One of my favourite subjects to shoot in St Andrews is the spectacular castle ruin on The Scores. It makes a great sunrise subject – and it’s only five minutes walk from the lovely apartment where I stay, which is a bonus!

The sunrise shoot works best when a nice clear morning coincides with low tide, as it’s possible to get down onto Castle Sands and out beyond the old bathing pond for a view back to the castle ruin with a great reflection in the pond.  However, the weather forecast wasn’t great for the morning of my visit with a good low tide.  I got up and out early nevertheless, with the idea of stormy skies and possibly black and white images in mind.  In the end, the cool blue twilight worked quite nicely.

The reflection made quite an interesting subject in its own right, with the blue light reflecting off the still water in the bathing pond.

I had another trip to the castle for dusk, on the off-chance that there might be some floodlighting to make use of.  Sadly this was not the case – according to passing dog walkers the floodlighting was a victim of council cuts some time ago!  So this was when I got my more sinister black and white image, in fading twilight.

On my last morning of the visit the  forecast was for a good clear sunrise, so I thought I’d go back to the castle and down onto the sands to see how things looked when the tide was in.  Though not as good as when the tide is out beyond the bathing pond, there was still quite a nice shot of the castle to be had by standing on the rocks with the receding tide around me, so getting out of bed early was still worth it!