The Jurassic Coast is a UNESCO World Heritage site on the Dorset coast in Southern England. It runs for around 150km, boasting 180 million years of geological history.
Numerous pre-historic fossils have been found in the area, hence the name of course, but the coast actually spans right across the Mesozoic era, which includes the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.
As impressive as the geology may be, the end result is a gorgeous and rugged coastline that is surely one of the best landscape photography locations in the UK, I spent a few days on the coast this year, and of course, I had my camera with me.
I captured all images in this series using a Canon 5D Mark II, paired with a Canon 17-40mm f/4L
series lens, which had a Hoya HD CPL filter
attached.
The shot below was taken at a location called Stair Hole, this area (as well as other parts of the coast) is known for its ‘folded’ rock formations that you can see in the cliffs.
Lulworth Cove is a very popular destination on the Jurassic Coast, we actually stayed just up the road from here, I took the image below from a cliff top to get a good vantage point.
Durdle Door is another famous location on the coast, this is characterised by a rock arch that has been formed by years of erosion from the sea. I took the shot below from along the beach a little, to get good depth to the image with the clouds and shingle beach.
Here’s another shot from the next bay along from Durdle Door, as you can see we got pretty lucky with the weather, perfect sky for landscape photography.
My favourite area was Portland Bill, famed for the lighthouse down there, we went here a couple of times, the second going back an sunset to catch the best light, I took the image at the start of this article there, and the lighthouse image below just after the sun had dipped.
Portland Bill is a real hotspot for photographers, I caught the couple shown below in action at golden hour.
All images in this Jurassic Coast photography series have been given basic adjustments in Adobe Lightroom, with the sunset shots getting an extra tweak via the Tonal Contrast filter in Color Efex Pro from Nik Software.