Simple pictures, simple pleasures

Trundles with Jas....gy to caister

I quite like doing posts like these. Just images taken on my walks and a few words about them. The images aren’t world beaters, they are just scenes that I endeavour to record as quickly as possible without the beard rubbing pondering of composition and focus and other photography ‘things’. Sod the technicalities, just a camera around my neck, good company and good air and a good few steps to keep this old body ticking over is just perfect.

Damn the consequences of a slightly out of focus or badly composed image, it’s not about that, it’s just about having fun. This recent injury (tennis elbow) has made me have to adopt a non tripod way of working and it does make me think about my approach. I’m reasonably fit but I do get pissed off with lugging about a tripod at times but there are instances when I genuinely need it eg for long exposures or when I really have to concentrate on focus as I do constantly challenge my ancient eyes with images that only have a small area of focus in them.

The joy of working handheld is the freedom, the ability to move quickly and easily and I must admit it, I do enjoy working like this. Maybe in future, a little like my designated single lens days, I shall have designated non-tripod days, we shall see!!!!

Anyway, enough of that……..me and Jas went for a lovely walk from Great Yarmouth to Caister on Sea, Caister is a village a couple of miles north of GY. These two places are the only places that I have lived in so they are a big part of me and in this time of my life I appreciate them a lot more.

We walked the beach and the shoreline, as per usual, looking for treasure. Tiny bits of driftwood, pebbles and seaglass were pocketed, simple pleasures. The camera didn’t come out until we got to Caister.

Here’s some of the pics I took below with a few words about them and perhaps a little local history.

Dune mountain range. Taken after we popped into the lifeboat station (more about that later) for a coffee. I loved the fact that these areas of sand (moved to ensure the lifeboat can get out easily) formed these wonderful sculptured shapes that reminded me of the mountain ranges of Norfolk . ;)

With coffee in hand my companion in trundling can still spot a pretty stone/pebble at some distance!!

There’s been some big tides recently and I like the way the beach is messy at the moment. Lots of small worlds to observe. Further north up the coast at Scratby the beach is literally littered with all kinds of flotsam and jetsam, there’s some pretty nasty stuff there, planks with nails in, plastic piping, industrial detritus, it’s all very unsightly unfortunately. For now Caister and GY beaches are fairly clean from this type of waste.

Beach twiglets.

Chaos in spades. Love it. This is a messy comp and I simply embrace it for what it is, chaos. Some of the driftwood has an almost arachnid look to it.

Caister Men Never Turn Back. This is the pub sign for the ‘Never Turn Back’, a pub built in art deco style, designed by A.W. Ecclestone who also designed the now, thankfully, saved ‘Iron Duke’ pub which was near to the start of our walk in GY.

The saying ‘Caister Men Never Turn Back’ refers to the Caister Lifeboat disaster of 1901 where nine crew members lost their lives attempting a rescue on the stormy night of 13th November.

Nice warm light as we start to head back. Winter light at its finest.

Raised stones on platforms of sand as the North sea tide starts to turn. We watched cascades of water flow over banks of sand by the shoreline. We tried to take pictures of the cascades but when you are waiting for that certain wave it never comes, put the camera away and you can be sure that wave will arrive!!!

Edges.

The lifeboat shed. Stop here for a nice coffee if you are in the area and maybe visit the museum and the shop and support Caister Lifeboat, which is a completely independent operation.

When I saw this backlighting on the grasses I had to go and take a look. In post processing I often reduce the clarity as grasses sometimes have a brittle look with a digital file.

Fading light. Maybe this is a black and white image??

Just about the last sunlight of day. Marram grass, a fascination that will never go away!!!

We moved off the beach and walked along the dunes and pathway near the caravans. Here this lovely area of grasses caught my eye. Normally I would take this at a much smaller aperture than the f4 I was forced to use because of my choice of lens for the walk. I added a little vignette in post processing, it works quite nicely on images such as this.

Geese. An end of day spectacular. Not the best formation I’ve seen from them though! Usually it’s an impressive Flying V, perhaps they were a little undecided where they were going or there was a little dissention in the ranks. Nonetheless this is always lovely to witness, it takes me back to my days photographing Holkham in winter waiting for the pinkfoot geese to fly overhead at the end of the day.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this simple piece.

Thanks for having a look at this, it is really appreciated.

take care

J x