… Only the wrong clothes, or so the saying goes at least. But last week it was certainly the case as Hilbre presented one of the most spectacular sunsets I’ve had!
One of the problems with pre-booking in photowalks to somewhere like Hilbre is that you just can’t predict the weather upfront, so when I looked at the forecasts last week the weather looked awful, on both nights. Now I always say I’m happy to walk in the rain, but the one thing I hate is plain grey featureless skies which is what presented itself to us the first night. But, there was one spark of hope, a glow right on the horizon, if we were lucky, and my forecast said we could be, that would be a patch of clear sky the sun might drop down through.
After making our way across a dark and windy beach we kept our fingers crossed for a break in the sky, and just as we were all but given up, the sun suddenly put on one of the most spectacular, if brief, displays of the year.
Now of course was the compositional challenge, the sky was nearly all dark with only a sliver of colour, the foregrounds available were not lit and so instinct kicked in and I used an old piece of used metal to create a little porthole effect, finally I used my shadow against the lens to line myself up the shot and looked out to sea.
Come Monday night, a similar story, this time we had driving rain and strong winds, now again I offered to my group to stay home and dry, but set off across the beach anyway. As I got to Middle Eye, out came the sun for another brief splash of light on the rocks. No sunset in the end that night, but Hilbre Island has a way of showing off whatever the weather.
You can take a look at my latest shots, including the ones mentioned above in my gallery below along with a couple of shots from my beginner workshop in Liverpool.
If you’d like to join me on a walk out to Hilbre click here for my latest schedule and for more information.
