The Instagrammer
I was here for the second time in just three evenings, looking over a view that I’ve seen many times before, but never photographed. Wheal Coates lay on the other side of the steep descent to the water at Chapel Porth, while in front of me lay another sea, a purple and yellow one filled with the perfect complimentary colours of summer heather and emerging gorse. The steady hum of bees at work filled the listless air on a perfectly calm August evening. Two days earlier, the sun had rudely vanished behind clouds without warning as we walked from the rough pockmarked car park above Porthtowan along the stony paths towards the rocky outcrop that stands over the beach far below. Only after sunset did the sky fill with a luminous pink sheen, but the land was hidden in shadows by then. I found a composition I liked and planned to return when the light was better. As we began one of Ali’s rather more circuitous routes back to the car, I turned the camera on this view over the broad expanse of wild summer blooms. A practice run for another evening.
And now, forty-eight hours later under a soft summer sun, the tripod placed carefully among the flowers on one of the many patches of bare earth that disappear with a low point of view, the colours were looking quite wonderful. I began a series of focus stacks, the fifth of which was interrupted by a young lady walking along the path and straight across the middle of my frame. No problems though. I took the final shot twice to blend her out, before resting for a couple of minutes to survey the scene. There was still that first composition I’d found to go and have a look at, and then I’d finish by setting up at the tip of the headland, pointing my camera towards Wheal Coates and the sea below as volley after volley of waves charged and swelled into the narrow beach on the incoming tide. A summer evening in Cornwall in its purest form.
And then, as I might have expected had I been prepared for it, she went and stood on top of the outcrop. Well of course she did - people do that all the time here. There’s almost always someone standing there gazing out across the water. And for once my brain was operating at a reasonable speed, so - and aren’t these magnetic filters so very wonderful at times like this? - I froze the moment and committed her to my SD card. Everything you ever needed to know about what the professionals like to call “visual weight” right there on that compact patch of raised ground. Had Dave and Lee been with me, I suspect that each would have been instructing the other to go and stand there to perform hero poses for the camera. I don’t usually join in that sort of thing, although I have on occasion placed Ali in an image such as this. We have one taken at Kynance Cove on the wall at home and another from the Brecon Beacons on the mantlepiece. But here was a random stranger, doing what people generally do here on a Saturday evening - locals and visitors alike, just wandering along the network of paths and enjoying the views. In fact, if you start peeping into the pixels you’ll find a few more people taking the airs of Chapel Porth and Wheal Coates; some alone, others in groups. I’ve counted a total of eleven people. And a dog. Let me know if you find a twelfth, won’t you?
I headed down towards the rocks to line up the other, slightly more complex composition I’d found, only to be faced with the same young lady sitting in a hollow, pointing her phone extravagantly across the scene and then back at herself in the full and unmistakable confidence of youth. An Instagrammer I suspect, probably about to get a billion megahits in Virtualworld. I’d already photographed her once, and she was far too close for comfort now, so I left her to her own devices and made the last few strides to the top of the steep cliffside scramble down towards the water - where in time I found another new shot I’d never even noticed before.
For a moment I thought I might pipe up, tell her that she had just fitted the missing piece to a picture I’d just taken, and offer her a free copy of the finished image. But I feel it's never a good idea to approach a woman on her own, especially when you're getting on a bit. Not unless you're George Clooney selling overpriced coffee in TV adverts anyway. And I look more like George Formby, so with a tinge of regret, the unknowing heroine of this tale doesn’t have the picture on her wall. Although if it was you, do get in touch.
The Instagrammer
I was here for the second time in just three evenings, looking over a view that I’ve seen many times before, but never photographed. Wheal Coates lay on the other side of the steep descent to the water at Chapel Porth, while in front of me lay another sea, a purple and yellow one filled with the perfect complimentary colours of summer heather and emerging gorse. The steady hum of bees at work filled the listless air on a perfectly calm August evening. Two days earlier, the sun had rudely vanished behind clouds without warning as we walked from the rough pockmarked car park above Porthtowan along the stony paths towards the rocky outcrop that stands over the beach far below. Only after sunset did the sky fill with a luminous pink sheen, but the land was hidden in shadows by then. I found a composition I liked and planned to return when the light was better. As we began one of Ali’s rather more circuitous routes back to the car, I turned the camera on this view over the broad expanse of wild summer blooms. A practice run for another evening.
And now, forty-eight hours later under a soft summer sun, the tripod placed carefully among the flowers on one of the many patches of bare earth that disappear with a low point of view, the colours were looking quite wonderful. I began a series of focus stacks, the fifth of which was interrupted by a young lady walking along the path and straight across the middle of my frame. No problems though. I took the final shot twice to blend her out, before resting for a couple of minutes to survey the scene. There was still that first composition I’d found to go and have a look at, and then I’d finish by setting up at the tip of the headland, pointing my camera towards Wheal Coates and the sea below as volley after volley of waves charged and swelled into the narrow beach on the incoming tide. A summer evening in Cornwall in its purest form.
And then, as I might have expected had I been prepared for it, she went and stood on top of the outcrop. Well of course she did - people do that all the time here. There’s almost always someone standing there gazing out across the water. And for once my brain was operating at a reasonable speed, so - and aren’t these magnetic filters so very wonderful at times like this? - I froze the moment and committed her to my SD card. Everything you ever needed to know about what the professionals like to call “visual weight” right there on that compact patch of raised ground. Had Dave and Lee been with me, I suspect that each would have been instructing the other to go and stand there to perform hero poses for the camera. I don’t usually join in that sort of thing, although I have on occasion placed Ali in an image such as this. We have one taken at Kynance Cove on the wall at home and another from the Brecon Beacons on the mantlepiece. But here was a random stranger, doing what people generally do here on a Saturday evening - locals and visitors alike, just wandering along the network of paths and enjoying the views. In fact, if you start peeping into the pixels you’ll find a few more people taking the airs of Chapel Porth and Wheal Coates; some alone, others in groups. I’ve counted a total of eleven people. And a dog. Let me know if you find a twelfth, won’t you?
I headed down towards the rocks to line up the other, slightly more complex composition I’d found, only to be faced with the same young lady sitting in a hollow, pointing her phone extravagantly across the scene and then back at herself in the full and unmistakable confidence of youth. An Instagrammer I suspect, probably about to get a billion megahits in Virtualworld. I’d already photographed her once, and she was far too close for comfort now, so I left her to her own devices and made the last few strides to the top of the steep cliffside scramble down towards the water - where in time I found another new shot I’d never even noticed before.
For a moment I thought I might pipe up, tell her that she had just fitted the missing piece to a picture I’d just taken, and offer her a free copy of the finished image. But I feel it's never a good idea to approach a woman on her own, especially when you're getting on a bit. Not unless you're George Clooney selling overpriced coffee in TV adverts anyway. And I look more like George Formby, so with a tinge of regret, the unknowing heroine of this tale doesn’t have the picture on her wall. Although if it was you, do get in touch.