Taking a rare Saturday off work I arranged to meet a couple of photographer friends, Ken and Anand, at Flamborough Head on the East Yorkshire Coast at 6.30am. The alarm woke me up at 5.30am and to be honest I wondered what I was doing, it was a bitterly cold dark morning and a mist hung over Scarborough as I deiced the car. The temperature gauge showed a parky -10 degrees Celsius as I slid out of Scarborough and along the coast towards Bridlington. Snow had mostly cleared the road but as I approached Flamborough in parts the road was covered as the snow had blown off the fields.

Arriving at Flamborough at a tropical -8 degrees I still wasn't sure if the trip would be wasted, mist obscured a lot of the coastline, in the far distance the sun was beginning to rise but it was on the whole grey.

Ken and Anand arrived, Anand having made a ridiculously early start from Manchester. We kitted up in warm clothes and waterproofs and set off down the cliff path towards the coastguard station. I showed Ken and Anand around the various viewpoints, then we split up, I took a climb down a gully overlooking the rock arch. I got settled in, set my tripod up and waited. And waited, and waited. Eventually the sun cleared the bank of cloud hanging out to sea. I knew I wanted the sun to be over the arch so I waited some more until the composition was right. I used a small aperture (F16) to give a great depth of field so everything was sharp, it also has the benefit of giving the starburst effect on the sun. A Hitech reverse ND graduated filter held the sky back and stopped the sun blowing out. I squeezed off a few shots as the sun changed position, this was my favourite. The small patch of snow at the front gives the much needed foreground interest.

Within 10 minutes or so the fog came back in and that was the morning done, a shot I was pleased with in the bag, time to go for a full English breakfast at the Harbour Cafe in Bridlington and defrost.