By the dawn's early light

Belhaven Bay, 8AM. I wakened early and looked out to see a clear starry sky. I've been meaning to get down the beach for the conveniently timed dawn at this time of year so off I went. I got onto the beach in the dark, head-torch on, at 6.15 when the sky was beginning to blush in the east and the stars were still visible overhead. That was quite magical, but hard to photograph! The Plough was directly overhead and stayed visible until after 7AM. Beautiful.

By the time I reached the far end of the beach the dawn was in full swing so I sat my tripod in a likely spot as the birds began to flock towards the estuary. A wonderful experience.

More on Flickr.

Big Dawn.

As I got home the sky had hazed over, but after a bit of a lie down it had cleared and the direct sun was really warm. I walked to Dunbar for some stuff (library book waiting for Malcolm, 3 striplights for the kitchen...) and back, then changed into "bright yellow cycling bloke" and jumped on my road bike (using that bike for the first time this year!) and did the 20 mile North Berwick loop via Tyninghame and East Linton. Lovely.

A big hot bath, blip and now for an evening of "what's recorded on the Sky box?"

I did various crops today before thinking of this one - it breaks the rule of thirds but I really wanted to emphasise the symmetry of the light in sky and on the beach. I used the gradient ND filter on the 18-55mm lens, and the shutter remote control for this. That's a great £5 piece of kit - it's worked perfectly for years and then today I dropped it in the sea. And it still works!