In Search of White Beaches

There are numerous beaches to explore all over Lewis and Harris but by the end of today I don't think I'd travelled more than about seven miles from where I am staying and here I highlight three beaches I visited today.

The first is included simply because it is the closest and the first I visited. Shawbost Beach (photo 1) is by any standard a lovely beach with white sand and no-one else there except one family, though I suspect that might not always be the case of course. It was quite windy when I arrived though and, in all honesty, it was even more windy when I left. Perhaps because this was my first proper photography location, I spent far too long here attempting to force a photograph to exist, but in reality there was nothing I could find so eventually I packed my camera bag and moved on. I should have left sooner. Tut!

The second beach featured is Dailbeag (photos 2, 3 and 4) which is a popular location for photographers and the first photo of the three confirms it I think. Annoyingly, the issue today was the changeable weather, being somewhat reminiscent of Iceland ... if the weather isn't what you hoped for, wait five minutes and it might be! This was the theme of today and you can see the result of this because photos 2 and 3 were taken only half an hour apart and the reason my camera is pointing towards me is that I was protecting the lens from the rain. You can also see that when the clouds cover the sky, those lovely ocean colours disappear. Photo 4 was taken from the cliff top just before I left and it is still dull and lifeless. What is actually needed is a decent sunset and there wasn't one of those today either but I'm sure there will be before I leave the island ... I hope so. All was not lost here because I did take some proper photos even though I'm sure you'll agree that, amazingly, my phone is doing okay - for a phone.

The third beach featured is the last one of the day, Dalmore Beach, and when you arrive here and see it for the first time you have to say "Wow!", but why? Well, perhaps the panorama photo gives a hint in that it's a large beach of lovely clean white sand and when I arrived there was absolutely no-one there, though it was 6.30pm. I wonder why?

I spent ages with my camera at Dalmore, focusing on detail as well as the sweeping curves created as the waves crashed against the shore, but I'm pleased with the phone photos here too. Can you see the face in the sea stack in photo 7, or the swinging monkey in photo 9? You need to look hard to see the monkey.

So why the sheep photo? This was taken as I left Dailbeag to find a group of sheep standing defiantly in the road to stop me passing. They simply wouldn't move so I thought I'd take a photo of them given not much else had an effect, then as I was reaching for my phone they did start to move. At first I was amazed that the threat of a photo would do that, but then I heard the whistled command from the farmer and spotted the sheep dog rushing to sort things out. Clearly the sheep knew they were on to a loser.

So what of today? I thoroughly enjoyed the mix of photography and relaxation time and when the sun appeared it offered perfect temperatures, beautiful scenery and all set to the music of the crashing waves. Tomorrow is forecast to be dry with sun and cloud which sounds perfect to me, so those camera batteries will be on charge tonight.

Footnote: If they were white sand beaches today, why don't they look white in these footprint photos?
Some beaches are more white than others and some have areas of white sand and areas of sand coloured sand. Also, the exposure set in the camera can make beaches look whiter than they really are and the colour of the sand will also be affected by the ambient light such that on a really bright day they will appear much whiter than on a dull day. Hopefully that's a correct explanation, but at times today and to my eyes the beaches did look white.Читать далее