beach, but the owners of the caravan park don’t mind welcoming visitors and on this winter morning I pretty much had the place to myself.

The only access from above is a rocky pathway down the side of the cliffs so I was amazed to find a lot of man made structures (albeit in an extreme state of weathering) dotted along the beach. I can only assume the raw materials must have been brought in by boat many decades ago in a futile attempt to tame the sea.

The waterfall comes from a stream which runs down the hillside and simply falls over the edge to the beach below. During the summer months it often disappears entirely, but the recent rain ensured a steady flow of water, which I made the most of in my pinhole photos.

The beach was riven with streams of water, heading for the sea, so I was very pleased I’d put my wellies in the car. To get this photo I was sitting on a small man-made stone wall with my feet in a stream, while shooting in the opposite direction across a rock pool - I couldn’t have done that if I’d be wearing shoes!

I was fascinated by the rock strata breaking through the beach - a very visible glimpse into the way the earth’s crust is pushed and pulled by the forces beneath.

This may look like a deep chasm, but it’s only about 4 inches deep - the magic of getting down really low and really close with a pinhole camera!

I’d brought my large format pinhole camera along too, which gave me a different perspective on the beach’s features, both natural and manmade.

Photos taken 3 February 2023

Glancing back

Although we’re now firmly into 2023 I still haven’t share all my photos from 2022. This final set is a collection of pinhole images from a visit to West Wittering beach on the afternoon of Christmas Eve.

Having spent the morning in the dark confines of the yew trees at Kingley Vale it was great to be out on the open beach, with more light to play with. I’d come armed with my wellies so I could be fairly brave in how close I got to the waves, and I just avoided the water overtopping by boots.

A closer look at the structure of the groynes

This flag warns off would be swimmers but I don’t think there would have been too many that day!

Getting down low among the marram grass.

I’ve often wondered what these posts set into the beach are for - I’m no closer to finding the answer!

Click on any image to see them enlarged.

Photos taken 24 December 2022

A different view

In my last post I shared some digital images from my birthday wander along the beach at West Wittering. While I was there I also spent some time taking pinhole photos to bring out some of the movement in the waves. Pinhole photography is so good at this - you can capture whole chunks of time in a longer exposure.

The following morning I drove down to Aldwick, arriving just in time for low tide. I wanted to photography the chunk of the D-Day Mulberry Harbour which lies on the beach but the only time you can get close is when the sea is out. This enormous chunk of concrete escaped en-route to Normandy back in 1944 and has sat here ever since.

On this particular occasion the tide wasn’t especially low and the blustery wind was whipping up the waves. Sometimes you can walk right around it, but this time I had to keep a sensible distance so as not to get swamped!

With a couple of frames left on my film I used them to catch a couple of other watery scenes before retreating to my car to avoid getting soaked by the incoming rainstorm!

Photos taken 9 & 10 March 2022

Birthday meanderings

Back in March I happened to be travelling to Sussex on my birthday, ready for a music course the next day. I never pass up the opportunity to visit the seaside so I decided to take a birthday stroll along the beach at West Wittering.

While I was there I spent some time taking pinhole photos, which I’ll share in a separate post, but I fancied some instant gratification too, for which my little Fuji X100 was perfect!

Photos taken on 9 March 2022