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My main photographic focus on Christmas Eve last year may have been in colour, but the day wouldn’t have been complete without a few photos in monochrome from the beach. My chosen location this year was Bracklesham, where I was nearly blown away by high winds the previous Christmas. On this occasion it was rather less breezy, with some welcome sunshine glancing off the surf.
Photos taken 24 December 2025
It’s become a bit of tradition over the years for me to visit the seaside on Christmas Eve, usually with one of my pinhole cameras in hand, and in 2024 I did exactly that. The Sussex coastline isn’t know for its drama, and on this particular day I had a double dose of calm in that the tide was out and it was misty too - no dramatic crashing wavescapes for me!
One lovely thing that West Wittering does have though is some sand dunes and I couldn’t resist featuring the marram grass in some of my photos.
There may not have been many folks using their beach huts, but the owners of this one were getting in the festive spirit.
There’s always time for a slow motion selfie…
Photos taken 24 December 2024
Alongside the digital photos I took at St Mary’s Church, North Stoke on the 22nd January I spent time indulging in some slow photography with my pinhole cameras. Having developed the film I have a set which looks very different but still captures the shafts of low winter sun.
While I was there I also used my 6x6 Rise pinhole camera, but with an adapter fitted which split the frame into thirds. That film is still waiting to be finished off as every frame requires three separate photos (somewhat more time consuming!) but it’ll be fascinating to see how they turn out when I get some time to complete the roll.
Click on any image to see it enlarged.
An architectural curiosity - three stone seats for the clergy to use during services.
This is my favourite photo from my visit to St Mary’s. Getting really close is one of the things a wide angle pinhole camera really excels at, and my camera was really close to the bible on the lecturn!
After I’d finished at St Mary’s I sought out some food and then travelled on to Climping Beach. Despite living fairly close by for most of my life I’d never visited before and it’s an extraordinary piece of coastline. The soft, golden sand is interrupted by jagged chunks of chalk and littered with flints - I’d never come across a beach quite like it before!
Peaks and troughs of chalk, kissed by the low winter sun.
The tide was a long way out but there was still plenty of scope to use the breakwaters as focal points for my photos.
A mini-landscape of its own, created by a pool of water on its way across the beach.
Photos taken 22 January 2024
After a morning of exploring Mosta we returned to our hotel for some relaxation time. After an hour or two spent reading my book I decided I’d head out and exploring the coastline around the hotel. A narrow, rocky path led me down to the shore of Golden Bay, where I experimented with some slow shutter speed exposures to capture some movement in the waves.
From there I continued along the base of the cliffs to investigate the many boat houses which line the bay. I didn’t want to intrude on those using them with my camera, but this little outhouse captured my imagination, with its weathered walls and sharp shadows.
Looking up the cliffs towards our hotel.
After a steep climb back to the top I found lots of old structures littering the rough land surrounding our hotel. They seem to be neglected today but I wonder what they were for originally? The zigzag shadows leading me to this one particularly caught my eye…
Photos taken 19 November 2023
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
I’ve recently agreed to run a photography workshop focused on shooting with a smartphone rather than a traditional camera, so when I visited Somerset earlier this month I decided to travel light and begin learning more about the camera I carry in my pocket.
I’d recently watched a video showing how handheld long exposures can be taken on an iPhone using the camera in the Lightroom app so I was eager to try this out around the harbour at Weston-super-Mare. I was frankly astonished at how good it was - the static parts of the view are pin-sharp, while the waves gain drama as they’re blurred during the course of a second long exposure.
Click on any image to see it enlarged.
Elsewhere there were a couple of scenes where I just couldn’t bring myself to remove the colour.
Photos taken 2 February 2023
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
I was luck enough to have a spare day between music workshops, so I spent it in Sidmouth, exploring the beach with my pinhole camera. This time I chose to take the monochrome route as it promised to be an overcast day.
I walked the length of the town, spending so long that I saw the tide both recede and come back in again. I really enjoy capturing a sense of movement with my seaside pinhole photos and using black and white film helped me catch the patterns of the waves as they washed across the beach.
Click on the images to see them larger
As I set up for one photo I noticed a cormorant perched on the rocks so I worked quickly, hoping it might stay still for long enough to feature in my photo. Fortunately, he or she was in a cooperative mood, although you can only just pick the bird out with my camera’s wide angle of view and the fact that I didn’t dare get any closer for fear of scaring it off!
At the western end of the beach I found lots of rock formations exposed by the receding tide, which brought some foreground interest to my photos. I also discovered some curvaceous pieces of seaweed so I got down really low to capture its sculptural form.
Naturally, a pinhole camera came to Lyme Regis with me, along with my digital one. More often than not I choose to shoot in monochrome but on this occasion I plumped for a roll of Kodak Portra 160 and it turned out to be a good choice.
My first few frames were taken at the eastern end of the town, exploring the beach and rock formations. You never know how things will work out when shooting into the sun with a pinhole camera and on this occasion I caught some beautiful rainbow coloured flare in one photo.
With a decent sunrise predicted for one morning I headed down to the Cobb with the intention to try and create one of my ghostly self portraits. With hindsight I should have positioned my camera so my silhouette didn’t overlap the headland in the distance, but I can always try again another time!
The colours were as beautiful as I’d hoped and my final shot that morning even caught a hint of flare.
Walking back to my car I stopped to shoot the Lydia Eve, a fishing trawler which was in harbour ready to be used in filming for the new Willy Wonka movie. This early in the morning there was no activity but its vivid green colour worked beautifully against the deep blues of the sky.
This week brought me to Lyme Regis for a few days so I grabbed the opportunity to do some photography while I had the chance, exploring the sea and its effect on the landscape.
My first day in Lyme was pretty blustery so I decided against venturing up onto the Cobb – I didn’t much fancy being blown off into the sea! Instead, I walked along the seawall, capturing the power of the waves breaking as the tide came in.
The following morning the tide was out so I spent some time exploring the rock formations at the eastern end of the beach, using both my pinhole and digital cameras. I’ll share the pinhole photos in a separate post, but these were my favourites from my little Fuji X100V.
Later in the week there was the promise of some dawn colour so I headed down to the Cobb for sunrise. I used my pinhole camera to catch some wide shots, but focused once again on the movement of the waves with my digital camera. Naturally, I had to keep the colour for these shots – it would have been a crime to go for monochrome and lose that golden glow!
