
Wooden groyne walls at Fleetwood in NW Engalnd protecting the beach from erosion by the Irish Sea.
Visually, I've always loved the way that the black lines of these groynes head out into the white and grey sea. On this day the contrast between the hardness of the groynes with the softness and texture of the sky was an extra bonus.
The line of white along the shoreline is the surf breaking - the normal wave action has been blurred by the 2 minute long exposure time that I chose.
These groyne walls are a very common sight on beaches throughout the UK. They are there to stop the wave action from moving the sand up to one end of the beach due to longshore drift: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groyne
Like what you see here and are interested in photographic composition?.....the blog section of my website now has a complete set of 5 articles covering my personal approach to the subject: Ian Bramham Photography - Blog
For purchasing high quality archival prints of any of these photos you can send me an email by clicking here or by going to my website Ian Bramham - Fine Art Photography where prices are listed in the gallery sections under each individual photo.
@Ian Smith: I find beaches in the UK are generally a lot cleaner these days so any oil stains you see are most likely to be either good old fashoned mud or else it is over enthusiastic 'burning' on my part in post processing Ian!
@Christian Richer: aminus3 doesn't do fractions very well Christian and this photo was only 2 minutes rather than 31 minutes!
NIKON D700
241/2 second
F/5.6
ISO 200
31 mm (35mm equiv.)