Ice Cream Wars, Richard Burton and Sunset Silhouettes on the Sea
The first thought was that someone had thrown a football at my head. It seemed unlikely – I didn’t know anyone around here and I’d absented myself from five a side that evening because after nearly a week of incessant rain and doubtful grey skies I wanted to go out into the sunshine with the camera. But in those split seconds of this unwanted exchange it dawned on me. Footballs don’t have wings and feathers but seagulls do, and everyone down here knows about their famed air raids on innocent souls carrying food in an obvious manner. Even Belgian Chocolate ice creams are considered fair game by those scavenging sky hyenas, and most of mine was now lying on the ground in front of me. It was a double scoop as well. I now had two options – I could either return to the hut past all of the amused spectators and buy another one, of which I’d take much better care in open spaces, or I could adopt a nonchalant air, as with pace unbroken I strode to the nearest sand dune to sit and sulk in the sunshine. I chose the latter course of action. And you thought this stuff only happened to unwary tourists didn’t you? We locals smirk quietly behind our hands when hapless visitors get mobbed by Herring Gulls in pursuit of pasties at St Ives, so in truth it makes us look all the more idiotic when we're subjected to the same fate. I can still almost taste that lost dollop of Belgian Chocolate lying melting on the car park floor. Callestick Farm ice cream too - what I'd tasted before the airborne assault had been moments stolen from the very heavens. Ironic that something from the heavens should steal if from me really.
Some time after this disturbing setback Lee arrived, and he was looking very pleased with himself. Of course I already knew why. He’s a man who changes his camera systems almost as often as Elizabeth Taylor did her husbands, and more than once I’ve arrived on location to find him wielding something completely different from the time we last convened without prior warning. If he ever stops buying and selling things, your favourite auction website may just have to close down, and that time may in fact now have come. Not that I’ve studied the life and marital events of Ms Taylor that closely, but think of the Sony A7r3 as his Richard Burton – the one he returned to and remarried; his spiritual home if you will. Last time he had one of these, I rarely heard him talking about other cameras, and since he was parted with it, he’s often lamented on the shortcomings of whatever he was using at the time in comparison to the Sony. With the addition of the same lens that our much admired Mads Peter Iversen so often uses, it seemed that my friend’s ceaseless wandering through the labyrinthine pages pages of eBay may at last be over – although I’m not racing down to Ladbrokes to fill in the betting slip. Besides which he hasn't found a wide angle lens to complete the bag yet. To make his triumphant grin just that bit wider, he’d managed to secure both camera and lens at very agreeable prices. Understandably he was happy at the outcome.
While I was pleased to see that Lee’s inveterate habit of camera philandering might finally be over, I had to admit to the presence of Iago’s green eyed monster on the beach. With Iceland to come later this year, he’ll be carrying a much lighter set up than me when we go marching up those slopes to the vantage point over Reynisfjara and Dyrholaey. While he has experimented with almost every brand on the market over the last few years, I’ve stuck steadfastly to the one I know and have gradually begun to make sense of. I may have upgraded the cameras and lenses, but each time the leap has been incremental. The gear I have is limited by my skills (or lack of them) alone, with the only downside being the weight of both the camera and the lenses. Most of the time that isn’t really an issue; except when long walks and handheld photography are on the menu. But there is a fighting chance that sometime soon I might find myself dabbling with a Sony too.
We’d decided a visit to the Mount was long overdue. It’s such an obvious subject, and one we shot far more regularly in the early days of our landscape journey, but in the last two years I'd only been here twice, despite it only being half an hour away from home. We were caught in two minds about where to set up our tripods, the decision being made easier by the fact that someone has put up what I can only describe as a giant polytunnel right in the middle of the façade that everyone sees from the central part of the beach. While there must be a purpose, it's a hideous addition to the Mount and my Photoshop skills fall short of airbrushing it convincingly from the scene. But for that we might have looked to the sidelight for our inspiration. But huge plastic edifices aren't going to be part of the story today.
In winter you can grab silhouettes from the eastern beach below the cliffs with the sun setting close to the mount, and despite some misgivings about the almost total absence of cloud we agreed this option would enable us to continue shooting well into the blue hour. The retreating tide meant that the foreground selections were forever changing, never lasting for more than a few minutes before losing their appeal. I took a number of shots during the moments before sunset and into the blue hour and in truth I liked all of them, so choosing one to share here wasn’t an easy decision. The rest either have appeared or will appear on the other channels where I share more of my photographs, so you’ll probably make your own mind up on whether I chose the right one to tell the story, but I loved the leading line made by the rockpool and the colours of the deepening sky. Bringing the tripod low, so helping to reduce that tricky featureless mid-ground that can so often slice a scene irretrievably in half was also important, and the long exposure time smoothed the sea to reduce the distractions. Almost worth the trials of negotiating my way back across the beach over wet slippery rocks in semi-darkness towards the steps that would lead to the pub and a very expensive pint of Korev, which Lee in his benevolent mood paid for. At least the seagulls wouldn’t be troubling us here in the warmth, surrounded by four walls under a solid roof as we were. I sometimes wonder whether our obsession with clouds can sometimes mean we overlook the simplicity that a plain sky brings, especially when it’s packed with so much colour. The lessons never stop being learned.
Ice Cream Wars, Richard Burton and Sunset Silhouettes on the Sea
The first thought was that someone had thrown a football at my head. It seemed unlikely – I didn’t know anyone around here and I’d absented myself from five a side that evening because after nearly a week of incessant rain and doubtful grey skies I wanted to go out into the sunshine with the camera. But in those split seconds of this unwanted exchange it dawned on me. Footballs don’t have wings and feathers but seagulls do, and everyone down here knows about their famed air raids on innocent souls carrying food in an obvious manner. Even Belgian Chocolate ice creams are considered fair game by those scavenging sky hyenas, and most of mine was now lying on the ground in front of me. It was a double scoop as well. I now had two options – I could either return to the hut past all of the amused spectators and buy another one, of which I’d take much better care in open spaces, or I could adopt a nonchalant air, as with pace unbroken I strode to the nearest sand dune to sit and sulk in the sunshine. I chose the latter course of action. And you thought this stuff only happened to unwary tourists didn’t you? We locals smirk quietly behind our hands when hapless visitors get mobbed by Herring Gulls in pursuit of pasties at St Ives, so in truth it makes us look all the more idiotic when we're subjected to the same fate. I can still almost taste that lost dollop of Belgian Chocolate lying melting on the car park floor. Callestick Farm ice cream too - what I'd tasted before the airborne assault had been moments stolen from the very heavens. Ironic that something from the heavens should steal if from me really.
Some time after this disturbing setback Lee arrived, and he was looking very pleased with himself. Of course I already knew why. He’s a man who changes his camera systems almost as often as Elizabeth Taylor did her husbands, and more than once I’ve arrived on location to find him wielding something completely different from the time we last convened without prior warning. If he ever stops buying and selling things, your favourite auction website may just have to close down, and that time may in fact now have come. Not that I’ve studied the life and marital events of Ms Taylor that closely, but think of the Sony A7r3 as his Richard Burton – the one he returned to and remarried; his spiritual home if you will. Last time he had one of these, I rarely heard him talking about other cameras, and since he was parted with it, he’s often lamented on the shortcomings of whatever he was using at the time in comparison to the Sony. With the addition of the same lens that our much admired Mads Peter Iversen so often uses, it seemed that my friend’s ceaseless wandering through the labyrinthine pages pages of eBay may at last be over – although I’m not racing down to Ladbrokes to fill in the betting slip. Besides which he hasn't found a wide angle lens to complete the bag yet. To make his triumphant grin just that bit wider, he’d managed to secure both camera and lens at very agreeable prices. Understandably he was happy at the outcome.
While I was pleased to see that Lee’s inveterate habit of camera philandering might finally be over, I had to admit to the presence of Iago’s green eyed monster on the beach. With Iceland to come later this year, he’ll be carrying a much lighter set up than me when we go marching up those slopes to the vantage point over Reynisfjara and Dyrholaey. While he has experimented with almost every brand on the market over the last few years, I’ve stuck steadfastly to the one I know and have gradually begun to make sense of. I may have upgraded the cameras and lenses, but each time the leap has been incremental. The gear I have is limited by my skills (or lack of them) alone, with the only downside being the weight of both the camera and the lenses. Most of the time that isn’t really an issue; except when long walks and handheld photography are on the menu. But there is a fighting chance that sometime soon I might find myself dabbling with a Sony too.
We’d decided a visit to the Mount was long overdue. It’s such an obvious subject, and one we shot far more regularly in the early days of our landscape journey, but in the last two years I'd only been here twice, despite it only being half an hour away from home. We were caught in two minds about where to set up our tripods, the decision being made easier by the fact that someone has put up what I can only describe as a giant polytunnel right in the middle of the façade that everyone sees from the central part of the beach. While there must be a purpose, it's a hideous addition to the Mount and my Photoshop skills fall short of airbrushing it convincingly from the scene. But for that we might have looked to the sidelight for our inspiration. But huge plastic edifices aren't going to be part of the story today.
In winter you can grab silhouettes from the eastern beach below the cliffs with the sun setting close to the mount, and despite some misgivings about the almost total absence of cloud we agreed this option would enable us to continue shooting well into the blue hour. The retreating tide meant that the foreground selections were forever changing, never lasting for more than a few minutes before losing their appeal. I took a number of shots during the moments before sunset and into the blue hour and in truth I liked all of them, so choosing one to share here wasn’t an easy decision. The rest either have appeared or will appear on the other channels where I share more of my photographs, so you’ll probably make your own mind up on whether I chose the right one to tell the story, but I loved the leading line made by the rockpool and the colours of the deepening sky. Bringing the tripod low, so helping to reduce that tricky featureless mid-ground that can so often slice a scene irretrievably in half was also important, and the long exposure time smoothed the sea to reduce the distractions. Almost worth the trials of negotiating my way back across the beach over wet slippery rocks in semi-darkness towards the steps that would lead to the pub and a very expensive pint of Korev, which Lee in his benevolent mood paid for. At least the seagulls wouldn’t be troubling us here in the warmth, surrounded by four walls under a solid roof as we were. I sometimes wonder whether our obsession with clouds can sometimes mean we overlook the simplicity that a plain sky brings, especially when it’s packed with so much colour. The lessons never stop being learned.