Sunset snaps

I live in Hunstanton and regularly see people taking pictures of the sunset over The Wash cameras, phones and tablets held in front of their faces in supplication and I suspect 99% of the time capturing the same snap shot of a ball of fire descending into the sea.

I am occasionally tempted to take a picture like this and below is one that I think works due to the very simplicity and symmetry of the composition.

Wash sunset

But I like to try and get something a little more interesting and a few evenings back I went for a walk at dusk along Hunstanton Beach with my binoculars and little compact camera [a Panasonic Lumix TZ30], as much to stretch my legs and back as anything and with perhaps a vague hope of hearing and maybe seeing a newly arrived Sandwich Tern offshore.

As I filled the void left by the completely absent terns I played with my camera wondering how to make the setting sun part of a more interesting composition than just the cliched ball of fire setting into the sea. And then I saw this family strung out in a line and trudging homewards. I liked the fact there were three of them and how at the end of the day Dad was leading the way and followed by mum and child with their tired heads bowed, or at least that's what I read into the picture. Also liked the simple composition with lines of colour. And yes I know that the horizon isn't quite straight.

Home from the beach