Returning to Lulworth Cove just as the sun was starting to set, I decided to wander a bit more in the area and see what other natural wonders Dorset would reveal to me. In my years as a travel photographer, I’ve learned that sometimes the best photographs are the unexpected ones, images made of places that you never intended to find.
Single shot, additional exposures for highlights, focal length 29mm, aperture f/11, shutter speed 32 seconds, ISO 200, ND 5-stop filter, tripod.
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Near Durdle Door, I found one of those places. The small, horseshoe-shaped cove ringed by Man O’War Beach was a place I had somehow managed to miss earlier in my trip. Now I found the small inlet lit by the fading sunlight of a late afternoon, a pink haze falling over the horizon. I was grateful to see it colored by sunset.
I made my way down the cliffs and onto the pebble beach. I knew there were other travelers nearby; I could hear voices and traces of laughter in the distance. But I felt very much alone, as if I were the last person on earth. This wasn’t melancholy; I was perfectly at peace and content to be alone, to see this small sliver of England’s coast without the distraction of other people. At the end of what was sometimes a challenging trip, those blue hour moments at Man O’War Beach were an unexpected coda, serene and lit by a fading sun.
