Cliff-face lit by Moonlight

Blip for yesterday, Thursday 13th.

As promised, here is the follow-up to the previous cliff shot, but taken after midnight and lit solely by the 3/4 moon, from behind.

Look in LARGE at the stars and the textures.

I had other time exposures looking out to sea but I thought it relevant to show roughly the same cliff-face - a bit further along perhaps - and two versions, a horizontal and this. For the former I had to go so far back to get the height in that I was nearly in the sea and those foreground rocks much less significant.

A five minute + exposure has brought out far more detail in the foreground than I actually saw at the time and for the stars to trail. The conurbation of Bournemouth casts a magical glow - I particularly wanted to include these lights on the edge, to create a movement through the picture and to show the strange but lovely mix of manmade and nature, plus for the colour too. This time though, there was no loving couple, hand-in-hand; I had been quite alone for at least 5 hours.

I don't know what it's going to like on heavily compressed Blip but the original is staggeringly sharp, with every single grain of sand clear. To me, it looks like from another planet...

Trudging the very long walk back along the beach with only moonlight to guide me was weirdly great, the incessant crashing of the sea becoming haunting after a while. Knowing that when I got to Boscombe I'd have to wait until 6 a.m for the bus home was an ominous prospect. Boscombe has be at least 4 or 5 miles from this spot.

When I finally got off the pebbles and onto the start of the Esplanade, I was walking on a blanket of sand. All the Esplanade lights were switched off. Only the eerie orange glow from the town above and the moonlight. A few night-fishermen were out, one had lit a fire. A young drunken couple argued and swore past me.

Almost poetically, those lovely beach huts in their neat tiny little rows appeared. Then, some were askew. Some missing. Bigger gaps. Piles of firewood. Whole sections cleared with skips nearby.

I imagined it as a war-zone, those storms that ravaged our coasts may well have now been forgotten, especially if you look at my Blip from yesterday again. I just walked past all these twee little huts now reduced to broken up planks. It was almost out of decency (and laziness, with everything packed up) that I didn't attempt to photograph any of them. I had got all my pictures.

Quite a strange and surreal and uncomfortable night but one that, in a weird way, I'm quite glad about!

Lens is Nikkor 10-24mm