Originally published on Photoblog by Gethin Thomas DECEMBER. 16, 2020
[133-365] 16th. December 2020- I mentioned in my post yesterday that we had storm warnings for today, and they were correct. I had done some planning ahead, checking out sunrise time, high tide time, wind direction and rain forecast. I went out at first light to catch the tide as high as possible, it was actually highest an hour earlier but then it was dark. Being an hour later than high tide also meant I was able to access the cliff steps at the far end of the beach which would have been tricky an hour earlier. As it was, an occasional wave was coming over on my route along the front, and I didn't want my camera soaked, but I was able to time the short distance to where I could go up the steps, out of reach.
This meant I was a bit higher up and also looking slightly back at the village, enabling shots of the village through the highest waves. Behind me there was a cliff face which also juts out into the bay thereby sheltering me from the winds.
The only unknown was when the heavy rain would kick in. I went knowing that I might not even be able to get out of the car, but when I arrived, not only was there a rare free car parking spot but it was not raining either, so I only had to walk about fifty feet to the front to get the best view and access the cliff steps, and it started getting lighter, and I was sheltered from the wind, so I call it the perfect storm. I fired off 1006 shots of joint jpeg and raw which filled my card for the first time. As the card full warning popped up it started to rain and I just made it back to the car in time before the heavens opened.
It sounds very fast but actually took about an hour what with changing shooting position occasionally, and waiting for the big waves. I noticed that although when looking through the eyepiece I could not predict the large waves coming in, there was a low boom sound when they hit the bottom of the sea defence wall which indicated that there was about to be a crash of a large wave, so I knew when to press the shutter. As it is the first time I have done something like this I was quite pleased with the results.
