Light on Lindisfarne

Although I'm happy to try my hand at most genres of photography, my main passions are portraiture and, perhaps most of all, coastal landscapes.

This shot was taken on a recent Northscape Masterclass workshop, shortly after dawn, in the harbour on Holy Island, looking out towards Lindisfarne Castle and the North Sea. The light was particularly tricky to control, with the sun popping in and out of the clouds every minute or so. The irregular horizon, with the outline of the castle and the brightness of the sea on the right-hand side, also made the use of graduated filters not straightforward. In the end, I used two neutral density graduated filters at opposite 30-degree angles, apexed above the castle, to control the sky and waited for the sun to pop out again and very conveniently light the old harbour ring in the foreground!

It was one of those times when everything comes together just right!

Steve Melvin

www.stevemelvin.co.uk