In Camera...Dramatic Light at Crosby Beach

Just before the storm. The beach at Crosby is eerily quiet, only the raucous cry of a lone gull disturbs the humid threatening air. The pale sand, dry after days of hot sun, reflects a false brightness against the dark of the heavy rain filled clouds spreading in from the sea. The wind farm on the horizon is scarcely visible through the sweep of rain heading north just off the coast. The rusty iron men seem to glow, their colours saturated by the strange light off the sand.

Last Wednesday evening the weather changed dramatically from sunlight to storm, a few days of hot humid weather came to an end with a cold front and thunderstorms passing over England from the South West.
Late afternoon there were a few rumbles of thunder and I decided to go down to the beach in the hope of capturing some lightning flashes. I did not see any lightning, but the horizon out to the west was obscured by heavy rain and the sky was very dark out at sea.
Here on Crosby beach the sand near the promenade was very bright and dry after a few days of heat and low tides and seemed to reflect the light from the bit of bright sky left overhead before the storm clouds rolled in. This light seems to fill the iron men with saturated colour, especially vivid against the dark clouds out at sea.