I could have picked any one of a number of images here as Dunraven Bay is one of my favourite places. It offers a variety of options and compositions and each time I visit I find something new.

The beach is very shallow; when the tide is low it goes out for a long way. The sand also retains water for longer, producing some very nice reflective qualities. What I look for in an image here very much depends upon the weather and the tide. Now the tide is predictable, the weather, sadly, most certainly is not!

On this occaision I had timed my visit to correspond with a receding tide; almost at its lowest point by sunset. The weather, I was hoping, would produce an 'interesting' sky. At somewhere flat, like a beach, the sky can make up a large part of the image. A lovely cloudless blue sky is not always desirable as it will appear quite bland and featureless in a photograph. The skies had been cloudy all day but this was now breaking up, creating some good interest and lighting.

With half the image coming together nicely (albeit nothing to do with me), my attention turned to the other half, the beach. As the tide retreats small pools are left behind, retaining their water for quite some time after the sea has left. Providing the wind isn't too strong, these pools can create lovely reflections of the sky above. To take full advantage of these reflections the camera must be set low to the ground, about 18 inches (in old money). The final touch was to add a 0.6 ND Grad filter to step down the bright sky and create a more even exposure.