Winter, Water and Wild Weather
"I think I'm with Dave on this. I can't get on with this weather at all. But you love it don't you?" Lee looked at me as he finished the sentence, and then at his watch. His beloved Aston Villa were due to kick off against Chelsea at 5:30pm, and Mr Bezos and his board of big chiefs had generously enabled those of us who subscribe to his streaming and next day delivery service the rare opportunity to watch some Premier League football during the festive period.
I grinned, although by this stage the effects of recent consecutive adventures into a very damp outside world were beginning to dampen my enthusiasm too. I'd managed to escape with the camera three times already since work had finished, and been repaid with a thorough soaking every time. My determination to embrace the conditions whatever they brought was beginning to wear off, as once more I struggled to keep the lens free of rain spots. I too was thinking about that football match on the television, perhaps with a glass of single malt to accompany the evening ahead.
But meanwhile, here we stood at Porthleven, overlooking the famous church tower that has featured in so many biblical images. Two white vans were parked in front of the church, bonnets open and no apparent sign of movement from either of them seemed imminent. Nor did any exciting drama in the sea for that matter. When the big winter storms assaulted the coast here seven years earlier, a photograph taken by Carla Regler here made the front pages of the national papers. I've yet to be here in weather quite as exciting as that, but one not very fine afternoon I will be here at high tide to witness Armageddon hit the harbour wall, the cliffs, the church, and any bystanders who haven't worked out where to watch proceedings safely from.
As we stood watching the scene, waiting for high tide and speculating as to whether it might stop raining for longer than three minutes at any one time, we stared vacantly at the two white vans. It seemed that one of them had broken down, perhaps the victim of a flat battery and the other had appeared with a set of jump leads to stir it back into action. With the light starting to go, we discussed how easy it would be to clone them out of the final image, partially obscured as they were by the railings on the harbour wall. We agreed it might be beyond our limited skills and for a while watched the hardy group of surfers who seemed not the least bit bothered by the rain nor the fact that we were in the middle of winter.
After what seemed an age, the vans finally drove away, but the waves hitting the coast weren't quite what we'd hoped for. However it was one of those afternoons where the rain hung in visible drifts over the land and the sea. As the sky darkened, it brought an opportunity to capture all of that weather in blue tones across the entire palette before us. It's a picture which I could have used to describe the afternoon without a single one of the words in this story.
I'm glad I waited and took a further and very thorough soaking as I raced back to where I'd parked my car in the fast fading light. Thank goodness I have a raincoat that stands up to this weather. I even got home in time for the match, which wasn't at all bad. With all that's happening around us, it already seems like a long time ago, yet less than two weeks have passed since I took it.
Winter, Water and Wild Weather
"I think I'm with Dave on this. I can't get on with this weather at all. But you love it don't you?" Lee looked at me as he finished the sentence, and then at his watch. His beloved Aston Villa were due to kick off against Chelsea at 5:30pm, and Mr Bezos and his board of big chiefs had generously enabled those of us who subscribe to his streaming and next day delivery service the rare opportunity to watch some Premier League football during the festive period.
I grinned, although by this stage the effects of recent consecutive adventures into a very damp outside world were beginning to dampen my enthusiasm too. I'd managed to escape with the camera three times already since work had finished, and been repaid with a thorough soaking every time. My determination to embrace the conditions whatever they brought was beginning to wear off, as once more I struggled to keep the lens free of rain spots. I too was thinking about that football match on the television, perhaps with a glass of single malt to accompany the evening ahead.
But meanwhile, here we stood at Porthleven, overlooking the famous church tower that has featured in so many biblical images. Two white vans were parked in front of the church, bonnets open and no apparent sign of movement from either of them seemed imminent. Nor did any exciting drama in the sea for that matter. When the big winter storms assaulted the coast here seven years earlier, a photograph taken by Carla Regler here made the front pages of the national papers. I've yet to be here in weather quite as exciting as that, but one not very fine afternoon I will be here at high tide to witness Armageddon hit the harbour wall, the cliffs, the church, and any bystanders who haven't worked out where to watch proceedings safely from.
As we stood watching the scene, waiting for high tide and speculating as to whether it might stop raining for longer than three minutes at any one time, we stared vacantly at the two white vans. It seemed that one of them had broken down, perhaps the victim of a flat battery and the other had appeared with a set of jump leads to stir it back into action. With the light starting to go, we discussed how easy it would be to clone them out of the final image, partially obscured as they were by the railings on the harbour wall. We agreed it might be beyond our limited skills and for a while watched the hardy group of surfers who seemed not the least bit bothered by the rain nor the fact that we were in the middle of winter.
After what seemed an age, the vans finally drove away, but the waves hitting the coast weren't quite what we'd hoped for. However it was one of those afternoons where the rain hung in visible drifts over the land and the sea. As the sky darkened, it brought an opportunity to capture all of that weather in blue tones across the entire palette before us. It's a picture which I could have used to describe the afternoon without a single one of the words in this story.
I'm glad I waited and took a further and very thorough soaking as I raced back to where I'd parked my car in the fast fading light. Thank goodness I have a raincoat that stands up to this weather. I even got home in time for the match, which wasn't at all bad. With all that's happening around us, it already seems like a long time ago, yet less than two weeks have passed since I took it.