This was one of those days again where nothing seemed to go right! I had researched several locations around Fife looking to get something a bit different. I decided on St Andrews and the Maidens Rock! I looked at a couple of images online and loved the location, it was numerous sand stone rocks just poking out of the water (great for some experimental long exposures). The tip I had was to go at low tide and walk for a couple of hours along the coastal path towards Crail.
I arrived there far too early and parked up beside the beach but it was far too dark, in fact it was pitch black so I decided to drive off to another spot and return in a couple of hours. Just along the road is the village of Anstruther with the neighbouring and adjoining village of Cellardyke. I have been to Anstruther too many times to count, but it was Cellardyke that interested me. Even though I had been to St Andrews, it was still dark when I got there as it’s only about 8 miles drive.
My aim was to capture rock formations and converting to a high contrast black and white photo to relay the drama.
Again, I couldn’t find a single place to shoot ( I will go to a location several times and always see something a bit different due to the tide times so I will be back!) so off I went, back to St Andrews to make the journey to Maidens Rock.
It was much lighter so I felt more comfortable walking that distance, and I’m glad I waited, I slipped several times on the path out there. As I was drawing closer, I was beginning to feel that this was going to be a waste of time. It was at low tide like advised in a online post but there was no way I was travelling across about 200 yards of undulating, wet and sharp rocks covered in seaweed! I am usually one to take a risk, but that would have been stupidity. I looked around and tried to find something worthwhile to shoot but evidently, didn’t find a single shot. By this point, I was a bit frustrated to say the least as I hadn't even taken my camera out of the bag.
It’s funny in landscape photography, you can plan everything so well, but when it comes to seascapes and you haven't been to the location, you rely on another person who has! and that person might have an alternative perspective to you or they were in a slightly different location.
Back to the car I go!
As I mostly shoot an hour before sunrise to get the best light, there was still time although the sun had just came up, I decided (as a last resort) to go to my old faithful, Elie!! I got there to find it rather cloudy but I was hopeful, there was fantastic colour and it was drifting in my direction. I jumped out of the car and made haste for the lighthouse. I took a few sample shots with the 24-70 lens. The trouble was that the good light was on the horizon at the back of Edinburgh, across the water. It just wasn't having any impact on the photo. Decision time! I wanted to capture the light house but have that amazing light right behind it. Well, there was only one option! I needed to compress the perspective and shoot with the long lens. I headed back to the car to get the correct angle. I was at maximum length at 200mm on my Nikon D750, but the shot still wasn't right (I was too far away) I made the decision to swap camera’s for my Nikon D7100 which is a crop frame camera, this would give me an effective perspective of just over 300mm, or equivalent, getting me closer. I had one filter on, a 3 stop graduated filter for the sky to increase clarity and balance the foreground. The overall scene was extremely dark as there were thick clouds with pockets of light everywhere so I put the camera on the tripod. The image just wouldn't have been the same without it, the shutter speed was just too low even with vibration control.
I have shot this location numerous times now, one in my portfolio and one in another blog. It just shows you, position and light changes everything!
As soon as I got this shot, I rushed back to the lighthouse to capture one more, there was majestic light falling over North Berwick Law, so there was no need to change camera, lens of settings. This image just works for me. I was lucky enough that a couple of birds flew into the scene to add that bit extra.
