South Wales Day 2 – I fought the weather and the weather won

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Up at 4 am to get to Dunraven Bay for sunrise. I wasn't overly hopeful for anything amazing, as unfortunately this time of year, the sun rises over the land rather than the sea so the effect isn't as good, but it's always a wasted opportunity not to get out at sunrise when on the coast, so out I was.

As I got set up, the pre-dawn light started to make itself apparent as the clouds began to garner a pinkish hue, so I took a couple of shots and waited for something to happen, and happen it did. A great big dark, grey whopper of a cloud showed up like a screaming child at a restaurant and killed any chance of a colourful atmosphere that there might have been.

I managed to get what I could of the colour, but that party pooper on the left was intent on spoiling my fun.

As the sky turned listless and gloomy, a sharp wind began to pick up and turned what was a middlingly pleasant dawn into a particularly unpleasant one. I stuck around for another hour or so as I was up, and I certainly wasn't going to leave because the weather had decided to get a strop on. 

I tried to get some long exposure pictures, but the tide was coming in at an absolute pace which made getting the required 10 minute exposures in the available light quite tricky. Within a few minutes of setting up the camera the tide was beginning to slosh around the tripod legs and within no time it was gaining enough power to trouble the stability of the camera, so I had to keep moving back, but still keeping close enough to the sea to get enough in the frame. 

Looking across the bay.

These next two are a bit dark, thanks to the impudence of the tide.

It was a pickle and no mistake, so even though I was keen to let the weather know it could well and truly get stuffed, as the sky got darker and darker I decided to call it a day anyway, head back to the accommodation and get ready for the workshop. Sometimes, I thought to myself as I trudged back, you just have to lose the battle to win the war.

Even now, I still have no idea why I thought that was applicable.

Once the workshop was finished I took an evening drive back to Dunraven in the hope that the sun would now be setting over the sea, a far better prospect. And it was, but it was so far to the right of the bay that it was obscured by a cliff. I could see that it was not going to be my day. Plus, the tide was right in, so there was no beach, and the wind was howling in from the ocean like a rabid banshee, fresh from a visit to Walter White.

Ogmore by Sea in the evening light.

Overall it was pretty grim. So I drove along the coast to Ogmore by Sea, which had an uninterrupted view of the sunset and a bit of exposed shore thrown in for good measure. By the time I got there the sun had descended below the horizon, but there was still a little bit of colour in the clouds which I managed to capture before it disappeared for the evening.

It wasn't great, but it was better than nothing, and once I realised that the show was over, I wasn't sorry to leave the biting wind behind and head back to the shelter of the car.

Choppy sea under the last of the light.