Giant Jurassic Pebbles - Sidmouth

A most pleasurable and mutually rewarding Blipmeet with David, aka RockArea, in Sidmouth, on the "Jurassic Coast", East Devon, today.

I had booked another £10 South West Trains weekend return, as the promotion has been extended, this time to Honiton. We agreed to meet at Sidmouth at lunchtime - I got there by 10 a.m., so I really did have quite an early start.

After coffee there, we went on to Beer, where David's Blip will be from. I have linked in his Blip, above - it's well worth having a look at too. The picture postcard perfectness was great but perhaps a little predictable in angles and results - and there were lots of people about, too. And I couldn't really use the 10 stop ND and tripod really either as the boats are quite high up the beach and the sea/tide quite far out by this time.

I took this in Sidmouth - and a number of similar others - before David arrived. It was destined to be black and white. Definitely, I told Dave so! Somehow though, the colours just sang out.

Look in LARGE at the man sitting on the beach - and his ghostly dog...! I used a polariser as well as the 10 stop nd, which resulted in a little corner vignetting, but did get those glorious colours and rich sky blue. The crashing waves have become a smoky, milky haze...

Lens is Nikkor 10-24mm, stopped well down, but NOT minimum aperture. Exposure 30 seconds. I have also noticed that I bought this lens almost exactly a year ago and that I have used it for 113 Blips - that's a third of ALL entries! How did I exist before I got it?? It came with a two year warranty, so it is still under guarantee, not that it has a single mark or blemish on it.

Huge mega thanks to David for the delicious fish and chips in Beer and for the lift back to Honiton station. I bought coffees and lent him my 16mm Nikon fisheye, which he found really quite exciting to use! I think he might want to want to buy one himself, now!

So, a great, enjoyable but long and tiring day, so it's shower/bath, then bed. See you lovely folk tomorrow! And thanks for all the response to my dramatic landscape Blip of yesterday!