A few weekends ago I met up with a few other brave souls on one very windy morning and ventured out to Durdle Door, the destination for many school geography day trips and tourists alike thanks to the unique geology and resulting shapes carved out of the rocks over thousands of years. If you perform a search you’ll find thousands of shots from this popular location so it is a bit of a challenge to avoid the cliches and come up with something a bit different…Personally I found it’s the bay the other side of the spit of land from ‘the door’ is on that’s much more interesting. A semi-circular cove protected by a bank of sharp rocks some 100m out, at the time huge waves were crashing over the tops of their dark peaks creating a big swell in the bay. Each wash up the shore was followed by long fingers as the surf was dragged back down the beach again, rather mesmeric if you watched it for too long! We stayed until the sun was too high and contrasty – and all our filters had become completely gummed up with salt spray and smears – I broke off from shooting the crashing waves and headed off for lunch with everyone. Later on we braved the waves yet again down at Portland Bill where I had been before, and how different it was. Being some way off the mainland the seas carried much more power in their waves, as deep waves slammed into the straight sided slabs of Portland Bill huge plumes of spray doused the entire headland in a fine – and sometimes heavy! – spray. One miscalculated wave almost soaked all my gear but thankfully it was still safe in the bag…though it filled my wellies somewhat!

Lessons learned this time: take a good cleaning cloth with you into the field and don’t underestimate the size of the wave approaching…