Dunstanburgh Castle Northumberland.

Perched high on a cliff, Dunstanburgh Castle is now largely ruinous although it rated at one time among the largest and grandest castles in the north of England. Dating from the 14th century, the castle was protected on two sides by the sheer cliff face and the sea. 

This is one of the most photographed ruins on the Northumberland coast with photographers traveling the length of the country to see and photograph the sun rise. This is despite the fact the nearest car park is about 1 mile away. On my visit in June 2004 I arrived one hour early in time to get to the best position to be met with two camera club outings already with their tripods set up guarding their chosen view point.

The classic view points for sunrise are from the north, from Embleton bay. The photographer is spoilt with their choices for foreground interest, do you want a sandy beach, a sand dune or a collection of canon ball shaped rocks and interesting rock pools. Each bay or headland has its own unique quality and is only a short walk away from the next.

The photographs here show a series of images I took in one visit, starting at the sandy beach close by my chosen car park. This was a pre-sunrise shot as I tried to capture the reflections of the sky ion the wet sand. I was forced to use a slow shutter speed and tripod, which has caused a blurring misty quality to the distant breaking tide.

The next image is from the closest bay to the castle. This is literally full of large canon ball rocks and rock pools, because of the black colour of the rocks, metering is especially difficult due to the extreme contrasts between sky and rocks. Even though I was using a digital SLR I used two ND grads to assist in capturing detail in both parts of the image. 

The third image is taken from the south beach looking back towards the castle. The castle is now lit by the rising sun and I have attempted to use the breaking tide as a lead into the photograph.

The last image was captured as I returned to my car having walked around the castle and golf course. I took one last look over my shoulder and noted that mist was developing in the dunes and on the greens of the golf course and it was being lit up by the now well risen sun. I took  a number of photographs of the mist then noticed three other photographers returning to their cars breaking the immediate horizon. I think this is the best image of the morning as the figures help add a sense of scale to the photograph.