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Ruby Bay
I love it when I am on the way to a location with my camera and I find myself wondering what kind of shots I will come home with. There is that lovely sense of expectation, of anticipation, of hope that the light will be kind, the rain will stay off and conditions will be conducive to photography. Sometimes everything comes together nicely while at other times, the return home is a gloomy one - and occasionally, an empty handed one.
I remember one of my friends - a seriously good photographer - showing a hint of his philosophical side when telling me on one occasion that you need to take the good with the bad, to make the best of what you have and to accept that sometimes, you don't get what you want. These thoughts were all occurring to me on the drive to Ruby Bay at Elie, in the East Neuk of Fife, way over on the east coast of Scotland. It's a stunning little spot with no end of photographic opportunities - a little lighthouse, rugged coastline, crashing waves, wonderful skies, and a small stone tower. I've been there a number of times and really wanted to try some long exposure shots on the coastline. For this reason, I had gone there in the afternoon. It was fairly overcast but with some good cloud detail and a ferocious wind which was whipping up the waves, causing them to crash noisily against the jagged rocks. Perfect.
Using my 10-stop neutral density filter, the wild waves were slowed and calmed - in the resulting shots, becoming a gentle glow around the rock bases; the smoothness of this glow contrasted nicely with the roughness of the rocks. Although standing out on the rocky outcrops above the waves was a feat in itself - coastal winds should not be under-estimated in their power.
I spent long enough there to watch the tide slowly recede, uncovering tiny coves and some scuplted boulders which provided strong foreground in a few shots.
As the light changed with the dimming of the sun, I made a second tour of Ruby Bay to see what new shots were possible. The lowering tide, coupled with the lowering sun, gave me the shot of the stone circle - a very long exposure which belies exactly how wild that water was throughout the exposure time.
I noticed something about my photographic workflow on this occasion. I have slowed down and I take less pictures. Each one seems to be a little more considered and thought out before exposing the image - that isn't to say they are necessarily better than before, but they are moving in the right direction, I think.
Ruby Bay takes it's name from the occasional find of gems along it's shoreline. While I have never had that experience, I have certainly found my own gems here and tried to record these in a way that does justice to the place.
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