Blyth Pier

An HDR landscape view across the beach and pier at Blyth, Northumberland, Northeast England, with St Mary's Lighthouse on the far horizon.

This photograph nearly didn't happen due to a very poor weather forecast!

I wanted to take my young son to the coast to develop his photography skills, and checking the weather forecast for the week ahead to pick a suitable date for the excursion. It was predicted to rain heavily for five days solid, all over the Northeast of England (where I am based). I'd wanted to go back to Blyth for a little while, as I hadn't been there since acquiring my better quality camera a couple of years ago. So, we decided that it didn't matter if we got soaked by the rain and hit the bus stop for the 1 hour journey via public transport. Thank goodness we ignored the bad weather forecast, as the sky and local lighting turned out to be glorious, with great clouds for HDR photography. I showed my son this viewpoint angle and described how leading lines can be used to tell a story and guide a viewer across the image to a "hero" or central subject. In this case, the sandy path to the beach leads to the fishing pier, which angles around to the harbour lighthouse.

It turns out that Blyth was one of the few places where it didn't rain when it mattered, and sometimes you just have to trust to luck that photographic opportunities such as this are always possible!