I've always been an early riser. Long before I owned a decent camera, I was the person walking the dog along the coast path in the dark, waiting for the sky to do something interesting. That habit turned into an obsession, and the obsession turned into this website — so it feels right that I share some insight about the thing that started it all: getting up before the world wakes up and finding the ‘good light’.
Northumberland's coastline is one of the best stretches in the UK for sunrise photography, mostly because so few people bother to get up for it - and of course it helps that it faces east :) Here are the spots I keep coming back to, and what you need to know before you go.
#1 Lindisfarne (Holy Island) Castle
The obvious one, and the one I just never get bored of. The castle sits on a volcanic outcrop above the harbour, and at sunrise the low light rakes across the rocks and the old lime kilns in front of it, giving you real texture in the foreground.
The catch — and it trips people up constantly — is the causeway. Holy Island is tidal, and the causeway floods twice a day. Check the official crossing times before you go, and build in a wide safety margin either side. I always plan to be parked up and in position at least 45 minutes before sunrise, both because the light before the sun actually breaks the horizon is often the best part, and because you don't want to be rushing across a narrowing causeway in the dark.
#2 Bamburgh Castle
Bamburgh works from every angle, and is my all time favourite photography location. In my opinion it photographs best from the dunes or Harkess rocks to the north, where you can use the marram grass or the basalt rock formations and tidal pools as foreground and let the castle sit up on its crag with the sky behind it. It also catches occasional supermoons and, on the right night, the aurora beautifully — more on that in a future post.
Winter mornings here are harsh but worth it. Layer up, and bring a lens cloth; sea spray on a cold morning will fog and mist your front element more than you'd expect.
#3 Dunstanburgh Castle
For the longest time, I saw Dunstanburgh as my nemesis… I just couldn’t get a photo of it I loved. The walk in from Craster or Embleton is part of the appeal — you arrive as the ruin properly, having earned the shot rather than pulling up in a car park next to it. The ruins themselves photograph well in almost any light, but sunrise gives you that low, warm sidelight that picks out the stonework.
#4 Embleton Bay
Less famous than its castle-topped neighbour, but this is where I go when I want water movement rather than a static subject - And you do get the bonus of Dunstanburgh castle here as a backdrop. A slower shutter speed here smooths the incoming waves into something closer to mist, especially useful on a still morning when the tide is coming in gently rather than crashing.
However, be extremely careful as the rocks themselves are extremely slippy and I know a number of people who have ended up in A&E after attempting this shot!
#5 St Mary's Lighthouse (The wild card)
Further south, and technically not in Northumberland… St Marys gives a completely different mood — more industrial, more graphic. The causeway here floods too, so the same rules apply as Lindisfarne, just on a smaller scale. It's a good one for beginners because the compositions are realtively obvious and you can get a strong, simple composition without any hiking.
A few practical notes
Check tide times properly, not just once — conditions change, and an app that was accurate last month isn't a guarantee. A basic set of ND graduated filters or a bit of bracketing will help you hold detail in both the sky and the foreground rocks, since Northumberland skies at sunrise can swing from soft pastel to genuinely dramatic within about ten minutes. And dress for about five degrees colder than you think — you'll be standing still for a while.
If any of these spots end up producing something you'd want on your own wall, have a look through my Coastline gallery — most of what's there was shot at one of the locations above, at exactly this time of day.
And if you want to know when I'm heading out next, or get first look at new prints — no spam, just the mornings that were worth getting up for.