White Park Bay, Co. Antrim, N Ireland

[MartinSpence]

Hi

I'm new to this forum, so don't know if there are many other people from N Ireland on here.

However this is a beautiful wee beach I stayed near a couple weeks ago

[sdwilsonsct]

Lots of potential here. The dunes, sky and shore all draw the eye in to the middle.
I have also tried to capture these kinds of dunes (and snowdrifts, and ice patterns), but this seems to be hard to do effectively: their attractive waves end up being small when photographed at an angle that maximizes their contrast.
Overall, the contrast seems a little high and the edges harsh, especially in the sky.
Scott

[wolfnowl]

I'm with Scott... nicely done but you could try toning it back a little.

Mike.

[Wim van Velzen]

Nice one, Martin. I spent a nice evening there last summer: http://www.fotografiewimvanvelzen.nl/ni/whiteparkbay.htm

We visited Antrim as well as Donegal. Lovely!

[Enda Cavanagh]

Hi Martin
Yes indeed I know the area well. I was only up there with 2 photographer friends earlier this year. Big coincidence or what but I posted a photo from the arch a few hundred meters away on LL a few days ago. I won't link to because this is your post
It's a nice image but I too think it looks over processed. White Park Bay has quite a light sand and there are as you know unusual white rocks scattered around the beach. The sand in the photo looks a bit over processed and as a result it looks very dark. I'm pretty sure you wanted a gritty high contrast affect but the dark sand is a bit off putting, I guess especially as I have seen it 

I know too well it's hard to get the balance right if you want a contrast image with large expanses of sand but I think you can still get a nice high contrast affect where you keep the structure of the pixels containing sand without having it dark. (Nik software is very good at that if you have it BTW)