Ray Devlin Photography

The East of Scotland’s North Sea coast is a rugged and dangerous one. The tidal range is extreme, at an astonishing 6+ metres. Coupled with the high coastal bluffs which extend as far south as Yorkshire, it makes coastal infrastructure stark and brutal. Deep sea walls and eroded coastal cliffs are a common sight. As ever, the juxtaposition of man-made infrastructure and unforgiving natural features makes for compelling landscape opportunities.

This is evident in a series of images that I took at St. Andrew’s, in Fife. You can see the eroded cliff, resulting in deep vertical faces. With long period swell waves, resulting in surging conditions, this can be a very hazardous place to be as the tide comes in at an alarmingly fast rate. These locations are great for taking some very simple photographs; the waves do all the talking in the image, creating peaceful, but powerful scenes. This was also the case when I photographed the pebble beach at Findhorn, on the Moray coast. These images were taken with a relatively fast shutter speed, and little was done to post process these images, other than to perform some colour corrections.