Whitby Steps

Whitby is one of the places that holds a special place in my heart. One of my earliest memories is from a caravan holiday in whitby when I was very young and its one of those places that I never tire of visiting. I normally like to take my time and soak in the atmosphere of possibly the most famous fishing village in England (thank you Bram Stoker), but on this occasion I was only there for a flying visit. I’d left work and knew that my wife would not yet be home, so with the camera stashed in the boot and with the promise of cloud and sun around sunset time I decided to head straight there with high hopes of a great sunset to form the backdrop of the iconic 199 steps. It turns out that Thursday night is Motorbike night at Whitby, which I’m sure is nice for all the bikers, but it was somewhat disappointing to hear the cries of the seagulls being drowned out by the sound of revving bike engines.

Nevertheless from my vantage point three quarters of the way up the Whitby steps, the noise was mitigated somewhat. I set up my tripod around 7:45 and I could see immediately that hope of great sunset were slim. The cloud bank over the West Cliff was just too thick, however further out to sea, and in fact above my head there were clearer skies so I had hopes of some decent colour at least.

I wasn’t disappointed. The sky lit up a delightful pink colour, but it was more to the left hand side of the frame and I struggled to include it while still maintaining a good composition. I wanted the two piers in the background as well as the pink sky. Ideally I would have liked to move the lamp a little further to the left but this wasn’t possible without losing most of the red sky so this is as good as it got.

Once thing I did notice was the size of the Seagulls. They are huge these days and I saw plenty of them dive bombing people as they left the local fish and chip shops looking for their dinner. No wonder Whitby Council have been considering a Seagull cull in recent times!