On a quiet Saturday afternoon last weekend Sven and I made the drive out to Te Henga (Bethell's Beach) hoping for some interesting landscape photography and a nice sunset. We trudged along the beach for a while and struggled to find anything of particular interest to photograph!
We had grand ideas of climbing the cliffs behind the beach for the sunset, but thought better of it when we figured it would require wading through a freezing cold stream, carrying our cameras overhead, and climbing down said cliffs afterwards in the dark. Might be better saved for a summer activity..
I made a few photos of the lifeguard tower and beach but not much in the way of actual landscapes. After limited success we decided to pack it in and drive back up the road to a large area of sand dunes next to a lake I didn't know existed! It was quite a cool place actually, a large expanse of black ironsand, parts of it looking quite lunar, if you ignore the vegetation.. I tried for some long-exposure shots using my tripod - the shot below turned out okay with some nice blue and red still in the sky, but I was hoping for a lot more movement and drama in the clouds. Think I need a new ND filter for that lens next :)