15 Photos, 1 Location EP.8 - Howick

Nestled between Boulmer and Craster on the Northumberland coast, Howick is a less visited gem amongst the bigger stretches of beach and towns along the seafront. Offering dramatic cliffs, rock pools, and small coves theres plenty of land to explore (and plenty to photograph)

The Howick Bathing House is a local hotspot for photos, perched on the rocks above a little sandy cove which now days can be booked as self catering accommodation. I have photographed the Bathing House on all my visits to Howick in the past, so on this occasion I stayed away from it, in the hopes or exploring the more northernly parts of Howick beach.

As mentioned, I wanted to completely ignore the places I would normally head to for photos when visiting Howick on this occasion. I was dealing with a bit of "location frustration." I go into this in full detail in the youtube video version of this episode linked at the bottom of this post, but I find it to be a great approach when visiting a spot you've photographed a few times before: to pick one or two photography styles you love but don't do often, and focus on those instead. Most of the focus for this day was on long exposures with a bit of minimal ‘‘mundane’’ photography thrown into the mix as well.

All of the images for episode 8 were taken on the Sony A7CII + 16-35mm f4. The long exposures were captured with LEE Filters LEE Big Stopper.

Embracing the ordinary to create photos has been a serious focus of mine for the last few years. Once you let go of the belief that every photo you take has to be a mountaintop masterpiece, you quickly realise you can roam anywhere and always come away with a couple of nice images for your time. These, of course, also don't always have to be your best work, or images you're going to add to your main portfolio. But it's these in-between moments that really allow you to keep sharpening your skills and improving over time.

The tide was retreating fast by this point but I was gathering loads of inspiration and ideas for future photo sessions. I know Howick is particularly wonderful for sunrise photographs, so the remaining images I shot were what I call ‘‘re visits’’ - Photos I take to remember to head back at a later date and perfect them with better conditions and execution (minus the van and little village shot which were random to say the least)

As always the video version of this episode containing all the behind the scenes footage (and a good old ramble) can be found below.

THANK YOU.

I hope you found some value in this post, if you enjoyed it be sure you check out my Youtube @DISTANTMEDIA where I create content just like this blog post. If you have any topics you’d like me to cover be sure to reach out via the contact page here on my website, see you in the next one.