Following on from my post on Ballydowane (here) the stretch of coast to the east of the cove on the Copper Coast in Waterford isn’t often photographed but has some of the best views along the coastline.
The first area is just around the headland from Ballydowane, it's a sheltered cove with beautiful unusual features all around (see image above). As well as capturing the cove as a whole I have tried to isolate some of the sea stacks to produce more minimalist images and compositions using long exposures.
120 Sec Exposure , F11 , 10 stop ND filter
Following the coast to the east you will come across a small cove with a shingle beach, nothing too dramatic here but some interesting features all the same. During the winter months there’s a waterfall about 10 feet high on this beach after decent rain fall. I found it difficult to find a decent composition as there area is quiet confined but it is worth a look. This cove is best visited at high tide as it removes some of the clutter further down the beach.
Shot at F9 240 sec exposure , ISO 100, 10 stop ND
Moving along the coast to the east (maybe about 1 km) of high cliff faces you will come across some very interesting featurers . When I took the image below I had been trying to find any other images of it taken by other photographers and at that point I couldn’t find any. I headed that way after researching the area on Google Earth and the stacks looked interesting and the shadow cast seemed significant so I felt they could be impressive. I was however shocked at the size of them when I did see them for the first time.
70 Sec Exposure at F11, 10 stop ND
This particular image required me to move to a fairly precarious position but I felt it was important to separate the stack on the right from the middle one. I was glad the gannets stuck around for the long exposure as it gives some feel for the scale, which I often struggle to convey in my images. I usually prefer to shoot sea stacks from sea level as you can give some grounding to the image but in the case of most of these Images I am yet to find a safe way down , but I haven’t given up trying yet. They may be too large to shoot from sea level anyway.
I will visit again as I think it would be a good dawn location and I want to try and get a wider view of the area but also to study the individual sea stacks to see if there is interesting compositions either individually or combined with each other. I would also like to re-shoot this location with some more interest in the sky which I had to eliminate in most of these images as there was a clear sky the day I visited.
F13, 60 sec exposure, ISO 100, (Soft Grad)
Thanks for reading, and next up my attempt at street photography, and attempt is the right word.
Kieran
