Breaking the Rule of Thirds to Unify my Seascape Photography…& more

Today I break the rule of thirds, suffer a failure on the moors and get up for some summer sunrise seascape photography. 

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In this video I head to the beaches of North Yorkshire to shoot some seascape photography before heading back to the studio to show the photo editing. It eventually worked out with some long exposure photography and by breaking the rule of thirds. It did not come easy though after spending three days searching for an image. This included heading to Roseberry Topping, hitting the moors without luck and encountering miles of poorly flowering heather without any good light. It was very frustrating. It was also brilliant.

It finally forced me to get up early for a sunrise and the coast seemed to offer the best of the weather. The summer beaches in the UK are very popular so to get a clean landscape, sunrise is where it’s at. I headed to Saltwick Bay near Whitby and was welcomed with a tiny amount of Light creating in the sky creating a small possibility of getting a good images. I was lucky enough to have some interesting green rocks on the shore line. Breaking the rule of thirds allowed me to fill the sky with colour and maximise the interest in the foreground created by the rock.

Next I moved along the coast to Sandsend. A place I know very well. Heading to a familiar location is always a good tactic when things are not going totally to plan. It increases the ability to capture a good image when the pressure to discover a new composition is removed. Revisiting old scenes is a valid tactic and will always provide results that are different from previous visits.

On this occasion I ended up with two to three good pictures and it felt like a good reward for three days of toiling. It provided an opportunity at the end of the video to show the edit in an Adobe Lightroom tutorial type segment. I hope you enjoy. 

Once in a Lifetime Seascape Photography

When I went to do some seascape photography I never ever thought I would witness something so spectacular. These unique moments come along so rarely in landscape photography so when they do, you have to seize the moment. This vlog documents one of my favourite photography moments, possibly ever.

Once in a lifetime photo opportunities come around so rarely. When they do it is important to be ready to capture them. The readiness comes from hard work and dedication; getting out with the camera, week after week, honing your skills and practicing your craft. We can go months without capturing a ‘keeper’ but so many photographers in the past have had their careers take off because of a single image. You never know when that might happen to you.

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Finally a note on luck. Lucky is a word that is thrown around freely. Was I lucky to capture that last image? Maybe, but luck does not account for the years of hard work, the years of getting out day after day, the fact I switched to plan B because my original location at Saltwick Bay was completely in cloud. Luck didn’t drive me two hours to the location and luck didn’t set the correct camera settings and capture the composition and image.

I had planned to film a video which essentially would have been a seascape photography tutorial. When the amazing conditions presented themselves though I had to default to just capturing the images. Seascape photography can be very creative with the use of long exposure photography, using leading lines and interesting shapes, using the water in the foreground, capturing whatever colour is available and mixing these things into your composition. I will film the tutorial at some point but I still utilised all these techniques so there are plenty of seascape photography tips on offer in this landscape vlog. 

My video photography blogs are designed to entertain and document how I go about capturing my work. If it provides landscape photography tips and inspiration along the way then please share it with your friends so more people can benefit from the content. If you enjoyed this photography vlog I would really appreciate it if you subscribed to the channel so you can come along for the journey.