Newhaven LIGHTHOUSE
This is a wonderful and unpredictable location that I would highly recommend under the right weather conditions. I regularly check the local forecast waiting for those occasions when wind speed (gusts) exceed 40 mph and wind direction is mostly from the south west. Coupled with these weather conditions are the tide times, and I generally look to arrive about an hour before high tide. Fort Road takes you all the way to the car park on Newhaven beach.
The seawall trends in a south easterly direction and takes a pounding from the crashing waves with wonderful contortions and frothing colours of browns and blues. What attracts my attention more so is the explosion of white foam that seems to light up an otherwise gloomy, threatening scene.
Personal safety as well as equipment protection is paramount here. The seawall is no longer accessible, but in any case that would not be wise during the ideal photographic weather conditions! Even the waves here are unpredictable and the odd one can catch you out as it reaches higher up the raised storm beach.
A short walk along the raised gravel beach provides a good vantage point to shoot the crashing waves with the seawall with the lighthouse behind, which is frequently completely obscured by the huge waves. For these conditions, a 70-200 mm zoom, or similar, is essential given the distance and the need to search out the detail in the waves. Mount the lens in the safety of the car; I wouldn’t attempt changing lens outside with all those salty globules flying around.
For these conditions and attempting to capture at least some the details in the waves, a shutter speed of around 1/1600 or higher is necessary and this may require raising the ISO to about 400. For capturing even better details of the waves, a location on the raised beach close to the breakwater itself is ideal. But the protected inside of the breakwater should not be forgotten as huge waves crash over the breakwater and pound the lighthouse.