Summer in Norfolk
Ask a landscape photographer for their favourite time of year and many will say autumn for the colours and atmospheric conditions or winter for it’s icy beauty, perhaps some will go for the freshness of spring but very few will mention summer.
With long days, extremely early sunrise times, harsh light and far too many people around, perhaps it’s not surprising but it also has so much going for it. Through the summer, the landscape is alive with colour as everywhere from meadows to marshes, one wildflower after another comes into bloom. It isn’t just wildflowers, fields are golden with wheat or swaying barley, then dotted with bales. Some locations are also at their best at this time of year because of the direction of the light as the sun rises and sets further north… the North Norfolk Coast is one such place and summer is one of the best times of years to shoot it. Ok days are long but if you can brave the early start times, mornings are wonderfully peaceful or failing that avoid them altogether and enjoy the summer evenings.
Every year that’s exactly what I do… with a series of evening workshops along the Norfolk coast to take advantage of some of this summery goodness. Visiting locations picked for the crops in the fields, the flowers in bloom on the marshes and the position of the setting sun (along with the proximity of a good fish and chip shop) we spend time exploring these locations and how to get the best from photographing each one.
Over the years on these workshops we’ve experienced the sort of extremes of weather that you’d expect from a British summer, from epic thunder storms to temperatures hitting almost 40°C (that one had to be cancelled)! I’m happy to report that aside from the odd shower, this year was meteorologically uneventful!
Below is a gallery with a selection of images from this year’s workshops and recce trips, I hope you enjoy. Oh and if you were wondering, the season I look forward to the most is always the next one.
If you’d like to join me in Norfolk next summer, the new dates are on my website now >>
