Dragon's Back
I was watching that young Mr Shainblum the other day as I dawdled happily over my afternoon coffee. I like Michael’s laid back Californian approach and having only discovered him quite recently, I’ve enjoyed his often rather more abstract approach to his subjects. The long lens shot of the gull in front of the rainbow at the waterfall in the secret canyon left me feeling slightly irritated that for the second time on our trips to Iceland we’d driven past the place and completely ignored it. Next time!
On this occasion, Michael was doing something I recognised all too well – taking endless photos of the sea on front of a collection of stacks as the golden hour settled in. Like mine and Dave’s visit here, Michael was thoroughly immersed in a world of water, trying to capture the streaks on the sand as each wave retreated back towards the ocean. It’s an activity I don’t think I’ll ever tire of, and even though I come home each time with so many photos of exactly the same thing that I barely know where to start the cull, I never find myself thinking “should have stayed home and watched the telly.”
As the Pacific horizon glowed with warm yellow light, our hero, standing in ten inches of seawater as he was, confessed that he wasn’t quite as dry as he’d been when he’d arrived at the beach. “But then again,” he said, “if you’re not soaked after a seascape shoot, was it really a good seascape shoot?” This shard of logic came winging back to me as I crouched midstream in the fast flowing river that seems to change its course across the beach with every cycle of the tides. By now, my tripod had sunk far enough into the shifting gravel bed to stay put. The filter case that I always attach to the little clip on the tripod had a damp bottom. So did I for that matter. I was obviously crouching rather lower than I’d intended. And although I’d bought my wellies along, the water was moving urgently enough to tip a pint or two over the rim of the right boot and fill my sock with an icy January sensation. Michael might soon dry off in sunny California, but on a dark Sunday in the deepest depths of winter in Cornwall, the wet foot would be wet until I got home later. Not that I minded of course – it was proving to be a good seascape shoot after all.
I’ve always been drawn to this river across the beach. One of the prime benefits is that if you get low and shoot across the water, it’s virtually impossible for any of the gazillion footprints in the sand to sully your compositions. As you may know from some of my previous yarns, I really can’t stand having footprints in my images. You probably can’t either – not unless they’re some artful lone creation that’s central to your story. Beaches would be great if I could cordon off a large area that everyone else is banned from, but it seems the local council doesn’t share my views on the subject. So it’s usually a question of arriving at a quiet time when sunset (I can’t get up in time for sunrises – I’ve tried but it doesn’t work), and low tide coincide with one another. Holywell Bay is a fantastic winter destination for seascape photography, but as for summer – well things are far more difficult. I looked at Google Maps in satellite mode to see whether the river has a name (it doesn’t seem to), and that image was evidently taken in summer. Go on and have a look for yourself and you’ll soon see why we leave places like this to our visitors in the warmest months.
Another good reason for donning the wellies and wading out into the stream is that now and again, interesting things happen. Here, a dragon’s back appeared in the flow, shifting and wandering along a straight line of twenty yards or more. For a while, each time I planted the tripod into the riverbed the shapes would move, disappearing behind my composition or chasing too far ahead. Eventually I decided to stay put and wait until the dragon decided to lay still in front of me a while. As you can see, my patience and acceptance of a further soaking was eventually rewarded. I struggled with the colour version of this image. Everything was very brown, and there was no warmth in that patch of bright sky to work on. Not in this moment at any rate, although the scene looked much more pleasing in colour in a later image where very briefly a patch of weak yellow lit the headland. No dragon’s back in that one though.
Later I strolled a couple of hundred yards along the beach and joined my brother Dave, who’d left his wellies at home and was playing chicken with the waves at the shore, displaying a worrying level of confidence as with each incomer he retreated and left his camera mounted on its tripod in the middle of the drama to catch the action. In the dying light, much entertainment was had in these low tide moments while again and again we rattled off our shots as each wave arrived and then receded. I didn’t have to run away though and by now it barely mattered whether or not I was wearing wellies, so I clung to my tripod for each volley of white surf. I’m still looking at those shots. In one I caught a flawless array of perfect white streaks in the foreground, but I’m still not certain of it. No matter how much time I’ve spent checking the horizon, it makes me feel as if the entire scene is leaning to the right. So despite having a number of candidates to accompany the tale of this outing, I went with the dragon’s back. Maybe I’ll post the streaks at some point and see what you think. It may help if you tilt your head to one side a bit though.
Dragon's Back
I was watching that young Mr Shainblum the other day as I dawdled happily over my afternoon coffee. I like Michael’s laid back Californian approach and having only discovered him quite recently, I’ve enjoyed his often rather more abstract approach to his subjects. The long lens shot of the gull in front of the rainbow at the waterfall in the secret canyon left me feeling slightly irritated that for the second time on our trips to Iceland we’d driven past the place and completely ignored it. Next time!
On this occasion, Michael was doing something I recognised all too well – taking endless photos of the sea on front of a collection of stacks as the golden hour settled in. Like mine and Dave’s visit here, Michael was thoroughly immersed in a world of water, trying to capture the streaks on the sand as each wave retreated back towards the ocean. It’s an activity I don’t think I’ll ever tire of, and even though I come home each time with so many photos of exactly the same thing that I barely know where to start the cull, I never find myself thinking “should have stayed home and watched the telly.”
As the Pacific horizon glowed with warm yellow light, our hero, standing in ten inches of seawater as he was, confessed that he wasn’t quite as dry as he’d been when he’d arrived at the beach. “But then again,” he said, “if you’re not soaked after a seascape shoot, was it really a good seascape shoot?” This shard of logic came winging back to me as I crouched midstream in the fast flowing river that seems to change its course across the beach with every cycle of the tides. By now, my tripod had sunk far enough into the shifting gravel bed to stay put. The filter case that I always attach to the little clip on the tripod had a damp bottom. So did I for that matter. I was obviously crouching rather lower than I’d intended. And although I’d bought my wellies along, the water was moving urgently enough to tip a pint or two over the rim of the right boot and fill my sock with an icy January sensation. Michael might soon dry off in sunny California, but on a dark Sunday in the deepest depths of winter in Cornwall, the wet foot would be wet until I got home later. Not that I minded of course – it was proving to be a good seascape shoot after all.
I’ve always been drawn to this river across the beach. One of the prime benefits is that if you get low and shoot across the water, it’s virtually impossible for any of the gazillion footprints in the sand to sully your compositions. As you may know from some of my previous yarns, I really can’t stand having footprints in my images. You probably can’t either – not unless they’re some artful lone creation that’s central to your story. Beaches would be great if I could cordon off a large area that everyone else is banned from, but it seems the local council doesn’t share my views on the subject. So it’s usually a question of arriving at a quiet time when sunset (I can’t get up in time for sunrises – I’ve tried but it doesn’t work), and low tide coincide with one another. Holywell Bay is a fantastic winter destination for seascape photography, but as for summer – well things are far more difficult. I looked at Google Maps in satellite mode to see whether the river has a name (it doesn’t seem to), and that image was evidently taken in summer. Go on and have a look for yourself and you’ll soon see why we leave places like this to our visitors in the warmest months.
Another good reason for donning the wellies and wading out into the stream is that now and again, interesting things happen. Here, a dragon’s back appeared in the flow, shifting and wandering along a straight line of twenty yards or more. For a while, each time I planted the tripod into the riverbed the shapes would move, disappearing behind my composition or chasing too far ahead. Eventually I decided to stay put and wait until the dragon decided to lay still in front of me a while. As you can see, my patience and acceptance of a further soaking was eventually rewarded. I struggled with the colour version of this image. Everything was very brown, and there was no warmth in that patch of bright sky to work on. Not in this moment at any rate, although the scene looked much more pleasing in colour in a later image where very briefly a patch of weak yellow lit the headland. No dragon’s back in that one though.
Later I strolled a couple of hundred yards along the beach and joined my brother Dave, who’d left his wellies at home and was playing chicken with the waves at the shore, displaying a worrying level of confidence as with each incomer he retreated and left his camera mounted on its tripod in the middle of the drama to catch the action. In the dying light, much entertainment was had in these low tide moments while again and again we rattled off our shots as each wave arrived and then receded. I didn’t have to run away though and by now it barely mattered whether or not I was wearing wellies, so I clung to my tripod for each volley of white surf. I’m still looking at those shots. In one I caught a flawless array of perfect white streaks in the foreground, but I’m still not certain of it. No matter how much time I’ve spent checking the horizon, it makes me feel as if the entire scene is leaning to the right. So despite having a number of candidates to accompany the tale of this outing, I went with the dragon’s back. Maybe I’ll post the streaks at some point and see what you think. It may help if you tilt your head to one side a bit though.