Fresh Ground Photography

Goodwick

It’s been a damp festive season this year but I’ve realised that I need to get out of the house just for my own mental health, if nothing else. This New Year’s Eve we decided to take a short trip up to Goodwick on the North Pembrokeshire coast and, of course, I took a camera with me. The light was falling as we got there and the waves were gently lapping against the shore.

Now I knew that there were lines of groynes along the Goodwick shoreline and this one ends in an interesting (although distasteful) sewage outfall marker. I wanted to make a long exposure image but it was daylight so I had to use a Neutral Density filter. I like Gobe filters, they’re good quality and cost effective. This 10-stop ND filter allowed me to shoot at f/10 and ISO 200 with a shutter speed of 30 seconds.

The long shutter speed meant that I could remove the detail from the sea and clouds while keeping the texture of the wood clear. Now I’m not a huge fan of long exposure water pictures as there are so many of them that it’s difficult to avoid cliché, but they can make an intriguing image. I used a wide angle focal length in these images (18mm) so I got down low to the pebbles and close to the wooden posts to keep foreground detail. I used Lightroom to level up the horizon but otherwise the images are untouched.

I need to come back to Goodwick with a tripod so that I can compose my pictures better instead of using convenient rocks and bits of wood!

Skip to content