Rhos-on-Sea Sunrise
A landscape photography blog by Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire based landscape photographer Rob Thorley Photography.
Day two of my North Wales road trip started with a three-thirty AM alarm call. If it’s possible to put a positive spin on a three-thirty AM alarm I’d say it would have been two AM had I been at home. Staying at my sisters caravan had let me have another hour and a half in bed, with the added bonus that my sunrise location was only five, or ten minutes away up the A55.
If you’ve read my previous blog post from North Wales you may remember that for this trip the tide wasn’t in my favour. Whilst the tide wasn’t in my favour sunrise was. Rhos-on-Sea is on the Creuddyn peninsula, which is on the west coast of the UK but Rhos-on-Sea itself pretty much looks out towards the east. I knew Rhos-on-Sea had a harbour, but with the tide out I didn’t think there’d be too much there to have a go at. With that in mind I set off early as I wasn’t sure about what I was going to try and photograph.
Pulling onto the seafront at Rhos-on-Sea the groynes immediately caught my eye. The tide was already too low but I thought I’d still give it a go as it seemed to be the best option. I’m reasonably pleased with the outcome but think the image would have been far better had the sea been a bit further in.
Sunrise long exposure of the sea groynes at Rhos-on-Sea, Wales.
I pretty much just sat on this one composition whilst the sun rose. After it came up I took a few shots up and down the beach but to be honest they’re just snapshots of an empty beach at low tide. I packed up and headed back to car then drove down to the harbour. As I’d expected with the tide out the harbour was a bit of a mess photographically speaking. I did go down and take a few shots of the boats and the breakwater but they were more for reference than anything else.
After Rhos-on-Sea I drove down the coast road stopping off at Penrhyn Bay. I took a couple of shots of the seafront with the Little Orme framing the beach, but again these were really just for reference. I then made my way around to Llandudno. I pulled in up by the lifeboat station to get a shot of the bay, pier and Great Orme but once again I knew they were just “reference” images. A couple of snapshots later and I was heading into Llandudno centre to shoot a bit of video of the promenade, and town centre.
Soon it was time (07:30) for a full english and a brew at Molly’s Cafe. I debated on heading home via the Ogwen Valley but I talked myself out of it. A mixture of a full tum, early morning alarm call, a blue sky day and the prospect of Friday afternoon traffic persuaded me to go and grab my clothes from the caravan and set off home mid-morning. Come 10 o’clock I was heading back up the A55 towards home.
You can view more images from my gallery of other North Wales locations.
