beach Archives - Page 21 of 23 - Ed O'Keeffe Photography

8 February 200828 May 2017

Northumberland Coast Reflection

This photograph has been a “maybe” for putting online for a few months now. It was taken last summer on the Northumberland Coast about half a mile north of the beautiful Alnmouth. We were staying in a large cottage about 200 metres from the beach and where the exact point I took this picture, near the golf course. Part of me thinks that it is a little to minimalist and simple to put up, but then this blog is all about me experimenting with different techniques and the documentation of my journey from beginner to photography professional (its nice to have goals to aspire too).

If I were to take this picture again I would have probably gone much lower to the ground and closer to one of the larger rocks on the left of the frame, to me this image is missing a key focal point and a large rock in the foreground would really make this into something special. Obviously, I could Photoshop in a rock but to me this wouldn’t be the same. Maybe next time I am on a beach with my camera I will take a shot to how I am imagining this picture could look. The small dots in the sky are not dirt in the camera but sea birds, probably guillemots. Again, these could have quickly been removed but this is how I took the picture. After looking at this for about five minutes I think it is the soft clouds and texture of the sand that makes me like this photograph, despite its obvious floors.

17 January 200828 May 2017

Craster Village from Harbor, Northumberland

One of the nicest fishing villages I have had the opportunity to photograph, not just in Northumberland but in the whole of England. Craster is a very small village, with a larger harbour than I was expecting – but that’s what you get with fishing villages. In the above photo the tide was obviously out, but there were a lot more boats on the other side against the sea wall.

The main part of this photograph that I personally like is the bottom left corner where there is a great deal of texture on the wet sand and seaweed. The way that the composition is intended to work is that you look at this, your eye goes across to the rock wall on the right, follows that wall into the photograph and ends up looking at the blue building with an orange roof. This is the where the lifeboat is stored. If you don’t see the photo in this way or your eye is drawn / focuses on a different area of the picture then please comment below, because I would love to know your opinions of this image in particular.

13 September 200728 May 2017

Beach at Pula, Sardinia, Italy

After a week of putting up with archive photos, and a month of lesser images whilst I saved money I can now announce I spent the last week in Sardinia, a large Italian island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. I was lucky enough to stay in the fantastic Sant’ Efis Hotel in the town of Pula on the south east coast. The hotel was on the beach, (behind some palm trees) and this is the view from Nora looking back toward the hotel. I have had an amazing week of eating, sunbathing and photography. Many more photographs of Sardinia will follow.

16 August 200728 May 2017

Rocky Shore near Craster, Northumberland

One of the greatest small (under an hour) walks along the Northumberland coast, is from the beautiful fishing village of Craster north to Dunstanburgh Castle. It took me a good couple of hours because I walked along the rocky shore photographing the rock pools and trying to get more interesting angles for photographs of the castle. About half way along the shore I came across this large piece of drift wood. There are no trees within sight of there so it must have been washed up by the sea. Once I had taken the photo, I looked at the LCD monitor on the back on the camera and saw a big white thing. When looking closely at the view I saw a massive plastic water bottle. My first thought was “Photoshop it out” but then I thought, no I want to re-take this picture. I put down the camera and climbed over the rocks to get rid of the litter by hand. I’m glad I did, because if I hadn’t, I probably wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of digitally removing it and therefore never would have published this photograph.