Low Hauxley Beach from above

In a rather shameful waste of a great piece of technology, I hadn’t flown my Mavic 2 Pro in over a year but finally put that right this week with an afternoon at Druridge Bay and Low Hauxley in Northumberland.

Let’s get the excuses out of the way first. The vast majority of photography I’ve done in the last year or so has been on outings with the family, where it’s not overly appropriate to stop and set up a drone with a toddler running free. On the small number of days I’ve got out for dedicated photography trips, I’ve often headed for more woodland settings where, again, it’s not been ideal for flying.

What it really comes down to though, is that I haven’t made time to fly the Mavic.

This week I did, and of course thoroughly enjoyed it. As usual, even on a dedicated outing, I had to abandon and head home in time for bedtime with the kids and so I missed sunset by a mere 40 minutes but still got some nice light in the ever-lowering autumn sun. Another month or two and I might even make a sunset before having to turn tail and head home.

Anyway, to the image(s)…

I had driven up to Low Hauxley from my earlier location at Druridge Bay, both to check out a new area I hadn’t visited before and also see if flying the Mavic from here would get me a good view of Coquet Island. Sadly, with the standard 500m horizontal distance limit reached, this was the best I could do:

Giving up on photographing the island in any meaningful way on that initial scouting flight, I checked out the shoreline in either direction and found a couple of interesting points, also taking a few images of the dunes on the way back to land. An hour or so later, as the light improved, I sent the Mavic up again and got some nice shots of the waves lapping the shore.

I got two variations on the main photo up top. The first, above, sits more level with the line of the dunes at the top of the frame and includes more sea. In the end, I decided it’s my preferred composition compared to the second, below, at more of an angle.

I like the stronger diagonal of this second image but the messier angle of the dunes poking in at the top of frame kept distracting me. I’m sure I’ll change my mind again shortly.

After this, I focused on other areas of the beach and just capturing the waves rolling in.

Back to appreciation of strong diagonals, I really like this final image that captures the line of the surf going corner to opposite corner, as well as the warmth of the sunlight on the very edge of the sand and on the waves, while the bulk of the beach is in much cooler shade.