A FEW WORDS ON…… Seascape and coastal photography

Despite growing up and latterly photographing mountains, you may be surprised to hear that my favourite type of photography is probably seascapes. I’m not quite sure why, but there’s something particularly soothing about standing on a shoreline watching the waves. I get into an almost trance like state trying to time the right wave as it breaks, each one looking completely different to the last. Shooting at the coast also provides the photographer a huge amount of subjects to shoot, that usually don’t rely upon the light so much as perhaps the grand vista scenes do. As the years have gone I’m equally happy shuffling along the shore looking for interesting subjects at my feet as I am stood on top of a huge mountain at sunset. In many ways I prefer the challenge, as the scene in front of me isn’t doing quite so much of the heavy lifting as it does with other more traditional subjects.

Crashing Waves, Luskentyre

This image is a good example of what I’m talking about in the introduction, relatively poor conditions light-wise, however using certain techniques allowed me to get the best from this scene.

Settings

NIKON z7II / 23mm /F11 / ISO 125 / 2 secs

Shooting waves - the basics

Some things to keep in mind:

  • Plan your shoot - knowing tide times is vital. For the classic swooshery shots look for receding tides on sloping beaches shortly after high tides.

  • Observe the speed of the waves - is it stormy/blustery, or calm and serene? This will have an impact on the feeling you convey. Faster shutter speeds will freeze the motion in the water, useful for when the conditions are stormy and changeable. Slower shutter speeds are usually associated with adding a sense of serenity however they can also be used to convey chaos, depending on the speed of the water movement.

  • Use of ND filters - without going down the rabbit hole of ND’s, most of the time for shooting movement you’ll need a 3 or 6 stop filter if you wish to slow things down. I find my 6 stop the most useful in most instances. Ultra long exposures for a minimal look would require the ten or even fifteen stop filter depending on the time of day. I like the 6 as it can be used for long exposures when the light is low at dawn or dusk.

  • Consider the feet of your tripod - sinking sand can be a nightmare and wreck exposures when the tide is fast moving. Consider wider pads that attach to the feet of your tripod to limit this. It’s easy to get caught up with the shot and not realise that (even a small amount) your tripod may have moved.

  • Shower caps - a cheap but effective aid to keep spray off the lens in-between shots!

  • Always use a trigger if possible - this eliminates camera shake and allows you to time the shot much more precisely.

  • Research coastal locations to find unique features such as cliffs, rock formations, or sandy beaches.

  • Visit during low tide to explore tidal pools and rocky outcrops that can create interesting foregrounds.

Advanced fieldwork

In the above example at Luskentyre, I stood for a little while observing both the speed of the waves and more crucially, where the high point in the sand was. What I mean by this is the higher part of the sand in my scene is what’s causing the run off patterns in the foreground (the small v-shape in the foreground). This is especially important on flatter beaches where you want something to break the uniformity of the tide as it recedes. This is why many of the best seascape locations tend to be on steeper sloped beaches with better run off (Luskentyre despite it’s obvious beauty at times can be quite difficult to shoot especially if the tide is slow).

In the example with the rocky foreground at Vikten beach in Lofoten, I started by looking for hollows in the rocky shelf knowing that when the incoming wave would arrive it would fill up these ‘pools’ and make for interesting patterns with the water. In this instance the diagonal run off made for a pleasing composition when the water was slowed down using the ND filter.

In the example below from Luskentyre, it’s a completely different kind of scene however the approach of looking for ‘patterns’ remains similar, with or without water. For this shot my sole aim was to find a pleasing set of repeating patterns in the dunes that would point me in the direction of the rising sun. Similar to finding the ‘high point’ on the beach, in the dunes I was similarly looking for a ‘high point’ in the sand as I knew this would be where the most interesting patterns in the sand were likely to be found.

Look for patterns and shapes in the run off areas - on rocky beaches especially, take note of where the water is flowing. Prominent rocks on sandy beaches especially usually carve out channels where the water can flow through. Using this, look for interesting shapes as when slowed down the water can look great in these areas.

In summary

Seascape photography has a huge amount of nuance to it, and requires much more ‘fieldcraft’ knowledge than perhaps meets the eye.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of just thinking seascape photography revolves around swooshy water and long exposures when in reality there’s many different variables that come into play, perhaps more than ‘standard’ vista based landscapes.

The great thing with seascape photography is that every scene genuinely is unique because it’s a constantly ‘moving’ scene, not just the water itself but the patterns left behind from the changing tides. Go down to your local beach over a period of just a few days or weeks and you’ll see huge changes in how much the seabed moves and evolves, giving the photographer a huge array of subjects to shoot, be at low tide or high tide.