Got up early and popped down to the local beach to photograph the sunrise, and Mother Nature did not disappoint 😍
Happy New Year 🎉
Fuji X-T5
Fuji 18mm f/1.4 @ f/11
2.5 sec, f/11 , ISO 125
NiSi 3 Stop JetMag Pro ND Filter
Benro Rhino Carbon Fibre Tripod
Images below captured on my iPhone 17 Pro Max using the Leica Camera App and the Greg WLM B&W setting…
There’s no better way to kick off the New Year than doing something you love, and for me, that means grabbing my camera, which in this case was my iPhone, and heading out to take some photographs; and this January 1st did not disappoint with a stormy high tide.. How could I resist?
My wife Anne, who’s as much of a storm lover as I am, joined me to not only keep me company, but she also helped capture some behind-the-scenes footage, which added to the fun of the morning.
We headed down to The Cobb ( Lyme Regis) and straight away it was a WOW moment!
The waves were crashing hard against The Cobb sending water shooting high into the air like fireworks. The sound was thunderous, the kind of deep, powerful roar that makes you feel alive just being near it.
I knew where I wanted to head to … the only issue was getting there; the lower part of The Cobb to the side of the Aquarium. The problem here was that water was crashing and pouring over The Cobb wall into the Harbour like a giant Ice Bucket Challenge ( remember that??? ) , however I’ve learned my lesson and now travel with full wet weather kit in a bag in the boot of my car.
Still, even though I was weather-proofed it meant timing the run to perfection to avoid the weight of the water crashing down on me … which I’m rather proud to say I managed to avoid.
Weather like this always fills me with excitement BUT that said you do still need to have your wits about you. No photogbraph is worth putting yourself and others at risk. I never want to be THAT guy!
Once at the side of the aquarium I was able to photograph the small beach area behind it and still be safe, protected by a wall and railing. I managed to get the composition I wanted, grab some shots but then the wind seemed to pick up a bit more. So, I decided enough was enough and timed a run back to Anne ( who was near the RNLI Station ) without getting hit by any waves breaching The Cobb Walls.
Actually on this, I’d heard some time ago that waves come in 7s and it did see to be the case. Running there and back I initially counted 7 clear waves breaches and then ran and managed to avoid getting soaked so, clearly there’s some truth in it; if not and it was pure fluke, I’m getting an extra Lottery ticket this week 😃
As for my iPhone, I used the native 0.5 ( 14mm ) lens and the native Apple Camera App set to Apple ProRaw. The image was edited using Lightroom Mobile on my iPad Pro.
So now I’m up and running; first photograph and print of 2025 is ‘in the bag’ 😃
After walking around a bit more, grabbing some extra shots and some video footage, it was time for breakfast at our favourite spot … Town Mill Bakery.
So here we are in 2025. I’m now really looking foward to the coming months as I plan to be visiting some other coastal locations across Dorset, Devon, Cornwall and Wales ( West and North ) … and my thoughts are that I’ll be doing this with my iPhone to push it that bit more and see what I can get with such minimal kit.
I’ll keep you posted.
Happy New Year!
This video is a complete retouching workflow for a seascape photograph, done from start to finish using only Lightroom on the iPad. I go through the edit step by step, from the raw file to the finished picture, so you can see how far you can take an image without ever leaving the tablet. If you've been wondering whether the iPad can handle a full edit on its own, this shows exactly what that looks like in practice.
So although in the South West we didn’t get the full force of Storm Agness last week (unlike Ireland and parts of Wales) , what we did get still caused some pretty impressive scenes.
Timing couldn’t have been better on Thursday last week as the tail-end of the storm also coincided with a high tide of 4.5 metres at Lyme Regis Sea Front.
This was also to be my first time out ‘in anger’ with my new iPhone 15 Pro Max which I used to photograph the storm along with the ReeXpose App from ReeFlex.
I only had a few mintes to capture whatever I could before the heavens opened and heavy rain joined the party, but here’s the results …
Both results are a blend of several long exposures ( 0.5 seconds and 1 seconds ) taken with my new iPhone 15 Pro Max and the ReeXpose App from ReeFlex and edited in Lightroom Mobile / Cloud and Photoshop.
One of the BEST pieces of advice I was given when starting out as a Portrait Photographer was to move around ... don't take photographs from one spot ... look how the light changes as you take a step to the left or a step to the right.
Since the Covid Pandemic when I first ventured out into landscape and seascape photography as a means of keeping active and keeping creative, one of the most important things I've learned is ... when you find a composition make sure to LOOK BEHIND YOU
This is how the 2nd results came about with the tail-end of Storm Agnes and was what was happening behind me whilst I captured the first.
© Glyn Dewis 2026
