January Skies Part Three

Mid January and the light had changed again. There was not much wind but the incoming sea was still quite rough, the light a cool blue with patches of warm orange light seeping through. Walking along the tideline, the sand is littered with starfish, lots of tiny razor clam shells, only about an inch long, small crabs and many multi coloured clam shells.

The white foam from the breaking waves glowed with an eerie luminescence whilst patches of warm light pierced the overall blueness on this cold evening at Crosby beach.

The following day was very stormy and wet but around 3.45 pm I thought the sky looked interesting and went down to the beach to be presented with these dramatic storm torn skies.
Despite the rain there was a burst of yellow light as the sun pierced the clouds over Wales whilst grey swathes of rain swept across the sea. At one point a mass of either knot or dunlins swept across the scene in a shallow "S" curve.

A large rain cloud moved slowly inland, the falling rain just catching the light and glowing a pale yellow against the darker clouds. A half moon appeared through a gap in the clouds whilst the beach, wet from all of the day's rain, reflected the silhouettes of the iron men and the variations in light caused by the rapidly moving clouds.

The storm moved slowly inland and what appeared to be a funnel of rain, a lighter patch against the dark grey, descended from the clouds behind the flying saucer shape of the Leisure Centre.

The last shot of the day as another storm cloud sweeps in from the west, blotting out the hills of North Wales.

January Skies Part Two

A few days later and the weather had changed completely with strong northerly winds pushing south across the Irish Sea and driving fronts of rain swiftly across the seascape viewed from Crosby beach.
The late afternoon clouds are a strange pink-purple shade tinged with hints of blue and grey as light from the setting sun struggled to penetrate the cloud layers, tinging the thinner areas with an eerie warm glow.

An approaching cold front builds up a long dark mass of towering clouds with falling rain below which blots out white structures of the wind farms out at sea. The front moves rapidly along the coast as it is pushed south by the strong, cold winds. It is wet and windy but exhilarating at the same time seeing nature in action like this.

In Camera... Winter light, the Last Days of 2017

The last light of 2017 lingers on, reflected in the pool of water surrounding an iron man on Crosby beach. Out to the west leaden grey storm clouds gather over the Welsh hills.

The last days of 2017 were days of sunlight and storm, producing a good variety of lighting effects down on Crosby beach. The image above  (AG786) was taken at what should have been sunset on the last day of the year but the thick storm clouds out to the west obscured the sun. The only light was from a small patch of clear sky above the beach which this pool reflected.

A little earlier the same light had reflected off the sea, a shimmer of silver light in an otherwise grey scene.

A couple of days earlier swathes of snow and sleet had swept across the Wirral peninsula late in the afternoon, falling from a high, heavy cloud mass and producing a veiled grey curtain between the beach and the sunset over the distant hills of North Wales.

Here the setting sun managed to burst through the storm clouds in one glorious burst of yellow light

before the rain and sleet swept in to obliterate the light.

In Camera...Iron Man Down, A New Slant on the Beach

Storm Aileen hit the north west last on Tuesday night and one of the Iron Men on Crosby beach appears to have taken a hit, the shifting sands seem to have moved the 3 metre column on which he stands, leaving the figure gazing skywards.

Down on Crosby beach yesterday, the morning after the first storm of Autumn, Storm Aileen, passed over the north west and the Sefton coast. Shadows of clouds are racing across the smooth, windblown sands, washed clean by the earlier rough high tide. The rough seas have pounded many water retaining hollows in the sand, they catch the fast moving bursts of sunlight with a silver glow, like a chain of sparkling jewels spread across the beach.

Water retaining hollows reflect the quick bursts of sunlight racing across the beach with a silver glow, a chain of sparkling jewels along the beach.

Almost in the centre of the length of beach that contains the iron men; one is leaning backwards at an angle of around 60º from the perpendicular with no visible means of support. The three metre long iron tube that anchors them to the beach must have been slowly moved over time by the soft, shifting sands.
It makes for quite a surreal photograph, the way the figure is tilted back, gazing at the sky. The weather is kind to me whilst I am there taking photographs. The patches of sunlight that race across the beach, chasing the shadows of the clouds, reflect in the ripples on the water surrounding the figure, creating a glittering sparkle on this storm tossed day.

This perspective puts a whole new slant on the world...

everything seems to be going downhill!

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.

In Camera...Lightning and the Queen Mary 2

Waiting for the Queen Mary 2,  lightning flashes over Wales.

Last Friday evening the Queen Mary 2 was due to sail past the Iron Men on Crosby beach around 22.45 and I went down in the hope that I might capture an image even though it was cloudy and quite a dark night compared to earlier in the week.
Whilst waiting for the Queen Mary 2 to approach the first flashes of lightning lit up the sky over the distant hills of Wales.

The Queen Mary passing the Iron Men on Crosby beach

 I tried two different approaches to capturing an image of a reasonably fast moving ship in these dark conditions. A first exposure using fill in flash to highlight the foreground meant I could use a shorter exposure to capture the image of the Queen Mary 2 quite sharply. A second exposure without flash and upping the sensitivity of the sensor produced the result below.

After the Queen Mary 2 had sailed past towards her berth at the Liverpool Cruise Terminal the lightning show started in earnest, with flashes all around the sky.

The best way of capturing lightning flashes like this is to stop down and use a long exposure time in the hope that a flash will occur in the area that you are aiming at whilst the shutter is open. The speed of the  lightning flash is such that it appears very sharp on the image. These images were exposed for a length of 20 seconds.

A sky full of electrical energy lights up the distant wind farm 

The flash of lightning during the capture of this image was out of shot but so bright that it froze the moving water sharply, even during a twenty second exposure.

No lightning in this exposure but a curtain of rain was sweeping in blotting out all the details on the horizon. In this long exposure the sea becomes a smooth surface.

In Camera...Rough Seas at Crosby Beach

Outward bound into the storm

 Wednesday 10th December was the day when the so called "stormbomb" created strong winds over the United Kingdom. Here at Crosby we had gusts up to 56mph and, combined with the high tide just after 13.00, there were some rough seas down at Crosby beach. I am always amazed at how the iron men sculptures withstand the pounding they get at times like this when the waves smack into them.

The clouds were racing by, full of blustery showers, but I was fortunate when taking these photographs that gaps appeared to allow wonderful rays of crepuscular light to beam down on the scene, creating interest in the sky and sparkling highlights on the rough seas.

In Camera...January Storms

Storm watchers were out in force down at Crosby beach on Friday 3rd January as the UK was battered by strong winds and exceptionally high tides. Although people were warned to stay away from coastal areas many risked the wind and waves to view the high seas battering the coastline. Here at Crosby we escaped relatively lightly compared to many parts of the country.

The promenade was washed by the waves.

 People were capturing the scene on their mobile devices.

Others just awed by the power of the waves.

 The Hall Road Car Park was flooded.

 Seagulls fly low over the flooded car park at Hall Road as

(below) the outdoor gym equipment receives a pounding from the high seas.