Sunrise at Lawrencetown Beach

I'm not one for early mornings, but after two months of social distancing and staying within a few blocks of home, I took advantage of the reopening of provincial beaches and headed out to Lawrencetown for sunrise. With sunrise scheduled around 5:30am, I got up before 5 and jumped immediately into the car. Despite the early hour, there were already hikers on the nearby Salt Marsh Trail. When I arrived at Lawrencetown Beach, the horizon was a nice shade of orange, and there was a nice array of clouds in the sky to turn the sky pink. 

In the distance along the beach and out past the headland, there was a nice low-lying fog to give atmosphere to my images. 

I stayed on the beach for at least an hour, and even long after the sun had cleared the horizon, there were still photographic opportunities. 

Getting the camera down low provides an interesting perspective to landscapes, especially when there are shiny beach stones with which to populate the foreground. 

Once I tired of the landscapes, there were plenty of detail images available, and I'm always a sucker for sea foam and long exposures of flowing water.

I would forgive the viewer for thinking I had placed this piece of seaweed in order to create this image, but it was as I found it - and soon after I took this image, a wave ventured higher up the beach than most and rearranged it into something less picturesque.

A retreating wave flows around a rock.

On my way out to the beach, I had passed a number of coves and islands, where the sea was still utterly due to the absence of wind. Hoping that the water's mirror surface remained, I started my return to the city. I was in luck!

With only a group of ducks swimming by to disturb the water, this tree along the Salt Marsh Trail reflects on the water's mirror surface.

In comparison to the following image, this little island allowed me to isolate the trees within the frame of the image.

For some reason, I really like the mixture of dark & light greens and reds with the blue of the sky and the white of the wind-fallen trees. If you look carefully, you can see the heron that I missed until I zoomed in on the image - though it isn't where you might expect to find it.

Even here, I found some detail shots to keep me there a few minutes longer.

Close to shore, the remains of the previous season's reeds lie just under the water's surface as the current crop start to poke up and cast their own reflections.

All in all, this was a much needed photographic therapy session.

Cold surf at Lawrencetown

We felt like getting out of the house this afternoon, so we headed out to Lawrencetown Beach to see what was up. It was a tad chilly, though bearable, and the entrance to the parking lot was a bit icy. I say "icy", but what I mean is that it had up to 8" of ice in places, and no ice in others, and the car sort of slid its way in through the ruts in the ice. 

Despite the blue sky when we arrived (or perhaps because it soon gave way to grey skies and snow), I was definitely in a black & white mood.

Still snow on the beach.

Snow. And dead grass. Or maybe it's just resting.

At least there was some good wave action, and some crazy people were even out surfing. 

I caught this wave just as it was breaking.

Same with this one.

Pretty sure you can see a theme here.

Aforementioned crazy surfer. She didn't last too long, and by my count made 6-7 runs for the beach. It appeared cold, and difficult to make it out any distance.

Foam on beach rocks.

In the shot above, I was playing with the continuous auto-focus tracking and 11 frames per second that the camera is capable of, and was pleasantly surprised that it was able to track the incoming waves (most of the time, anyway) and render the front of each wave in focus at f/4. You can make out the individual bubbles. 

Soon after this shot, my fingers decided they were cold enough, and mutinied. I then bravely decided it was time to go back and rescue the wife from the rugrats, who were by this time running loose in the car.