The Durdle Door, Dorset England

As the grey and rainy weather continues across the UK this week, I reached back into my photo archive to review some of my favorite images.

In November 2022, I decided to give photography a real go. I have dabbled in the past beginning in 2010 but found I was always busy or distracted by other pursuits (a sort of hobby attention deficit disorder). I was determined to make the 2022 effort stick. Largely influenced by several factors. First, my kids were older and more capable of joining in on longer hikes and trips, usually easily outpacing me, and if they elected not to tag along they were more than ready to be alone left to their own interests. Secondly, we are lucky enough to be living in the UK for work for an extended duration and I wanted to make sure I took advantage of this opportunity for collecting memories and seeing places I may never get to again. Lastly, I wanted to dedicate myself to becoming proficient with the gear and software available. Gaining a new skill as an outlet for my creative desires. Thankfully my wife is always willing to support my sometimes scattered hobby endeavours and often joins me on my early morning trips. She’s the best.

So, in November of 2022, I made the trek to the Durdle Door, a prominent and oft-photographed spot on the Southern coast of England in Dorset. I must admit, after this excursion, I thought to myself, ‘Wow, this photography stuff is pretty easy’ as the images I captured were pretty good to my novice eye. Now a couple of years and several outings where the English weather wouldn’t cooperate later, I appreciate how lucky I was to catch lightning in a bottle on my first trip. The sunrise was spectacular. The usually populous beach was nearly empty of people. The temperature was mild, no rain on the horizon, and the winds were calm (if you know the English coast, this is not reliably the case).

I parked in the early hours of the morning at the Lulworth Cove Car park and hiked my way to the Durdle Door. After a brief detour into a cow field that turned out to be unnecessary, I ended up jogging the last 1/4 mile or so with my backpack full of gear as I had miscalculated how long the hike from Lulworth Cove would take. Pro tip: Hills slow you down (as do diversions through cow fields).

Ultimately, I learned a lot on this maiden photography voyage. The images I would capture now under the same circumstances would be exposed differently, using gradient filters, and I would have altered my perspective more frequently instead of capturing dozens of shots from the same location. I could have used some foreground objects and done some focus stacking. I could have used exposure bracketing/HDR captures to increase the range of the capture.

I am certain I would have ended up with a more varied set of photos from the experience if I had the experience then that I have now. That’s true of all things we strive to improve upon I suppose. Experience is what you get after you need it sometimes and we cannot know everything all at once, you just do the best can at the time.

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