Whitby – Too Much Sand?
Well it’s not the most productive start to the year as far as ‘luminous light’ is concerned but I’ve definitely been trying hard to get out and about..
Last week I went up to Sutton Bank with Charlotte to to see if the sun would make an appearance. Unfortunately that blasted horizon cloud made an appearance and the sun sank without a trace. Sutton bank was sort of interesting; I imagine the view is stunning in clear weather or with a slight haze and a good sunset, but it’s not the most inspiring of locations to try to find strong compositions in. I think I might be getting addicted to foreground; the though of having nothing in the picture closer than 100ft disturbs me for some reason.
Anyway, this weekend me and Charlotte went to Almscliffe Crag (a Yorkshire gritstone outcrop near Harrogate) in another attempt to catch the sun (rising this time) same news again though, although the cloud had moved over to the east this time..
So Yesterday I went out to Whitby to catch some geology, figuring the weather can’t ruin that for me..
Fortunately I was mostly right – although the rain did slow it down in places, holding an umbrella and using a large format camera don’t mix!
The surprise for me was that the sand was particularly high – probably a good 8inches or so higher than last time and over a foot and a half higher than when I first went. The surprise was heightened by the way that this totally changed the nature of the beach. The top of the beach now became very interesting; whereas before it was just a mess, now it had the sand framing it.
This also affected how long it took the water to reach the rocks – because the beach was higher, I got nearly an extra one hour before the tide came back in.
Also the bands of colour at the top of the beach were heightened by having a sand bank in front of them (and the composition was simplified too).
I particularly liked trying to find areas where the flow of the sand matched the flow of the layers of sandstone. The main picture was a wonderful find where the flow of layers in sandstone matched the rock that had nestled in the gap and mirrored the sand flow.
The second picture here was an attempt to find some simplicity in the complex flow of water through the rocks and sand at the head of the beach. Not sure if I succeeded here..
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