Our visit to the Northumberland Coast was to be based at Blyth, staying in the highly recommended Commissioners Quay Hotel/Restaurant.
During our stay the hotel staff were fantastic, the food was delicious with the price of our stay was reasonably priced. A link to the hotel is here .
The plan for the long weekends stay was to mix the photography with some relaxation time for us, and fitting a planned family visit.
We found Blyth to a good base from where the Northumberland Coast could be visited, it also has an excellent beach of its own with many photo compositions to be had along its substantial length.
The first days photography began with a rather late start to the photography, cantered on several locations located on the Blyth beach, this included the harbour break water jetty, the lighthouse and the lovely painted beach hunts located on the shore front.
By the time I got out the sun was well up, and despite the gorgeous sunny weather the light was harsh and very direct, it was a matter of making the best of what the weather gods had sent to us.
After a couple of hours it was time to get back to the hotel to pick up the Mrs. Tomlinson then head out on our days travels.
We decided to initially head up the coast road with to visit the many small quaint fishing villages along the coast, our first stop being Newbiggin-by-the-sea. I wanted to take a look at the unique statues that create the focal point of the beach area.
Sadly the tide was receding when we arrived which ensured that any photos taken of this feature would include a lot of the shoreline, I found this to be too distracting so declined the chance to take any photos with the camera, but I did get some snaps with my phone.
The bay is a lovely curved bay, with a copious covering of golden sand.
A brief article relating to Newbiggin-by-the-Sea can be found here:
After a walk around the village in which we gained an appreciation of the quaintness of the village, we boarded the car to head further north.
Upon leaving Newbiggin, we put too much faith in the sat-nav, where we soon ended up on the A1 heading north, not where we wanted to be, despite this small miss-calculation we decided to push north all the way to Bamburgh using the main road as this would get us there in the quickest time.
As we drove into Bamburgh village, we were faced with wall to wall cars, the place was heaving, it took over 10 minutes to drive through the center of the village to reach the car park at the castle, after finding a parking place we paid the £4 parking fee and headed towards the castle, only to be informed that we would have to pay to enter the castle grounds, a fee of £15.50p each would enable us to do this.
We declined this offer, headed back to the car and set off to look for somewhere to grab some food.
We ate a lovely freshly made toasty sandwich and slice of cheese cake at the Copper Kettle Tearooms, another venue that we would highly recommend, a link to their reviews can be found here.
After the lovely food and drinks we headed to the north shore looking for a parking place to view the castle from the beach.
Once parked I gathered up the camera gear and made a beeline to the beach, further details can be found here.
The tide was incoming, but was still quite a distance out which created vast expanses of sand, and rocks which needed some careful consideration when lining up any compositions.
I found some brightly covered algae in a pool on some black rocks which I tied to use in a composition with the castle in the background.
Next stop was to try and use the crashing waves as a leading line towards the castle, the only problem here, was the vast number of people on the beach and in the water, so a long, long exposure was used to try and remove as many of these moving people as possible.
Some careful post processing and editing would be needed to remove other stationary people form the images.
I then captured several panoramic images of the castle from the beach, hoping to give me some lee-way when post processing these into a reasonable photo on the computer.
After a couple of hours exploring the beach, we headed back to the car to make the return journey to Blyth, but using the coastal route this time to visit some of the small coastal villages.
As we travelled we called in to some lovely villages, but these were chock-a-block with people, so we just turned around and continued on our journey.
In hindsight, the day was not the best for visiting these touristy places with it being a weekend, and the sun blasting down, and temperatures up to the 26-28 degree Celsius.
We retuned back to Blyth at around 6.45pm, having enjoyed a good days travel and photography.
The rest of the evening was spent enjoying a lovely meal which was washed down with a few beverages in the hotel bar.
The next morning was to be an early rise, early enough for me to travel the 20-30 minutes down the coast to reach St Mary’s Lighthouse before sunrise.
Upon arrival the sun was just below the horizon, so a rushed composition was the order of the moment, I soon realized that I needed to be further around the headland so as to include the rising sun in the image of the lighthouse.
I rushed along the headland, and set up again, this was a better location, but I was conscious that I had still not gone far enough to include the sun in the frame.
By this time the sun was beginning to peek about the horizon, so the choices were,
1:stay where I was to capture the scene, or
2: move and possibly miss the best part of the sunrise, I decided to stay put and manipulate my compositions to include the lighthouse and the rising sun.
There was a number of fellow photographers scattered around the shoreline, maybe 5 or 6 visible to me, one had scrambled down on to the shoreline from where he was including the wet shoreline boulders has his foreground interest, envy was at the forefront of my mind, still, all I could do was make a mental note and if I ever returned to this location, head down there.
I made it back to the hotel in time for a late-ish breakfast, after which we had an appointment to meet family for a few hours, oh, and to watch the women’s world cup final, Come on England 😁
Overall, what were our thoughts of this visit, to be honest we have fell in love with the place, there are loads to do, many, many photo locations remain to be explored, the weather was fantastic throughout, and the hotel capped off a smashing long weekend.
Until next time, stay safe and enjoy what you do. ☺️
