Some shoots you plan for weeks… Others are rather last minute… This one just happened to the latter.
I'd gone to Bamburgh following a message from a contact of mine suggesting that the Household Cavalry would be in the village for a short while, as they travelled back from their parade appearance at Coldstream Civic Week. I love early morning at Bamburgh so I figured I’d go and get another sunrise landscape shot regardless, and if I was lucky, I may be able to get a handful of casual shots of the riders from a distance.
What I actually managed to get instead was a few hundred images of riders in full ceremonial dress, working their way through the village and along the sand with the castle towering behind them and the sea doing what the North Sea behaving beautifully. I’ll let you into a secret… I hadn’t realised my new camera was in ‘High Speed +’ burst mode, so hadn’t intended to take anywhere near that many shots… I’m still making stupid mistakes even now :)
By the time the riders passed, the castle gates were open and the beach was getting pretty busy for the day, and most of the visitors walking by had a phone held up to capture a shot of the soliders, so I wasn't the only one who caught it.
The scene
There's a particular kind of image Bamburgh gives you almost for free: something ancient in the foreground or background, doing its best to remind you it's been standing there for a thousand years, largely unbothered by whatever's happening in front of it this week. Add horses — unhurried, sure-footed on sand that isn't always kind to hooves — and you've got a set of frames that don't need much help from me. Point the camera at the procession, get the light right, get out of the way.
The formation itself moved with the kind of quiet discipline that's hard to fake and harder to describe without sounding like I'm overselling it. Full ceremonial dress on a Friday-morning beach, no fanfare, no audience beyond whoever happened to be walking a dog nearby. That contrast — old stone, old tradition, a beach that belongs to dog walkers and rock-poolers most days — is really the whole story of the set.
Worth the detour
I didn't get the sunrise shot I went out for. I managed to get something better instead, which is roughly how half of the best mornings on this coast tend to go — you show up for the plan and leave with the thing you didn't see coming.
The moral of the story? Even if you don’t think the conditions are what you hoped they could be, GET UP and go anyway, you may come away with something even better than you had planned for.
More from Bamburgh soon. It rarely disappoints.
