Black Nore is a small beach along the Severn Estuary at Portishead on the North Somerset coast. The main feature of the beach is the Lighthouse. Built in 1894 the lighthouse was a navigation aid for shipping to the nearby port at Avonmouth and the River Avon. Like many such navigation aids the lighthouse has been superseded by modern GPS and is no longer in use. It was switched off in 2010.
I decided to pop along one Friday evening in early August. The weather forecast was a bit iffy but as such forecasts can sometimes mean dramatic light I thought it worth the short trip. The roads in this part of the world on a Friday evening in summer are always very busy with holiday traffic so I set off in plenty of time. Unfortunately an accident on the Motorway meant all the main roads between me and Portishead were gridlocked and I had to make my way via a long network of narrow lanes. I arrived with very little time before sunset. Just to add to the pressure, I could see a small gap in the cloud cover to the west that was likely to give me just one small window of interesting light.
In previous visits I have made the lighthouse the main feature of my images but this time I was more interested in making an image of the beach. There are some great sandstone rocks along the beach that have been shaped by the relentless tide and I thought these would make a great foreground. I hunted around for a good composition and settled on this one. I was still adjusting my focus when the sun broke through the cloud but I had enough time to make a couple of images before the sun disappeared.
There are some interesting grey spots on these rocks and I am not sure what they are. At first glance they seem like paint splashes but on further investigation I discovered whole rock formations completely covered by the same grey stuff further along the beach. It's either some sort of growth (bacteria or lichen perhaps?) or the result of a paint spillage in the estuary. It will be interesting to see if they are still there in a few months.
Nikon D810 DSLR, 24mm lens, graduated ND filter, tripod & cable release.
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