David Noton On Location
Pro travel & landscape photographer
David explores and photographs the classic, and rather busy, Durdle Door
know I'll continue to shoot this Jurassic Coast long after I’m well into my sell by date. So be it, there are worse fates. Yes, I know the world is not short of pictures of this famous coast, particularly the stretch featuring the iconic Durdle Door, but I’m not going to let that stop me because I have a particularly strong connection with it; I cut my photographic teeth here.
I think I first shot this particular scene 38 years ago. What’s more home is just up the road, and my maternal family going back generations were from these parts. My grandfather, in the dark days of 1940, patrolled these very cliffs as a Private in the Weymouth Home Guard, allegedly – my mother always maintained they spent more time in the pub than guarding against Nazi invasion. But you get my drift – my affinity with this land and seascape goes deep, and such connections always fuel photographic inspiration.
That may all be true, but inevitably there comes a time when photographing a region I know well that, if I’m not careful, I just end up repeating myself. I must admit a few years ago after running repeated workshops here I thought I’d done all I could on the Jurassic Coast. But then on a winter’s walk from Ringstead, I rekindled the embers of this vivid relationship, and here I am again on these familiar cliff tops. Over the last year I’ve been endeavouring to shoot sections of the coast I’d previously overlooked and return to old haunts, with a different approach and fresh eyes – every dawn and every dusk are different, after all.
It’s late afternoon on a clear autumn day, and the sun is dipping to the south west. Below us the coast stretches away towards St Aldhelm’s Head to the east. I am not alone, with me are two ladies who have won, courtesy of Canon and Wex, the dubious prize of a day under my tutelage. Whilst the scene we are beholding is so familiar to me it is new to them – neither have been here before, and they are in awe.
I sometimes take it for granted, but it is, surely, one of the most spectacular coastlines in the world, isn’t it? I admit I am biased, but then again it is also a
UNESCO World Heritage site, and one people now travel from afar to see and photograph. When I first started shooting here as a fledgling photographer in the late ’70s I rarely saw another soul at dawn or dusk. Now, on most evenings, there’ll be a row of tripods jostling for space on the rocky shelf at Kimmeridge, or on the beach at Durdle Door. Just the other morning at dawn, stood near where we are now, I cursed as a drone flew into my frame – another aspect of modern life. But all that is irrelevant now as the view we are beholding unfolds and the light just gets better and better.
But whilst the light is gorgeous, the sky above is devoid of cloud. The answer is to exclude it, an option that works well from this vantage point. With the direction of light providing pleasing side-lighting, a polarizer is a must. A neutral density filter to slow the exposure is an option too, I used the Lee 4-stop ND. The resulting five second exposure corresponds roughly to the delay between each wave breaking on the shore, so the motion blur is captured as evocative streaks rather than a sea of milk. Besides that it’s a straight no-frills shot – one that relies on the quality of the light and the drama of the seascape for its impact. It’s an image, I hope, that'll make the viewer want to put their boots on and tramp along this fascinating coast. That’s what landscape photography is all about for me. As for my ongoing Jurassic Coast photography – it’s a project I’ll never truly conquer. David is an award-winning Canon photographer with more than 30 years’ professional experience. During his career, David has travelled to just about every corner of the globe. In 2012, Canon invited David into its Ambassador Program by designating him an Official Canon Explorer. Info and photos at www.davidnoton.com lens Exposure Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8l USM f/11, 5 secs, ISO100