Black and white beach photography can be a really cathartic experience. Standing on the rocks hearing the crash of waves, feeling slight spray whilst watching the sun come down, can help the day’s worries just evaporate! After this blissful experience, you get home hoping for some gorgeous black and white masterpieces that you envisaged, but sometimes you end up with grey, lifeless images.

Let us show you 5 techniques that we use to get around this problem, when doing black and white beach photography. These will ensure that every time you go down to the sea, you will come back with unique photographs to be proud of.

During our recent trip to Cape Town, South Africa, Ally and I took a day trip to a tiny beach called Slangkop. (This means Snake Head in Afrikaans.) If you’re looking to go there, it is right next to a small village called Kommetjie. There is a beautiful old lighthouse there that dates back to 1919. This 33m high round cast iron tower looks so interesting from a distance that we hoped to get some amazing images of the area. We arrived mid afternoon and stayed until just after sunset. As you will see from the images in this article, the lighthouse was probably the least interesting thing to photograph, mainly because it closes at 3pm and is surrounded by a huge ugly electrified and barbed wire fence.

Why use black and white photography

One of the joys of photographing along the shoreline are the subtle colours one gets from the turquoise of the sea to the orange of the setting sun reflected off of rocks to the pale tan sand. It’s a watercolour painter’s dream, so why would we want to give up these amazing subtleties for a black and white image? There are a number of reasons, but the main ones we find are it forces you to look at the shapes of your scene and we end up with much better compositions.

Black and white can give you incredible dramatic images that any colour can dilute.

Everybody has taken photographs of the beach. Sofor your images to stand out you need to present them with something that’s not been seen hundreds of times before. Black and white photography will do this.

The 5 top techniques we use

1: Photography in the Golden Hour

The golden hour is the hour before sunset and after sunrise. It gives colour photographs a beautiful soft warm colour cast that is really desirable but what does it do for black and white photography? Well, we love shooting in the golden hour because the lighting gives objects a wonderful 3D feel with long and dark shadows. All the textures on rocks just come to life and even sand takes on a new textured look.

2: Silhouettes and contre-jour lighting

Of course the golden hour is perfect for photographing contre-jour. For a more in-depth look at contre-jour look at our article here.  By photographing into the sun you will find the scene take on new and interesting shapes as the light just touches the rim of objects, throwing the rest of the object into darkness. With large areas of darkness you can create mystery in your images as it leaves the viewer’s brain to fill in the details. Be careful with the extreme lighting as it’s really easy to totally blow out (lose all detail) in your highlights. If you’re photographing in an auto mode be careful as your camera could be lying to you by giving you the wrong exposure. Exposure compensation is your best friend in these situations.

There are so many interesting things on the beach to photograph and some of them take on a totally different look and feel when photographed as a silhouette. The stacked rocks have almost an alien world feel to them.

3: Details, details, details

The shoreline is like a fractal. The more closely you look, the more detail you see. Worlds within worlds. So why just photograph the big world everybody else is doing. Look at the details and sometimes some of the most interesting landscapes can be found there. Rocks and sand have so many beautiful textures on them but our favourite textures are to be found on old metal. When doing texture photography we look for old rusted structures wherever we go as they always give wonderful detailed images.

4: Polarising the light and filters

One of the must have filters for any outdoor photography is a polarising filter. A polariser will do so many things to both colour as well as black and white images. For our black and white beach photography we use it mostly to darken the sky. However it is also very useful for getting rid of reflections.

Slangkop lighthouse with a dark sky created by the polarising filter

The other filters we use in beach or any landscape photography are red or orange filters. This filter also darkens the sky (black and white photography only). We always have a UV filter on our lens to protect it as well. The protection is not just about damage either. Sea spray on your lens will degrade the contrast of the image and its so much easier to swap to a clean filter halfway through your shooting rather than trying to clean a lens in sandy sea spray conditions.

Be wary however of ‘stacking’ multiple filters on your lens. Unless they are the very expensive multi-coated variety, you will lose quality especially when photographing contre-jour. With wide-angle lenses you will also be adding a vignetting effect.

5: Neutral Density Filters for misty movement

Another technique is to use a long exposure to get a misty water movement. An ND filter will cut the light coming through your lens allowing you to do really long exposures that give the water a misty ethereal effect.

Don’t forget to use a stable tripod for these long exposures. Even the smallest bit of wind can cause subtle movement and ruin an otherwise perfect image. Usually, we try to put the tripod on rocks or really hard compacted sand to keep it totally steady.

If you are using film be aware of your exposure and reciprocity law failure and compensate accordingly. Depending on your exposure time you might even end up doubling the length of exposure to compensate. If you are not aware of reciprocity law then just bracket your exposures like mad.

Extra techniques – safety for you and your camera

The coastline and your camera don’t mix very well. Salty sea-spray will corrode your pride and joy so very quickly. Keep it out of the spray or sea mist as much as possible. This might mean keeping it in a bag when you’re not shooting or, if the spray is really fierce then put a clear plastic bag over it. (The ones you get for keeping food in work well.) Just cut a hole for the lens.

Be aware of changing lenses in areas where sand is blowing around. Once again sand and sensors don’t play well together.

Be aware of your surroundings. When we were photographing at Slangkop, I was so busy with an image that I didn’t see a very shifty looking person hovering around eyeing our stuff. Fortunately Ally was there, and some locals arrived too, so he scuttled off but if I was on my own things could have been very different.

Extra techniques – what settings should I use for best beach photography

We are doing a whole series on aperture, shutter and exposure compensation articles in this blog but the main thing about beach photography is that your camera can be fooled very easily. The bright sand and reflections off the sea make the camera think that there is more light than there really is so your images can turn out slightly underexposed. If in doubt, bracket a lot.

370,000 miles of unique possibilities

Around our planet there’s approximately 370,000 miles of coastline from stunning long sandy beaches to ragged cliffs. There is just so much variety and so many options to create unique and exciting images. Be safe, look for the less obvious and craft your own black and white beach photography and masterpieces every time.

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So often when we photograph places of interest, we look solely at the aesthetics of the scene. How does the light make it feel? What interesting shapes appear in the final image to draw the eye in? Which details shall I leave out to create a stronger composition? These are usually the things going through a photographer’s head. Occasionally though, there is a subject that is so much more powerful and important than our everlasting search for spectacular and beautiful images. Nelson Mandela’s cell on Robben Island was just such a place.

Robben Island Maximum Security wing yard wall

Background for context

I, Tim, am a South African and British hybrid. I’ve spent half my life in South Africa and half in the United Kingdom near London. I had an English father and a South African mother. I grew up in the apartheid South Africa (Durban) as a typical privileged white male.

Apartheid

Nobody really spoke of apartheid issues at our (all white) school. Apartheid was deemed a good thing by most white adults as it meant prosperity for the few, cheap labour, and it kept people, who were made out to be ‘slightly less human than us’, at bay. It was only in my last years of schooling and starting college that I started to question the evil status quo.

I started hanging around with friends who were anti-apartheid and questioning the government’s policy and lack of human rights if you weren’t white.  During this time, I met a number of people who had been targeted by the apartheid government security police (BOSS – Bureau of State Security, later NIS). Some of them had been tortured, whilst some had lost loved ones who had been killed by the state. One friend had a bomb go off in her office and it killed a fellow worker. The parcel bomb was believed to have been sent by the government security services. Another friend’s boyfriend was murdered by the army when he fled to a neighbouring country. These friends were white but supported anti-apartheid organisations. It was even worse if you were black. I heard many accounts of pain and death at the hands of the state. This turned me into a highly cynical individual when it comes to government and corporate behaviour, as Ally will testify to.

South African Army

When I was called up to go into the South African army (all white male South Africans had to do 2 years in the army then) I had to make some choices. The army at that time had two main roles. To fight the ANC, who are now the government, and to keep black people in subservience with a strong military presence in the townships. (Townships were black only towns with few amenities and situated far away from the affluent white areas. Apartheid is an Afrikaans word meaning apartness. Whites lived in white areas, Black people in black zoned areas etc. Different races each had their own area. This was the law and severe punishments were metered out for breaking it.)

The Choice

I could not agree with any of those horrific policies so just before I was due to report for duty I hatched an exit plan. I wrote a letter to the army intake officer telling him that I was out of the country and was unable to get back to report for duty. Explaining that that I would let them know as soon as I returned, I posted the letter to a friend in London who then sent it on to the army so it arrived back in SA with a UK stamp. This bought me time. By time I mean a number of harrowing months of worrying that I would be arrested. I finally managed to leave the country almost 6 months later.

Why couldn’t I just be a political objector?

The price for political objection was 6 years prison and as I was only in my mid-twenties I didn’t consider that as a viable option. This is always something that has always left me feeling guilty, as I was fortunate enough to leave, while millions of South Africans had to stay and endure.

Before anybody thinks that I am just anti-authority (well… maybe I am a bit) I must point out that I was in the London Metropolitan Police (Scotland Yard) as a forensic specialist photographer for 7 years.

It is through this lens that I viewed Robben Island, the maximum-security prison island for political prisoners.

Trip to Robben Island

It was a beautiful Cape Town summer’s day, but Ally and my hopes to visit Robben Island had been dashed the night before. It turns out that you have to book weeks or sometimes months in advance. We decided to go down to the booking office in case there were any cancellations. As we arrived one of the booking staff had just got a few cancelled tickets so we were on our way.

A half an hour boat trip across the sea with spectacular views of Table Mountain in the background does not prepare one for the heart-breaking yet inspiring visit to come.

Prisoners were forced to dig rocks in this quarry. The cave is where they sheltered from the harsh sun during breaks

Arrival and the bus trip

Whilst you are not allowed to wander around by yourself you do get a very knowledgeable guide on the bus tour. Very often this is a former prisoner from the island. On the tour you visit the quarry where the prisoners broke rocks, see the light house and staff village and find out interesting facts like that Robben Island was once a leper colony amongst other things.

Here is also where there is now a significant pile of rocks. This was started by Nelson Mandela, who after being elected President, attended a reunion on Robben Island. He walked off to the side dropped a rock onto the ground. He was followed by many of the former prisoners who added their own rock to the pile. This formed a rock memorial to their time on the island.

It is because of the bright sun off the rocks, the alkalinity of rocks and constant exposure that Nelson Mandela’s tear ducts were damaged. Press photographers were asked not to use flash when taking photographs of him.

Once into the maximum security cell area we had a new guide who was once an inmate with Nelson Mandela.

Robben Island ex-prisoner guide

Maximum security wing

From a purely photographic point of view, the maximum security wing, with its grey cells, barbed wire and sparse vegetation is nothing to write home about. Then you hear the stories about how Africa National Congress activist Nelson Mandela with help from Ahmed Kathrada and Walter Sisulu wrote the book ‘Long walk to freedom’ under the noses of the guards and hid pages in the garden in tins, the whole place comes alive. Stories from somebody who was there, about how they hid secret messages in a tennis ball and threw it over the wall ‘by mistake’ so they could communicate with other inmates, just leave you in awe of these men who were beaten but not broken. What impressed me most about these heroic individuals was their overriding hope in even the darkest times of their lives.

Nelson Mandela’s cell

Whilst the tiny cell no 5 that was Nelson Mandela’s (Madiba’s) home for so long initially leaves an impression of sadness. That a man can be caged for such a large part of his life because he fought for human rights is no small thing.  This feeling however soon evaporates. It is replaced by the incredible hope that if a man imprisoned and mis-treated for 27 years can forgive his captors, and then become one of the worlds greatest leaders and Nobel Peace Prize winner, then anything is possible.

Nelson Mandela’s cell on Robben Island

Cells on Robben Island Maximum security wing

I would have loved to go into the cell to photograph from Nelson’s point of view but unfortunately the cells are locked. So, I had to hang back until the crowd had gone,  then photograph the corridor to try to show the loneliness of it all.

Nelson Mandela’s cell and lock with plate and toilet bucket

The prison yard and garden

Outside Nelson Mandela’s cell in the prison yard are a few bushes that seem to survive in waterless environments. This area is where, later in his incarceration, Nelson tended the garden and hid the manuscript pages for his book. I often try to hang back during any guided tour to get images of the place without tourists. This didn’t work this time so I had to settle for the close up view rather than the large expanse of the yard I was hoping for.

The bright light against the walls, calls for creative exposure. You can’t rely on your camera’s internal light meter for this.

Robben Island Maximum Security Wing garden and exercise yard where manuscript for “Long walk to freedom’ was hidden

Why Black and White?

I have converted many of the images from Robben Island and Nelson Mandela’s cell into Black and White. I feel that the lack of colour helps to reflect the stark and colourless living conditions these South African heroes endured. The high contrast also reflects the intense brightness of the sun beating down onto that little island. Although we photographed with digital cameras we would really like to return with film cameras, with black and white film. See here if you want to see how to convert colour to black and white.

Photograph from the soul

This trip was a very different and special one for me. I am usually very excited about shapes and contrast and textures, but during our visit to Robben Island and Nelson Mandela’s cell my creative photography took a back seat.

Most of the time I photograph subjects from the creative part of my brain. There comes a time occasionally however, when I’m so overwhelmed by the subject. Here, the only thing to do is to look at the scene in wonder, and hope that my photographic auto-pilot will take care of the technical side. This is so my soul can do justice to the final image. Robben Island and Nelson Mandela’s cell was that place for me.

Cape Town from Robben Island

Whilst you’re in Cape Town, don’t forget to take a trip up Table Mountain and the best coffee shop in the world, Truth Coffee.

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No, because absolutely everything is very cool! Let’s start with at the place God designed purely for wave lovers … Muizenberg! Muizenberg sits in False Bay, so called because the early sailors used to often mistake it for what is now the Cape Town harbour area. It is a small bohemian seaside town that is spectacularly laid back.

Surfers and kite boarders flock to the beautiful beaches and one of our most enduring memories is sitting in a fish and chip shop on the front watching surfers vie for waves while the gentle ocean breeze took the edge off the heat. Lucky Fish & Chips is wonderful, absolutely fresh, and caters for gluten-free – yay!

Muizenberg Beach – Lucky Fish and Chips

Right in the heart of Muizenberg is the area called Surfers’ Corner, dominated by surf shops, surf board hire shops, surf schools, or restaurants and cafes where you can sit and watch surfing! Further along the beach (out of sight of the real purpose of Muizenberg) you can find the swimming area and then further along from that is an area designated for kite-boarding and wind surfing.

The Shark flag system

When in Muizenberg the first-time visitor will be very surprised to see flags with pictures of sharks on. Due to the abundance of sharks, in particular Great Whites, Muizenberg beach has a shark warning system. This starts with a green flag for All Clear, black flag – spotting conditions poor, red flag – high shark alert and white flag – get out, get out!

Apparently, surfers paddling on a surf board, look exactly the same as a juicy seal to a hungry shark.

Apart from the flags, there is another way of telling of the presence of a shark – a bloody loud siren goes off, scaring the living daylights out of you, quite possibly more than a shark would. Because Muizenberg is overlooked by a mountain, there are shark spotters who sit at various points up the mountain with binoculars watching the bay for shark shapes and alert the beach when one comes too close to the surfers. At the siren, almost everybody gets out of the water and waits for the all clear flag to reappear before continuing where they left off. The all clear flag doesn’t actually mean there are no sharks. It just means that they are not near the surfing area.

Sharkspotters have an amazing free app for your phone that shows the ‘shark conditions’ around Muizenberg and surrounding bays. This organisation does an amazing job of protecting both humans and sharks and deserve a lot of support.

Fishing

Fisherman at dusk – Muizenberg Beach

What many people don’t know about Surfers’ Corner is that the locals bring in their netted catch. On our first evening back in Muizenberg, a huge crowd gathered as the fishermen hauled in masses of yellow-tails. We grabbed our cameras and ran over as fast as possible as there were so many photo opportunities to be had. As it was dusk we were working at reasonably high ISOs and slower shutter speeds however as we were also photographing at the wider end of the lenses we could still hand hold ok. My rule of thumb is to never shoot slower than the focal length of the lens I’m using therefore at 24mm I wouldn’t hand hold slower than 1/25 th of a second – unless I’d had a strong Truth coffee of course!

There was a lot of excitement around the haul as some of the less salubrious members of the crowd tried to steal the fish. This is not terribly easy as the fish are almost two-thirds of a metre in length. One old fellow grabbed a fish and wandered back up the beach past us, muttering “This one’s mine”. It didn’t take long for him to be spotted, and he was promptly chased by about 5 men, he was stopped in the car park and relieved of his ill-gotten “fish”.

Such amazing photo opportunities even with the crowds

Crowd with haul of fish on Muizenberg Beach

Not a paradise to all

Muizenberg however, is not paradise on earth for everybody. There is a lot of poverty and some locals have to sleep rough. They do so mainly outside the government offices where they feel safest. A lot of people also sleep on the mountainside in sheltered areas or caves.

Muizenberg has many neighbours ranging from the super wealthy Constantia wine producing area to the north, to the large more deprived Mitchell’s Plain area on the east.  The township (Mitchell’s Plain) is home to many victims of forced removal, due to the implementation of the Group Areas Act dating back to apartheid days and has quite a big gang and drug problem. The road in and out of Muizenberg (Prince George’s Drive) is often used for street racing as well as the heart of taxi wars where burning tyres can litter the road. The police take care of this very quickly and warn the residents living nearby not to venture out for a while.

Having said all that, Muizenberg is just the most chilled area dominated by old hippies, younger surfers and hipsters with people of all colours and languages to be seen.

Kitesurfing on False Bay, Muizenberg

We spent a very enjoyable evening watching talented kite-surfers tearing up and down the surf, whilst performing the occasional trick and jump as the sun was setting. Some of the kite-surfers noticed us photographing them and performed beautifully for us with the mountains and the setting sun as a perfect backdrop. We met some of them afterwards. Claire, a spectacular kite-surfer, turned out to be a French business student who’d been there for 2 months, doing an internship at the local surf shop working in the morning and kite-surfing in the afternoons.

Kite Surfing Muizenberg

Zandvlei

Just inland from from Surfers’ Corner is the 200ha Greater Zandvlei Estuary Nature Reserve. It is a wetland, river system and estuary lake. On the one side of Zandvlei is the beautiful Marina da Gama housing estate. A lot of the houses back right onto the water so that the residents can visit one another by wind-surfer or kayak! Our friend Suzi lives here, who having been in the UK for 16 years had just returned to S Africa. Having been anglicised for all those years, she needed to be refreshed in the art of braaing. (South African for barbeque.) We thought our visit would aid that need.

Marina De Gama

Durban or Muizenberg waves?

There are so many amazing surfing areas around South Africa. We also spent a lot of time in Durban waters and they are very different experiences but both amazing. Durban waters are much warmer but for a total seaside chilled experience, you need to visit Muizenberg. It doesn’t matter if you are a surfer or even like waves. It is an experience not to be missed and shows a different side to the Mother City. If you’re in Cape Town and want to see a different view of Table Mountain, check out our Table Mountain sunset post and a trip to Robben Island is a must.

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Everybody ‘does’ Table Mountain. However, for one of the best experiences available in Cape Town, the sunset trip is second to none. As the sun went down, the clouds descended below and next to us onto the top of the mountain, cascading down the sheer cliffs whilst being highlighted by touches of sunset orange.

During our time there, a function was happening, so we were serenaded by a live band. We highly recommend the Amarula coffee, especially as it can get a bit cool up there when the sun goes down.

Ally on Table Mountain at Sunset

Photographing Sunsets

• When photographing sunsets, double check your lens is clean as the bright sun will pick up any marks and cause flare.
• If you have a sturdy tripod, this will help, or as we did, use rocks to balance – although the clouds move quite fast so try not to use too long exposures, as this will give blurry clouds.
• If you have the Raw option on your camera this will help as the bright sun and clouds will cause your light meter to do cartwheels – see our blog post on “why your camera lies to you”. Alternatively, bracket to ensure you’re getting a good range of detail in the shadows and highlights (also covered in that blog post).

Wildlife

On Table Mountain, you may also get to meet some of the locals, such as the dassies (pronounced dussies). A cross between a large squirrel and rat they’re quite friendly (but don’t touch or feed them).

Dassie

We could have spent hours photographing there, in our elements with the sunset, clouds and views. Totally breath-taking.

Sunset over Table Mountain

Sunset over Table Mountain showing the “Tablecloth” clouds

Hiking

You can walk up (and down) Table Mountain, (only recommended for the fit and only in daylight) but there is also the cable car. Either way you pay to go in – check the website for prices for entry, cable car and tips on hiking.

Table Mountain Cable Car showing the city and Lions Head and Signal Hill

Whilst in Cape Town, if you like coffee, a trip to the best coffee shop in the world, Truth Coffee is a must. And, Robben Island and Nelson Mandela’s Cell is a very thought-provoking and moving trip to be taken.

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On the surface, this doesn’t sound terribly interesting but Woodstock Market in Cape Town, South Africa really is one of the coolest markets. It is also one of the most exciting places for the two f’s – foodies and ‘fotographers’! … oh and music lovers! It runs every Saturday from early until 3 pm. (On the website for the Woodstock Market is listed as the “Neighbourgoods Market“).

All in one place at the Old Biscuit Mill in the heart of Woodstock, this is where crafts of varying genres come together. Woodstock is a hub of creative industries. These are slowly gentrifying from the slightly scary place it was in the past, to a potentially haves and have-nots future.

Woodstock Market – Ally sampling food and drink in the food hall

How to find it

Turn off the Salt River road onto the R102 and you can’t fail to be accosted by a number of ‘Car Guards’ helping to find you a parking space. (We’ll be doing a post on Car Guards and other S African phenomena soon!)  There are internal shops that are there 6 days a week, but the Woodstock market is just Saturdays. Music-wise we witnessed a fab guy on a didgeridoo who also played some keyboards at the same time, and another guy who we believe is there every week, playing solo saxophone.

Sax player at Woodstock Market

Food Heaven

There’s a food section which is Heaven for foodies who can eat until their heart’s content with an array of different foods, much of which is cooked in front of you. There are those that cater for food issues – the brownies for the gluten free brigade are ‘to-die-for’!

Woodstock Market – Paella

Again there are stalls with food from all over the world. Around the corner from the food section is another area with mostly clothing and leather goods. It can be a little dark in the food hall, so check out our post on photographing in low light.

When you go to Woodstock market, don’t forget to go up to the top floor to get a view of the market with Table mountain in the background – see our gallery for our images of Table Mountain  and to photograph it differently to usual check out our Table Mountain at sunset post. A trip to Cape Town (and if you’re a coffee and food lover) wouldn’t be complete without a trip to the best coffee shop in the world, as well as Robben Island to remind you of South Africa’s history.

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