View allAll Photos Tagged water_captures
in the calm streets of portixol, a playful symmetry unfolds as a couple strolls past a rain puddle, unknowingly doubling themselves in its mirror-like surface. the stillness of the water captures every detail of their walk, down to the smallest ripple, as if opening a window to an alternate version of their journey. the black-and-white tones lend a timeless quality, turning an ordinary moment into a subtle narrative of symmetry, reflection, and fleeting connections.
I’m often reminded how lucky I am to call this place home. Over the last ten years it’s this passion for photographing the land and sea around here that’s really fired my enthusiasm for the corner of the land I’ve spent almost all of my life in. And when I think about it, it strikes me that there are a number of Cornwalls. You’ll probably recognise a few of them yourselves, from the foodie yachtie “you simply must” well heeled enclaves that most of us locals shun, to the picture perfect villages that we also don’t go to that much - certainly not in the holiday season. Then there’s the mysterious east, on the other side of the sparse open spaces of Bodmin Moor, just across the water from Plymouth - quiet snaking river bends, overlooked, underrated by everyone except for the few that know. The buckets and spades at Newquay and Perranporth, and the artists’ havens of St Ives and Newlyn. The surfers, waiting patiently on their boards throughout the seasons at Fistral, Porthtowan, Portreath and Gwithian. There’s the old Cornwall, our equivalent of the pit villages, mining remnants left over from when the few square miles outside the front door were the richest on the planet - all long gone in these poor relation towns of Redruth and Camborne - but it’s this part of the county that’s home to me now after growing up and living in boat lovers’ Falmouth for more than forty years. Love brought me here to share my life with Ali, who has never lived more than a couple of miles from the middle of Redruth. Her roots are entwined through countless generations of this town and I’ve never been happier than I am here. Nowhere else has ever felt quite so much like home to me.
And talking of love, there’s another Cornwall. A timeless and lonely one where the winds howl, the gulls shriek and the wild ocean roars like an approaching thunderstorm on wintry days. The place where you can taste the salt in the air when you stand on the clifftops. You’ll find it in the northern reaches beyond the Camel Estuary, or on the Lizard to the south, and best of all for me, you can embrace it in the far west. Every time I leave that roundabout on the other side of Penzance things begin to change. Often I take the third exit towards St Just and Pendeen, where Cape Cornwall, Porth Nanven, Kenidjack Castle and the incomparable Botallack lie in wait. Each of those locations have seduced me over and over again like a schoolboy who can’t decide which girl he’s got the biggest crush on. Each one sets the pulses charging whenever I even think about going. Just recently, I’ve been taking the second exit rather more often, driving the last nine miles of the mainland along a road that winds and rises gently towards the edge of eternity at Land’s End. At the moment I can’t get enough of the place. Not Shaun the Sheep World obviously. Besides which, the tourists have mostly gone home now. What has been grabbing me though is that there are more than a few compositions to be found here, for which few ever seem to stumble past the classic view of the stacks - the subject of my last story from Land’s End. Judging by the response, it seems many of you like that view too. I’m pretty fond of it myself - even if I don’t take the camera from the bag, I always stop to take it all in again. But as a stand up comedian once said, “come here, there’s more!”
It was the second time in a week I’d perched the tripod on this rock, hanging over the Atlantic as it bashed onto the base of the cliffs fifty or sixty feet below. I mean just look at the textures in those granite walls! I knew there was a shot waiting here, but I hadn’t quite worked it out yet. The previous Monday had delivered neither colour nor contrast and I’d come away with a black and white long exposure, which I liked well enough, but it wasn’t quite ticking my boxes. I couldn’t help feeling that the finished image was leaning very slightly to the right - and by that I don’t mean the horizon needed levelling. Something was needed, just a little something on the left to even things up a bit. But what can you do when there’s nothing there to balance it all? Build another Shaun the Sheep World half a mile out to sea? Consigning the existing one to it might be a better plan. Enough said - I’m supposed to have stopped ranting about the visitor centre now. Nobody forces me to stay there once I’ve parked the van you know.
But now things were a bit more colourful. I’d deliberately chosen today because the sun had finally promised to pierce the grey skies after a prolonged absence. But should I slightly tweak the foreground and find a nice big rock to frame the left? I tried, but it wasn’t working. And then the blindingly obvious appeared in front of me. A bright patch of sunlight and a big yellow beam spreading across the sea in front of the camera. Sometimes that’s all it takes to restore the balance. The long exposure did something else too, both clouds and sea radiating away from Longships towards me to emphasise the distant subject - erm, for which I used a focal length blend if you were wondering. With a wide angle lens it almost vanishes completely if you want to include the textures in those cliffs. Sometimes you need a bit of jiggery pokery if you want your image to resemble the view in front of you. That’s enough of the technical nonsense now. Otherwise the gaps will start to appear very quickly. Besides which, if you’re still reading, your eyelids have probably closed over a couple of times already and I don’t want to send you to sleep.
Next, I really need to try and make it here in time for a winter sunrise. There are other compositions too you see, and they don’t all involve pointing your camera in the same direction. I think I’m going to be here quite often in the coming months. The love affair with another Cornwall isn’t going away anytime soon.
Here's a photo that I took a while back... on an early morning walk along the Jubilee Creek trail... at the third (and final) river crossing before reaching the waterfall.
A scene like this is impossible to accurately capture with only one photograph. It's an exposure-nightmare! When I set my camera's exposure to not blow-out the bright highlights on the water... then most of the rest of the photo came out completely black. And when I set the exposure to capture the details in the darkest shadows... then all the highlights were completely white. I actually ended up blending three differently exposed photos together to create this final image... one exposed for the shadows, one exposed for the sky... and a final image to capture that bright highlight in the water. Capturing the photos was easy enough... blending them together afterwards in Photoshop in a realistic manner took most of the time and effort.
The main reason why I never bothered to process this image (till now)... was because it seemed like too much effort for a scene that isn't very remarkable and/or visually exciting. Although none of the photos that I captured here that morning looked appealing to me when viewed on their own... I do remember feeling quite excited about the composition and the nice soft backlighting (particularly on the hanging moss)... which was what made me decide to finally make the effort and edit the image.
I'll admit that it's not one of my better forest photos... but I do like how this one came out in the end.
“Excuse me. Would you take our photo please?” Inwardly I groaned as Ali hid behind me and made noises about them passing their phone to the “proper photographer.” Did they not realise that I had a “proper photograph” to take? It wasn’t the first time this had happened on a Zakynthian clifftop and it wasn’t the first time I felt an overwhelming urge to launch said phone over the abyss in favour of setting my tripod up and furrowing my brow. After all, I don’t need to tell you that the light doesn’t last for long do I? Instead I smiled politely, only just about disguising the grimace behind the mask as the handsome young couple, clad from head to foot in white linen and cotton, set themselves up for the pose. To our horror they sat right at the edge, dangling their legs over the side of the cliff, all three hundred metres of it. I wasted no time in rattling off a volley of shots before either of them disappeared over the precipice. At any given moment, there could easily have only been one, or even neither of them in the shot. All I will say is that a lifetime in Cornwall gives you a healthy regard for the dangers of crumbling cliffs. And just to add to the mix, they do have the odd earthquake in the Ionian islands. It was no surprise to learn that a few people have come to a very abrupt end here. We stayed a couple of yards from the edge, with my tripod halfway in between, just about in reach.
Myzithres was one of the sights I’d immediately earmarked as I researched what I was expecting to be a relatively limited number of photography hotspots on Zakynthos. A pair of pleasingly proportioned white sea stacks set against an azure sea seemed an obvious spot to try and grab a shot. And after spending the earlier part of the afternoon on the beach at Alykes, we set off for the opposite side of the island, winding up the slopes along quiet roads through peaceful villages and seemingly endless olive groves. As we twisted and turned towards the west, the sun dazzled and the already filthy windscreen became a kaleidoscope of yellow and gold. I tried the washer, but that only made things worse as the dust smeared across my view in concentric arches. I just hoped there weren’t any stray cyclists wobbling their way up the slopes, because I really couldn’t see very much from behind the wheel. It’s a good job the speed limit is a pedestrian fifty kilometres per hour almost everywhere you go - even less in the towns and villages.
After what seemed an age, we arrived at the hilltop village of Keri, just a mile or so from our destination. “Is this really the way? I hope this is a one way street!” I complained to my navigator as we descended a steep narrow road past an assortment of houses on the far side. It seemed it really was the way, but it wasn’t a one way street at all. At least nothing came from the other direction until just after we’d passed through and the road had widened a little. I wasn’t looking forward to making the return journey in the darkness, but then again you have to suffer don’t you? A mile later we found the large car park next to the Keri Lighthouse restaurant and the worryingly named “Summer Vibes.” All fears about the latter were immediately confirmed as we climbed out of the car, to be greeted by a wall of “chillout” music from an unseen speaker. Quite why people feel this need to drown out the perfect silence of nature I’ve never understood. Chillout music has the exact opposite effect as far as I’m concerned.
And a number of people had evidently strayed from Summer Vibes - all good looking young couples who’d followed the path in search of selfies at the viewpoint over the stacks of Myzithres. Well apart from the animated young man who was making a timelapse film. He wasn’t wearing white, nor did he have a significant other to accompany him. He told us he’d been wandering around the clifftops for several days here, scouting out a range of viewpoints. There was something in his demeanour and enthusiasm that made me wonder whether he meant that literally - although I couldn’t see a tent anywhere among the pines. He was even more daring than the young couple in white as he grabbed onto a few strands of vegetation that itself was clinging to the bare edges of the vertical drop. “This is the best spot,” he gushed as he leaned out over the edge. I couldn’t watch.
Bidding him to take care, we returned to this view, where the gentle golden hour light played on the stacks. Unusually, the wide angle lens became my best friend as I opened up the big view, the evening glow touching the earth and the sea, the immediate foreground earthy tones offsetting the blues below. A scene so wide that even to the naked eye we could see the curvature of the earth at the horizon. I’d hoped for a sky to remember, but a bank of low clouds held the pinks at bay. At least there were no sudden screams from fifty metres to the south of us. Timelapse Man and the beautiful people had all made it through the experience in one piece. We walked back towards the car, for a few moments enjoying the sounds of sweet birdsong against the backdrop of the softly breathing Ionian Sea. And then the strains of that chillout music began to take over once more. Despite the noise we had to go and take a look - just to make sure we’d chosen the best viewpoint. Were it not for the occasional flash of lightning over the sea we probably wouldn’t have bothered.
The drive back to Alykanas in the dark proved rather less bewildering than the outbound leg. No glaring sunlight and hardly any traffic at all. And best of all, no chillout music. The beautiful people could keep that for themselves.
Some time in the middle of May last year the Prime Minister told us we were allowed to go out again. We were even permitted to meet up with one person from another household as long as we didn't leap on top of them in a fit of wild abandon at first sight. A few months earlier, who'd have thought we'd be living in a world like this? The first place we went to in this new era of freedom was Cape Cornwall, just a few miles from Land's End at mainland Britain's most southwesterly corner. Ali had never been here before and it seemed a good opportunity to introduce her to one of my favourite places. She's the one who was born and bred here and can trace her Cornish lineage back through the generations. I'm a blow-in from "up there in England" as she likes to remind me. As she keeps reminding me, forty-five years isn't enough to be considered a local in these parts.
It turned out to be a beautiful afternoon; one of those clear days when you can make out the Scilly Isles on the distant horizon with the naked eye. We had the Cape Cornwall headland to ourselves, where we watched the world around us and reminded ourselves of the value of simple pleasures that can so easily taken for granted until the moment you can no longer enjoy them. I enjoyed it so much that I shared a picture of some sea thrift with you:
www.flickr.com/photos/126574513@N04/49967653047/in/datepo...
In fact I enjoyed it so much that I returned a week later to spend my Saturday afternoon alone with a camera bag full of goodies. It wasn't the first time I'd noticed the lonely white cottage that clings so appealingly to the edge of the cliffs. The previous weekend I'd shot it from the headland. I'm still deciding whether I like that image enough to share it, but given a choice of three to post, Ali chose this one - although there's a good chance that both of the other two might appear in my feed in the coming months. I can only take so many photos of the woods across the road before you all start nodding off after all. There are plenty of photos from the coast over the last year which still haven't made it onto these pages. I need to share more of them before I forget the stories behind them.
There are other cottages in this area, most of them (including this one) holiday lets, but Wheal Call is the outpost that captures the imagination. Slightly apart from the cluster of properties around the cove it makes for a lone sentinel at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean where storm after winter storm brings enormous walls of water crashing into the cliffs below. During those furious months I would love to stay here for just a few nights, even though I can get here from home in 45 minutes. But this was one of those serene spring days when the quiet sea can seduce your senses as you gaze towards the horizon while the colours in the sky begin to change. One pair of walkers passed me on the path that afternoon, but apart from that I had the place to myself. I like it when that happens.
2,200 miles of Atlantic Ocean lie between the windswept cottage and the next landfall in Newfoundland, Canada. That's a long way beyond that golden horizon unless you have an intercontinental jet plane to hand. It's a wonderful place to contemplate just how big those wide open spaces really are. One day later this year I'll hopefully be here again, preferably in bad weather to capture some feisty seas and high drama. Now that'll be an adventure to look forward to.
We left it rather too late this winter to make full use of the big council car park on what I always think of as the other side. My favourite beach you see, is flanked by twin car parks. On the east side is the National Trust car park, free to members of course. In fact we've now joined the seventy-thousand other hard of spending members of the National Trust for Scotland with home addresses in England as we get the Togs' rate; which allows us entry to English sites and saves us enough for a couple of lunch outings over the course of a year. So I always park on the east side. It doesn't cost me anything and it leaves me within comfortable walking distance of the lighthouse, something especially useful on those bitter January afternoons when I'm heading back to the car in the darkness. On the west side is the council car park. Both of them exact eye raising amounts during the busy season from visitors who aren't National Trust members, but throughout the winter the council allow users to park on their site free of charge. On 1 April each year this suddenly changes to an hourly rate that sets me ranting about the UK in comparison to the extensive free parking we always manage to find in Portugal, Spain and France. Why we hadn't ever made more use of this before now I can't really say, but in the week before the end of March we suddenly "discovered" the big almost empty space and visited several times - just to be sure we'd maximised our freeloading opportunities. There's nothing quite like pulling up in front of an unobstructed sea view in a big red van, opening the side door and putting the kettle on. In fact the first thing I always do is make a cup of tea (or coffee if I haven't had my daily fix yet), just because I can. I've found few things more liberating in life.
Moving to this side of main stretch of beach opens up an entire new world to the west. For a mile or more the dunes roll away towards the Hayle estuary where Ali's father once almost managed to drown himself many years ago. Quite how he's still with us at 87 and counting considering all of the various escapades he's managed during his long life remains a mystery - but that's another tale. I'm not sure he ever learned to swim so quite what he was doing in there in the first place is another tale of the unexplained. The sands here are often lonely, especially at low tide with only a few places allowing an easy descent from the dunes, and looking west there is usually a kind of haze in the distance. be it sand, sea spray or the approach of some good old fashioned Cornish mizzle mixed into the formula. Even without sunlight that haze is a draw in itself in fact. It's a world I've largely ignored in favour of the rival attractions of lighthouse and the Red River that runs across Gwithian Beach and into the sea. Finding a focal point has usually been the challenge that has found me seeking refuge around the easy and the obvious, but it's a place that deserves attention, and recently it's been reminding me that I've left it largely unexplored. There are a couple of sizeable pull ins before the car park itself - maybe I'll try my chances there again before the summer hordes arrive.
Those of you who pour yourselves another cup of coffee and take a few moments to read the rambling and not always focused essays that accompany the images I post may have recently picked up on my regular annoyance at the sudden appearance of footprints (or more often pawprints) in a composition that I've been eyeing up. More than once in the last few months has an errant dog bounded enthusiastically across the empty stretch of sand on my viewfinder, and more than once have I felt myself tightening as I reined in the inner angry old man that lurks ever close to the calm veneer in such moments. "Sorry!" cry the more empathetic owners as they trample their own course across the once pristine sand. "It's ok," comes the no doubt irritated sounding response. It's not really ok of course, but there's little you can do unless you want to buy your own beach a million miles from humanity and ban everyone else from using it. I'd buy a big boat but then I'd have to go back to work to pay for it. When you've been standing here for quite some time waiting for the light to do its thing before taking the shot, it really is frustrating to see your unsullied landscape laid to waste by an over eager Spaniel.
But then again in other moments, what usually sends me sliding at breakneck speed down the helter-skelter of despair turns out to be the perfect addition to the composition. Somewhere in Mads Peter Iversen's wonderful archive there's a shot of his partner Sophie standing atop a sandy undulation under a brooding sky, a series of lonely footprints leading to her, the focal point of the image. If that's not a good example of where those tracks suddenly make a shot then I don't know what is. In this shot, the prints left behind by the lady and her two dogs are only just about noticeable, but they jumped out at me when I looked at the image on the big screen. Even though you could zoom in and find the sand littered with all sorts of evidence of humans and their canine companions, it was the marks left by the happy trio below the opaque bluish-grey shroud that stood out to me at least. Those soft blues against the sand also caught my eye - Mother Nature has a knack of combining colours I so often think. They were walking in the direction of that sketchy Hayle Estuary so I hope they had their water wings at the ready, just in case. Best not fall in there.
There are lots of possibilities among those dunes, lying in wait for me to discover them, although I refuse to pay eye watering sums for the privilege of parking right next to them - as Ali always says, "we didn't retire in our fifties on what we earned by having holes in our pockets." In fact I've already found a composition I'd never known of before that leads straight back towards the lighthouse. Whether I've produced the shot that brings out the best of it remains to be seen - maybe it'll be the next post.
Have a great Easter if that's your thing - I'll bet my chocolate egg didn't cost much. Wouldn't surprise me if she waits until they're forty-nine pence in the bargain bucket on Tuesday in fact. In which case I'd like ten of them please..............
"Let's go a bit further today. I think there's a viewpoint at Seixal we could check out." A bit further really was only a teensy bit further - about five miles from Porto Moniz where we were staying. Barely more than an energetic walk, but then again on an island only about 35 miles long and 15 miles wide, and in several places more than a mile high, nothing is really that far away. Once we'd crept down the mountain to Porto Moniz, it was little more than a ten minute drive.
Seixal was the last small town we'd passed a couple of nights earlier on our drive from the airport to our home for the week above Porto Moniz. I had a vague recollection of stopping here briefly on our previous visit sixteen years earlier, but that was about it. I remembered cliffs, clouds, rain and a frothing Atlantic Ocean thrashing the coast like a demented beast on steroids.
We'd have been forgiven for thinking it was a sleepy Tuesday, so quiet was our destination that afternoon, but Saturday it was when we pulled up at a completely empty set of parking spaces above the beach. There was an empty tour bus not far from where we'd stopped, but little sign of its occupants in the silent streets. In the small supermarket that doubled up as a café and bar, a group of men huddled around a television set watching the local team CS Maritimo, who were beating their illustrious visitors Sporting Lisbon by a goal to nil. I cursed myself - I'd been intending to go to the match, but hadn't been paying proper attention to the schedules that had obviously changed since I last looked - I was expecting the game to be played the following day. As we left, a cheer went up - you'd be forgiven for thinking the local team had scored a second, but I learned later that Sporting had equalised. Not for the first time this remote corner of the world reminded me of home where most people seem to follow the glamour clubs at the other end of the country. Either that or they were pleased we'd gone.
Armed with snacks we wandered down towards the beach, where the sea raced in towards a solid looking breakwater. Dodging the occasional shower of seaspray from the bigger waves, and the elbows of an excitable group of visitors who'd been deposited on the car park by another tour bus, I set up the tripod and attempted to catch the movement of the water against the contrast of the black cliffs. But the twin battles I was waging were being lost and we began to head back towards the car.
"Shall we walk across the beach?" Ali nodded in agreement, and a few minutes later we sat on the rocks at the edge of the black volcanic sand, watching the waves that had outsmarted the breakwater rolling onto the beach. It was only when I decided to be brave and took off my shoes and socks that the magic started to happen - only then that I noticed the waves breaking over the big rock to the right hand side of the beach, then retreating and leaving white streaks across the blackness as a parting gift. Excitedly I set up the camera on the tripod and spent the next twenty minutes bashing the shutter with happy abandon, collecting those white streaks on my memory card while the warm sea washed my bare feet as each time they sunk a little further into the sand. When a volume of water raced in an swept across the shore from right to left, I was sure I had something worth sharing. It was undeniably bleak, despite the fact we were on a subtropical island more than a thousand miles south of our cold northern home, but I loved it all the more for that. At first glance you might think I'd edited this in mono, but there are clues that give away the lie.
Above us the steep cliffside was a myriad of terraces, where the locals worked the land and grew crops and kept the odd goat or sheep, or even a cow here and there. The place has a sense of self sufficiency about it that I can't help but admire. Madeira must be a food basket in miniature with its rich volcanic soil and its moist warm climate. On our return to the house we were renting, we found a huge bunch of bananas grown in Funchal and left for us by our host. There's something about Portugal and its people that makes me feel warm and fuzzy. And there are lots of things about this island which mean the camera never stays in the bag for long. We will return!
Gota de Agua
Una gota de agua no rompe una piedra por su fuerza sino por su constancia.#water_captures
#miopssplash
#miops
#gotasdeagua
#colisiondegotas
#macroaddict
#macromania
#macrolove
#macroshot
#macroviewpoint
#smallworldlovers
#macro_highlight
#macro_world
#9vaga_macro9
#macro_mania__
#_macroart
#gu_like_captures
#fabulous_shots #olympus
#macro_brilliance
#only_macro_captures
#mexturezdelight
#macro_perfection
#excellent_macros
#only_macro_captures
#photonaturemacro
#universal_dewdrops
Ali loves telling me the story about when her dad visited her in Majorca, and it’s a tale I’m always happy to hear one more time. It’s easy to picture her elderly father, sitting on a bench at Port d’Andratx next to a local man of similar years, chattering away animatedly to one another as old codgers often do. “This is my rich daughter,” he told his new friend. “Never been married. Had a few boyfriends though.” I can imagine her standing there wishing the ground would swallow her up. Although she had no reason to. In his thick Cornish accent, her father could manage neither a word of Spanish nor Catalan and the Mallorquin spoke no English. The entire conversation had taken place in a series of gestures, facial expressions, pointing and shrugging at appropriate moments. Yet it seemed they had understood one another on most topics. Perhaps not the bit about Ali being eligible and wealthy. Even though she hotly denies the bit about the cash. Thankfully for her (and me too for that matter), there was no proposal of marriage, and life moved on. Father had evidently forgotten that I’d just appeared on the scene around that time. I’d obviously made a favourable first impression.
Almost twenty years later, a similar pan European accord was being forged on the other side of the Mediterranean Sea in Zakynthos. Almost a carbon copy of that Balearic encounter between the two old sages who couldn’t understand a word of each other’s language. The lady who came to clean our apartment each day filled with tears and hugged Ali one morning after she’d taken it upon herself to make up the beds. I think she’d only done this because she wanted to shake the sheets free of the half tonne of fine sand that we were bringing back from the beach each evening, but it had clearly been the most successful act of international diplomacy since Edward VII charmed the Parisians in 1903. The cleaner’s merest grasp of English and our seven words of Greek weren’t going to result in any lengthy exchanges either. At least not unless we could establish a conversation that consisted entirely of “Good Morning,” “Hi,” “Good Evening,” “Thank you,” "Cheers," “Yes” and “No.” Well for starters, combining “Good Morning” and “Good Evening” into a single sentence was going to be difficult without a very long pause, and she generally only worked until the early afternoon in any case. What’s especially confusing is that the Greek word for “yes” sounds very much like it means exactly the opposite.
And so each day the grinning and pointing, along with a bit of help from Google’s translation service began to establish some facts. Kristina was about as Greek as we were. She was in fact from Albania, another world just across the water somewhere not too far north of here. She’d been in Zakynthos for fifteen years, working seven days a week throughout the summer. She then helped with the olive harvest at the end of each holiday season along with just about everyone else here, before returning home to visit her family during the winter. Somehow, Kristina was managing. We think the young lad who occasionally pedalled his bike through the resort was her son, but we’re still not certain that we understood that bit correctly.
On the last morning we presented her with some chocolates, and having once again used the online translator, we chorused the one word we’d hoped would say everything. “Falemenderit!” we gushed as we each hugged her farewell, only to be met by a confused frown in response. Eventually she realised what we were trying to say. “Falemenderit,” she replied, completely rearranging the sounds of the last two syllables as she did so. Three out of five isn’t so bad I suppose, but you never know what you might be saying if you’re not careful. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing - ask a Spaniard how old they are without taking care to pronounce the word for “years” correctly and you might need to duck before the first blow lands.
I haven’t got a picture of Albania to share with you, but it’s somewhere behind Kefalonia as seen from the golden hour lit slopes above Navagio Beach here. Just carry on as far as Corfu and then swim across to the right a bit and you’ll soon be there. It’s only a matter of time before Albania joins the rest of the Balkans and becomes a major tourist hub, so you’ll be able to bore your friends to sleep at dinner parties by telling them how you discovered it first. And if the cleaner who takes care of your abode on your next holiday happens to be Albanian, it’s “fal-ay-men-dare-it,” and not “fal-ay-men-day-reet.” Five syllables just to say thank you - one more than the Greek equivalent. Who knew you could learn stuff by reading this nonsense?
If you like this check out my top 50 shots at: www.flickr.com/photos/andygocher/sets/72157646224415497/
All through lunch at El Cotillo, I was becoming increasingly distracted. It was a sea view of kinds. Not the picture perfect one you might imagine from some far flung exotic location; rather more one filled with traffic, building works, and passing punters looking for somewhere to eat. But the food was good, and suitably priced for the hard of spending, and I had to agree that Ali’s scouting mission had gone well. But while I was enjoying my chicken caesar salad and a cold beer, I couldn’t help but notice the size of the waves breaking near the shore, just about visible through a gap between the parked cars and the buildings in the distance. It was difficult to be certain, because the sea likes to put on a show here, but today they looked larger than the ones I watched when we were here a year earlier. Much larger in fact.
Before arriving in Fuerteventura I’d been reading articles about something called “la Calima,” a Saharan dust storm that brings higher than normal winds to the Canary Islands, as well as an atmosphere full of flying sand particles. Towards the end of our trip, almost three weeks later, afternoon clouds have often tinged with a suspicious hint of yellow, and the hire car has been decorated in an unappealing new shade of sludge brown. But in this first weekend, the winds were stronger than usual, and so was the swell out to sea. “Maybe we’re getting the tail end of the storms at home,” I overheard someone say. If this was the tail end, I was glad we were here and not suffering in the eternally damp British Isles. “When we finish here, I might just pop down to the beach with the long lens and have a quick half hour,” I announced to Ali.
It was a good job we did too, because it turned out to be the last of the sea monsters during our stay. Lunch over and the bill settled, we waddled down the street towards the beachfront, towards where a number of people were watching from what seemed to be the perfect vantage point by a group of rocks close to the shore. From here we could watch the waves, side on as they came racing past us towards the Playa del Muellito on the left, without any danger to ourselves. The odd hosing of foam might occasionally creep up on us from the side, but apart from that, all I had to worry about was dialling in my settings and hitting burst mode at the most exciting moments. Well, actually I had to worry about changing lenses first. That’s been an exciting business every time I’ve had to swap them on the beach here. More than once I’ve had to take everything out of the bag at the apartment and use the rocket blower and the soft brush to clean everything off, but I’m still going to be taking half the Sahara Desert home with me at this rate.
It was a bit of a novelty to be in such a prime spot, because despite living right beside the Atlantic where we often have waves such as these, I always struggle to find a side on view from where I can click away in safety. And in Cornwall, you don’t often get sunny blue skies in tandem with those monstrous storms to make fast shutter speeds easy without ramping up the ISO and turning your images into a sea of grain. Pun possibly intended. Usually at home you’re battling an army of rain, foam and spray coming right at the lens. But here, and on the neighbouring island of Lanzarote, the north west coast often seems to offer perfect shooting conditions and plenty of places to take your long range shots from in perfect safety..
At the time of writing this, I’m (just about) still in Fuerteventura, but time is almost up. I’ve been editing my shots on a reconditioned Macbook Pro (other options are available, although the graphics really are very good), which I bought so that I can tinker away with a few images on the hoof, whilst using the resort WiFi system to get everything safely into the cloud before heading for home in the middle of the week. In fact, in proper belt and braces fashion, everything is stored in no less than four separate places already. It’s also allowed me to cull unwanted images early, but with this folder, I’ve only managed to kill off just two of the more than three hundred exposures I reeled off in twenty odd excitable minutes at the wavefront. I know there are images in there, begging to be discovered. So many forms in those waves, where the right crop will bring the eye into the magic. I need the bigger screen at home to help me see them.
But this one wasn’t a difficult choice. A huge thundering many faced giant against the distant mountain backdrop. When did photography get this easy? Spray and pray - and the spray will bring its own rewards. Again, pun probably intended.
Somewhere in the middle of Wednesday morning I peered through a mild headache at the list of half term jobs I'd jotted down in my notebook. I was feeling tired and bored to the end of my wits with the banality of work and endless deadlines. November is possibly the most intense few weeks of the entire year for me, and though it's the last time I have to go through it before half a lifetime of spreadsheets comes to an end, I'm not looking the slightest bit forward to it. Seriously, if you're considering accountancy for a living, I urge you to think again. If you're thinking of taking your accountancy skills into the world of education - just don't do it. Or at least don't stay forever like I have. Maybe I'm just suffering from burnout after more than thirty years of endless nine to five, but it is exceptionally tedious almost all of the time. I tried to talk my son into doing something more interesting for a living, but he ignored my advice and followed me into this world. I tried anyway.
What cheered me though was that there were ticks beside most of the items on this list. I read the entries one more time and noted that the scariest items were all marked as either complete or as far underway as possible. "At least when term resumes I've got a head start," I reasoned to myself, and with that came a rare moment of spontaneity. "Can you manage if I take a couple of days off?" I asked Katie, my wonderful deputy. "Of course. You need a rest." After all she has to look at me every day so she can tell better than just about everyone else when I need a break.
And so here I am, sitting at home with a small vat of coffee after a delightful Thursday adventure with Lee, which included an all day breakfast with what must surely be the best view from a supermarket cafe in Britain (Sainsbury's in Penzance if you need to ask) and a wander to a predictably people packed Land's End to make some test shots for Longships lighthouse, to which we'll return in more suitable conditions later in the winter. We certainly won't be returning while they try to charge us seven quid to park for an hour there anyway. We drove back down a road for half a mile and parked along a side road before walking back.
We'd planned to finish here at Sennen Cove in the knowledge that the high tide would bring some drama to the breakwater. It's always worth an outing when the sea is in a bad mood. What we weren't prepared for as we drove down the big hill into the cove was the sight of three figures leaping from the breakwater into the protected harbour area as a huge wave hit it. Surely we'd imagined it. Who'd do a crazy thing like that a day after a storm that had brought thirty foot high waves to the Cornish coast?
We hadn't imagined it. Four local lads, none of them older than about fifteen, spent the next hour clambering onto the narrow wall and leaping into the water beneath them at the moment each roller hit the breakwater in front of a large number of onlookers. It struck me that if any of them somehow ended up on the western side of the breakwater they'd be in terrible trouble, possibly with fatal results, but this thought didn't appear to have occurred to them. Maybe I'm just getting old - I suspect they do this a lot at high tide and they probably wait for days like this. I won't be trying it myself in any case.
Later on, when to my relief I'd counted all four of them leaving the scene and heading for home they were replaced by an enormous seal at the water's edge drawn here by a lone angler bracing his rod against the ever energetic flow beneath him. If there were any fish to be had, my money was on the seal. The light faded, the onlookers moved on, and with more than enough raw files to try and choose one from our work was done. It had been so much more fun than eight hours of staring at a computer in confusion. I've decided that once the worst of the next few weeks is done I'm going to have another long weekend too.
Happy Friday everyone - enjoy your weekends.
View On Black See LARGE
View On White See LARGE
Here is the blue abstract water capture from my lake shots...another one that makes me feel calm and relaxed when I look at it. I love the colors in this one...the subtle coppery and green tones intermixed with the blue. Hope you enjoy! =)
I am bouncing back and forth today...will catch your streams as I bounce...have a wonderful Autumn Thursday everyone!
By all accounts it was a choppy old morning on the third of March. As a south westerly gale drove sleet and snow across an angry Bristol Channel, the crew of the SS Nornen, a Norwegian barque, fought with every sinew to keep her afloat, but gradually she was being dragged along the water towards a sorry end upon the muddy sandbanks of Berrow’s seafront. A clearing through the fog was enough for the stricken ship, whose sails were by now little more than shreds, to be spotted from the shore, and the stout hearted men of the Burnham lifeboat set a course through the furious waters in the hopes of saving the occupants of the stricken ship. As the SS Nornen was on the verge of being driven aground, the lifeboat crew managed to come alongside her and rescue the entire crew of ten, plus the ship’s dog into the bargain. On the way back to the safety of Burnham on Sea they passed a trio of top hat wearing togs wearing oilskin trench coats, furiously pumping their bellows and disappearing under black sheets armed with fistfuls of big silvery plates to focus their box brownies on the lighthouse. Or whatever model of camera was in vogue in 1897. Later the weary Norwegians were treated to a slap up fish and chip dinner and a couple of pitchers of spiced rum at the local Wetherspoon’s, where they reflected upon their luck at having been rescued by such a brave band of heroes as were those men of the Burnham lifeboat.
The SS Nornen was slightly less fortunate than her crew, left floundering on the perilous sands of Berrow beach; later sold for salvage. All that remains one hundred and twenty-five years later is the skeleton of that once proud ship, seemingly destined to rest forever on the treacherous coast where the tides race in and out across broad stretches of sand at a frightening speed. It’s not a place you want to hang around for long when the water is rising. The local advice is very firm – stay away from the mud if you want to complete your visit with a return journey. Otherwise, you might just end up being a curiosity for a trowel wielding archaeologist in the year 3000. We were here in February, just a couple of days before another late winter storm going by the seemingly peaceable name Eunice was due to cause carnage across the land. Dave, Lee and I (and I thank the gods my name isn’t Travis) had arrived in North Somerset after a leisurely drive up from Cornwall via an impromptu foray among the shelves of a well stocked Aldi at the edge of town, and checked into our digs, a compact yet well situated garage conversion behind the dunes. We wasted no time as we made straight for the beach after dumping our cases unceremoniously in the living room and dragging out our tripods and camera bags. With little more than an hour of daylight to go we didn’t have any time to linger over cups of tea or a sneaky early holiday beer. We were on a mission. Not as dangerous as the one undertaken by that courageous Victorian lifeboat crew, but at least an adventure with a sense of purpose.
Although that purpose changed quite quickly after cresting the dunes down onto the beach. You see we’d intended to make for the lighthouse, a five minute stroll to the left. But Dave had been looking rather more closely at the map than Lee or I had, and was already striding off to the right, muttering something about groynes and a shipwreck. We shrugged and went with the flow; but what none of us were quite certain of, was exactly how much flow there would be to go with. Seemingly forever, we marched in a north-easterly direction along the unchanging landscape of the long strip of beach, ever scanning the shoreline for signs of our bounty, passing and being passed by a succession of dog walkers and joggers as we went. Was that shipwreck really here? Why couldn’t we see the groynes yet?
We saw the latter first; two distant rows of little dark studs leading from the dunes right down to the water’s edge across the sand, separated by two hundred yards or more of empty sand. We knew that the wreck was somewhere before them, and with the tide on the way in we had no idea whether or not we’d be too late. The groynes in themselves had much promise as a subject but they could be photographed wherever the tide happened to be, while the opportunity to shoot the bones of the SS Nornen might be missed if it turned out that we’d lingered too long over our beer selections an hour earlier. Their new range of craft ales makes it much more difficult to choose you know.
And then we spotted the carcass, a criss-cross collection of still connected planks wallowing in the shallows, while spiky little crests of white water raced in along the fast rising tide. There was just about time to grab a handful of unprepared shots before she was gone below the muddy grey and brown waters for another night. With another big storm not far away the sea was far more strident than I’d ever seen it in this part of the world. Not like the enormous winter tempests at home in Cornwall of course, but there was enough going on to remind the visitor just how tricky the currents are around here. For a moment I imagined what it must have been like on that fateful day one hundred and twenty-five years earlier. Visions of a big swell coursing across that flat expanse of sand and mud and a broken ship careering helplessly out of control on a surge of filthy brown foam. Those sailors must have been terrified for their lives, even though they were so close to the shore. It wasn’t long before the incoming waves were surrounding my wellies and chasing yards along the beach beyond me. Time to move on and take photographs of groynes with what remained of the light, before making the two mile hike back across the sand by torchlight.
Sometimes there’s no chance to plan at all. You just have to arrive prepared for immediate action and at least have half an idea what you’re hoping to go away with. Not so easy in a place you’ve never visited before. At least that long walk gave me time to think. What struck me immediately was the way the water moved, almost as if from right to left and back again, creating a zigzag of textures in a greyish blue landscape that looked a little like a chaotic parquet floor, interrupted only by the uppermost sections of what remains of the SS Nornen poking up through the surface like a row of jagged teeth. Had we arrived ten minutes later, the teeth would have been underwater, so it was a good job we were less fussy about the wine we’d chosen for dinner. Hmm dinner – hungry now. Fish and chips anyone?
It’s not a pretty way to commence today’s episode, but I need to start by reporting the fact that for most of my adult life, my legs have been decorated with an ever changing array of bruises. Sometimes they appear in unappealing clusters, now and again the odd angry red welt, and more occasionally than I’d like, I find myself sporting a pancake sized monstrosity that fortunately remains mostly hidden from small children and others of a sensitive humour. It’s really not an engaging sight, but it’s a regular affliction, about which little can be done. “What’s up with him?” you’re no doubt wondering. “Is he unwell? Does he suffer from some as yet unexplained affliction for which a cure is yet to be discovered? Will he make it to Iceland in September as planned?”
The answer to all of the questions you’ve been asking yourself thus far is that his legs would soon return to their intended state if he did what most people of his age had done and stopped playing five a side football twice a week. I can’t help it. It’s just something I’ve always done because I love it, and I’m not yet ready to hang up my trainers, even though the pool of regulars has undergone a seismic demographic shift since we returned from lockdown twelve months ago. When the arrival of the pandemic put everything on hold, most of us were over fifty. Within three months of the resumption of hostilities, a sudden raft of old age retirements saw an influx of youthful types, fitter and faster than those they’d replaced. In the meantime, the stamina levels that enabled me to run non-stop for an hour and still feel fresh, helped by two completed marathons and several halves in the months before lockdown had been replaced by a lethargic indolence that saw my running career all but finish completely. I was never that keen on running unless I was scampering after a ball to be honest.
But why the bruises? Well I never said I was the most skilful of footballers. Try anything too elaborate and I usually end up lying in a heap on the sports hall floor. What I could do though was run about making a nuisance of myself and getting in the way of the more gifted players, blocking their efforts with whatever part of my body I could place between the goal and the ball in a hurry. While others totted up their goals, I counted the purple and yellow patches on my shins and thighs as if they were badges of honour. At least they were complementary opposites on the colour wheel.
But those days seem like a thing of the past now. And with the loss of fitness, the bruises I used to collect began to dwindle too. Until the last two weeks that is. Suddenly the right knee has an interesting pattern radiating out over the inside leg, the result of an innocuous jarring sensation early into a game a couple of weeks ago. The following week the knee appeared to have passed inspection without any noticeable issues, but in the final burst along the sports hall the left calf gave out. The next morning, all the colours of the rainbow were present, if not in the correct order; and the calf itself was very tender.
So on Friday I did the unimaginable. I declared myself unfit to play. I really don’t like missing out, as besides a bit of walking and scrambling about on cliffsides to bring you pictures I’m not doing much else to keep myself in shape these days. Sometimes it seems more sensible to allow oneself to properly recover rather than risk a longer absence from the action. It’s just that I’m not always entirely sensible. My son often likes to remind me about the time many years ago when I played while in the final stages of recovery from an e-Coli infection. I got the man of the match award that evening too. I enjoy a bit of adversity now and again you know.
It didn’t take long for a replacement to be found. Young Michael’s friend was down for the week; he’d ask him. “Any good?” came the response from the group. “Jimmy spent six seasons at Burton Albion if that helps,” was the reply. For a while the Whatsapp group went silent as everyone digested the fact that our game would be graced by a former full time professional player as a replacement for a broken down old has-been with a dodgy knee and a tight calf. Unsurprisingly I heard later that Jimmy was rather good. Whether I’ll be allowed back into the circle of trust after my convalescence remains to be seen.
My own football career highlight is rather more modest. While Jimmy will one day tell his grandchildren about the day his team played Manchester United in the FA Cup or about when they won promotion to the Football League, I will reflect on the proud occasion when I bumped into the England goalkeeper at Cullompton Services and managed to hold a brief conversation with him without giggling like a star struck teenager. “Isn’t he tall?” cooed the two service station attendants, both of them old enough to be his mother as they gazed up at the chiseled jaw over a foot above their heads. “Who is he again?” He even gave me a wave from his car as he drove off, while I tried to explain to my colleague who I’d just met. Even Ali knows who he is, following his appearance on Strictly Come Dancing a couple of years ago. Paired with the almost impossibly lovely Nadiya, he wasn’t too terrible either. At least it didn’t look like she was attempting to manoeuvre a wardrobe around the floor.
The absence from the usual Friday night exertions meant that I could do something else of course, and it had been a while since I’d visited the other hallowed ground in my life. The one where I could scramble around on cliff sides. An appointment with the sea thrift was already overdue, and the light was looking promising as I finally made the decision to put the book I’d almost finished to one side and climb into the car and go. There was a stiff breeze over Godrevy, but the evening sun was catching the myriad of seasonal pink blooms as I cursed myself for not having brought the wide angle lens with me. The photo itself isn’t one I think of as a favourite, but I had to present something in the telling of this tale and it has a certain glow, much like my bruises do. A few botched attempts, a cunning hack and a strategically placed hand where it wasn’t supposed to be in order to screen out the lens flare helped deliver a result, albeit in instalments that came together in the final blend. A bit like football really. A lot of energetic frustration interspersed with the odd moment of unadulterated joy. At least my legs are safe from collisions with fast flying objects when I’m sitting up here watching the world.
Green Heron
One of the few birds known to use tools, the Green Heron will attract prey with bait (feathers, small sticks, or berries) that it drops into the water.
Captured with Nikon D7100@70-300mm
Copyright © 2018 Gurley Hardin. All Rights Reserved.
There are some places that have the power to catch my breath and enchant me every single time I visit. There’s an elusive something about their capacity to surprise me over and over again. Whenever I walk over the headland towards Kenidjack Castle from the Botallack Mine car park I see the Brisons and the chimney on the Cape Cornwall peninsula as if it were the very first time I’d been there. They’re always closer and much larger than I think they’re going to be. From here, those famous sea stacks seem to be forever approaching the land as if on some slow motion collision course with the dinosaur eggs on the beach at Porth Nanven. “What’s that?” my brain urgently beseeches me as mentally I catch up with the view and compare it to the one that lives in the filing cabinet of memories between my ears. Beyond those two nearby beauties lie the rocks of Longships Lighthouse opposite Land’s End, and on a clear day the lonely Wolf Rock Lighthouse joins the landscape from another world; a world of the empty sea at the horizon. And away to the west, often visible, yet twenty-eight miles from the mainland lie the Isles of Scilly, home to one of the loneliest communities in Britain – “two thousand alcoholics clinging to a rock” as Lee’s wife Paula once told me; she’d once worked out there for a couple of years. I can’t comment of course – apart from anything else I’ve never been. It’s about time I put that right. Ali has been a couple of times before and has mentioned the idea more than once recently in fact. And she’s practically teetotal, so perhaps the rumours are unfounded. Last time I priced things up though, four nights on the Islands came to a similar amount to the cost of a ten day trip to Majorca. I think you know what decision was made then.
I wrote the first paragraph, and then a couple of further ones back in the summer, with the intention of sharing a story in these pages. The idea was that this image would be the winter cousin of one I'd taken at Botallack Mine, just a few minutes walk away, two days after the June solstice when the sun had set as close to the famous Crown Houses as it ever does. I already had an image in mind, taken a week before Christmas Day last year, under a Purple Haze of a sky where the big yellow sun, as far within the frame as it ever gets, washed down towards the Atlantic Ocean as if in a winter's dream. At the time I'd taken it, I'd loved the shot which spoke so eloquently of a view that keeps me coming back for more. It was soft and serene, a warm golden causeway spreading towards me across the surface of an unusually benign sea. It was one of those pictures where I'd always remember the moment, sitting there at peace beside the ocean when so many fellow humans were no doubt tearing their hair out as they chased around the towns and cities of the land spending money they didn't have on rubbish that nobody else needed nor wanted. Much better to witness the silence here at the Edge of Eternity. It’s a place that is going to forever find me unprepared for its extraordinary beauty at every visit. A Groundhog Day love at first sight if you will. Christmas is so much nicer when you take a step back from it and watch everybody else losing their schizzle. Is "schizzle" a word?
But there was a problem. Two problems in fact. When I reviewed the image I'd intended to share, that bright yellow sun was surrounded by just a bit too much of a halo, and no matter how much I pushed and pulled and brushed and cloned I couldn't bring it under control. And without a cloud in the sky, even the most generous shifting of the grain sliders left banding so noticeable that once seen I couldn't look at anything else in the image. Well apart from that halo around the sun that is. I shelved the project and moved on. Maybe I could try again this winter. I'd have to rewrite much of the story, but that I could manage.
And so a couple of weekends ago I was here again, on a rather different winter's afternoon, escaping the heavy hail showers that were hammering on the roof at home. As I reached the high point of the road west of Penzance and caught that first glimpse of the world beyond the land, my senses were stirred by the rainclouds racing across the horizon. To the northwest a rainbow hovered over the ocean, while further south the Isles of Scilly were putting in another appearance. And while there was plenty of cloud cover, there was also enough sky to let the sun through and paint the world in vibrant colours. It's always that bit more exciting when I head there in the van because so much more is visible from behind my elevated position at the wheel you see. Of course it's not really the done thing to start clapping your hands together in excitement when you're in control of three and a half tonnes of moving steel, but nobody else was about and Brenda's tracking seems to be in good working order. Before long I was hunkered down at my favourite crag, with not another soul in sight as once again I took in this view as if I'd never been here before. Unusually for me, the shot I've chosen to share was one where the ND filters remained in their case. So many times I've gone for thirty seconds or more when the sea has been so calm here, but now it was the textured pink clouds that had caught my eye and persuaded me to reduce the exposure time for once. Even the eight second shot that added another yellow path over the water caused the clouds and those drifts of rain at the horizon to blur, and for once I wanted those elements to retain their definition as I saw them. Minimalists, please don't panic - normal service is bound to resume again soon. As for the sunset sunburst - well that just happened. It wasn't really intentional, but I quite like it.
Much to my amazement, and despite a few tiny spots that appeared on the front of the lens for a very short while during the couple of hours I spent here, the rain stayed away, those drifts almost exclusively following a path to the south of Land's End somewhere between the lighthouses. Considering what I'd seen earlier in the day, I'd been fully expecting to have to endure at least one solid downpour, but it never came. Yet within two minutes of me putting the kettle on back at the van, a bracing blast of hail assaulted the car park as I congratulated myself on not staying for the entire blue hour. With the big sliding door closed and the diesel heater on full blast, that cup of tea was all the more enjoyable as the elements raged over the roof. It had been a good visit.
Finally, it's that time isn't it? You may have picked up that despite running west to hide on quiet clifftops, I do enjoy certain elements of the season - Ok mostly that of watching everyone else lose their schizzle, boosting the nation's flagging economy as they put on their knuckle dusters before heading into their local Primark. For myself I have cheese, I have chocolate and I have sufficient quantities of fortified wine. I don't need anything else. Well perhaps just a backup polariser as I seem to keep breaking them. But apart from that, and whatever your own views and persuasions are, I shall wish you a very happy and peaceful festive period and we'll meet again on the other side of the annual port and cheese extravaganza. Have a good one!
The Summer companion shot from Botallack:
www.flickr.com/photos/126574513@N04/52213983134/in/datepo...
There has been much money spent on a new walking concept in Tasmania. Known as the Three Capes Walk. Rather than an A to B walk it is more about the experience of walking and the magnificent scenery it traverses. It comes at a price too this three night walk runs up to $500 AUD !! ( well out of my range ) but fortunately I went in to explore the new track for free !!!. The first part of the walk is a 'classical bushwalking experience' hugging the coastline from Stinking Bay through to Denmans Cove. This is a rough and overgrown track that I've walked before. Upon arrival at the cove very little had changed. A yellow buoy the only clue that boats bring in groups of hikers to start their 4 day experience. Some gentle steps leave the beach and the track proper then starts, winding uphill for some 4 kms before reaching the Surveyors Huts.
I've never seen anything quite like it before and was gobsmacked by the sheer enormity of the complex. Remembering everything had to be carried in by helicopter. There is an extensive decking that joins together the various sleeping huts and main communal lounge and kitchen areas. Also large water capturing tanks, toilet facilities and the Host Rangers Hut completes the complex.
The photo above shows the communal lounge room area all finished off in lovely wood with a lovely glimpse of Cape Raoul through the window
. The smell of the lovely new wood was amazing and it felt so nice to be in there having a peek and a cheeky photo whilst the ranger was down at Denmans Cove to meet a party of new hikers. Each day this complex hosts a maximum of 48 persons per day. There are three seperate hut complexes to cater for hikers during their 4 day experience.
I then walked on to Arthurs Peak and hung out for a couple of hours enjoying the extensive views across to Crescent Bay, Cape Raoul and Port Arthur.
Photo By Steve Bromley
There was a flurry of activity as we made ready to leave base camp one and set the compass in a north-westerly direction towards the coast. The dry weather that had blessed us during our time in the Peak District had broken, a steady unending drizzle being tipped from the sky across the streets of Buxton. The forecast suggested this was merely a taster of what was to follow - a starter to a two day long main course of wind, rain and plummeting temperatures as an area of low pressure settled over Merseyside. And today we were headed for the legendary metropolitan borough, the Independent Peoples’ Republic of Liverpool, where Dave went to university more than thirty years earlier, making pilgrimages to Anfield as and when he could afford a ticket to see his beloved reds - which wasn’t that often as a penniless student. Crosby Beach and the famous Gormley statues were our target, the first of the big four subjects we had in our sights.
As we wiped dishes, emptied bins and hoovered the carpets of our home for the last few days in Buxton, we sought varying hacks that might keep our cameras dry on the beach later in the day. Lee, born and raised in one of the edgier quarters of Birmingham reverted to type and pilfered a solitary washing line peg and the bag he found it in. Dave busied himself with a bright orange plastic shopping bag, while I cut a hole in a bin liner and secured it to the lens with a rubber band. Happy that we were ready to face the elements, and that the lodgings we were about to leave were in sufficient good order to earn a positive review from the host (as long as they weren't counting their washing line pegs), we began the two hour drive, crawling through small towns in long queues of traffic as we approached the southern edges of Manchester’s huge urban sprawl. Finally we arrived on the first of four very damp motorways, where we were liberally sprayed in the wakes of huge lorries making their way north.
Around lunchtime, we arrived by the leisure centre at Crosby, where we sat in the car and watched the outside world very quickly vanish into a dreary blur through the windscreen once the wipers had stopped moving. After a while I decided it was now or never, and opened the boot, pulling on my waterproof trousers and wellies. Just three days earlier we’d been sitting outside a pub in Buxton in warm sunshine nursing cold beers - yet now it seemed as if a wintry steel had returned to possess the land, a fierce wind whipping away our good intentions and sending rain driving towards us from the north and west. This wasn’t going to be easy, but we were here now. We’d just have to get on with it and make the best of things. The bright yellow backpack cover on the camera bag in place, I was ready for action. Lee and I set off across the dunes and down onto the beach. Dave said he was still in the middle of his preparations.
If it had been Baltic behind the dunes, conditions were decidedly worse on the beach. The wind ripped at the waterproof cover on my camera bag as I stomped over wet sand towards the water, while the hood of my coat rattled about noisily as if it were trying to take off and carry me across the Irish Sea. When I arrived at my first subject, I set up the tripod and opened the pack to the tuneless notes of a rustling bin bag that began its bid for freedom almost immediately, pulling itself inside out and turning into a windsock on the end of my camera that threatened to wrestle itself away on the wind and add to the gazillions of tonnes of plastic in the oceans. Sir David Attenborough would not be impressed. Within about four seconds I gave up on the sorry assembly and stuffed it into a coat pocket. I always carry a shower cap in the bag, but there was no way that was going to stay in place for more than a nanosecond or two either.
By now, Lee was some distance away, and apart from him, I couldn’t really tell whether there was anyone else on the beach. I mean there were plenty of human figures around, but they were mostly standing like statues, some of them strangely green, facing stoically out to sea, battered and weathered by the seasons. Many stood tall and proud, while others were buried up to chest height in the wet sand. I grabbed the towel and the lens cloth, and the filters too, stuffing the lot into the remaining empty wet coat pockets. Well it’s about the long exposures here isn’t it? Just to make things even more entertaining, I’d chosen the telephoto lens before setting off, and the likelihood of swapping to a different one out here in the throes of this rainy sandstorm was precisely zero. As I put the camera on the tripod, the pouch of filters fell into the wet beach, along with the lens cap and cloth, the latter of which immediately disappeared, never to be seen again. With the exasperation chip firmly jammed in the red section of overdrive, I began to shoot, more in hope than expectation. It was only as I started to settle into a rhythm and finally enter the happy zone that I realised I was hungry. It was half past two, yet I’d eaten nothing since breakfast - and not being properly fuelled is one of the greatest schoolboy errors you make in this game. Especially when you’ve promised yourself an all day brekkie at Morrisons on the other side of the estuary as a reward for your efforts. It was time to return to the others and see how they’d got on.
Back at the car, two occupants peered out from behind steamed up windows. I had previously explained to them that breathing wasn’t permitted inside the car on wet days, but they clearly hadn’t listened. I peeled off the now useless waterproof trousers. At least the mountain trekking coat I’d invested in for last winter had kept me dry on the inside, even if it was sodden. Thankfully I’d thought to bring a second one along on the trip as backup. Dave, it seemed, had made only the briefest of forays over the dunes to the beach. He’d found one composition, taken one shot and returned to sit in the car and wait. Now why didn’t I think of that?
As a photographer, I love capturing spontaneous and natural moments of wildlife. This image shows a sparrow in the midst of a refreshing bath. The movement and splashing water capture the liveliness and joy of the moment. It is this authenticity and the beauty of everyday life that I aim to capture through my lens.
Als Fotograf liebe ich es, spontane und natürliche Momente der Tierwelt einzufangen. Dieses Bild, zeigt einen Spatzen inmitten eines erfrischenden Bades. Die Bewegung und das spritzende Wasser fangen die Lebendigkeit und Freude des Augenblicks ein. Es ist diese Authentizität und die Schönheit des Alltags, die ich durch meine Linse festhalten möchte.
A waterbuck enjoys a peaceful moment, quenching its thirst at a Namibian waterhole. The stillness of the water captures a near-perfect reflection, creating a striking image of wildlife in harmony with its surroundings.
It's only the second day of April, yet today I saw my first swallow of 2021. Of course with the hole in the ozone layer as enormous as we're told it is, this shouldn't have made me happy. I always watch the sky for them and I'm sure that it's only in the last couple of years I've noticed these graceful summer visitors return from their eight thousand mile biannual migration between Northern Europe and Africa as early in the season as this. Spring has barely taken over from winter, but on a still and sunny Good Friday afternoon, it might almost have been summer. The little African beauty racing low over my head obviously thought so. Only a few months ago I'd heard on the radio that some of them, confused by the lingering warmth of autumn were attempting to over winter in the UK, with tragic circumstances. Once the insect population vanishes in the coldest months, the swallows' food supply has gone. I need go no further.
I'd headed to this point with little expectation other than to enjoy the final daylight hours of a beautiful day. Thankfully the National Trust car park was much quieter than I'd anticipated following news reports of people from outside the region heading for second homes late at night on the eve of the bank holiday weekend. Nothing in the Government's cautious relaxation of restrictions had allowed this to happen, and although we're hoping the outside world can join us later in the year, now was not the time for visitors. The very first family I encountered definitely had that affluent second home owner look about them and when they addressed their small son as Noah I quickened my pace away from them. Noah? Nobody around here calls their child Noah. The only Noah I know is the son of my own cousin who lives in Exeter, a city built above a flood plain. Maybe I should be paying closer attention in case he knows why the swallows are arriving earlier each year.
Incidentally, if you've called your child Noah, please ignore this grumpy old man and his inane rambling - especially if you live in the Redruth and Camborne area. It's just that in my day everyone was called Dave or Steve, or John. It was much easier. Of course my own name is Dominic, something I've never forgiven my parents for - especially when my baby brother was awarded with the title "Dave.". At least I was able to abbreviate it, even if everyone I introduce myself to thinks they've just met Don. Or John, A young lady from nea Milan that we met a couple of years ago on holiday still thinks I'm called Tom - I've given up.
Things didn't improve as I passed a man speaking loudly on his phone about where he and his family had stayed overnight. Not in their own house so it seemed. I moved on, trying not to look irritated, in the direction of a composition I'm going to need to come back to in the right conditions. This first attempt had only resulted in a stray splash of seawater coming into contact with my camera, sending me into a rapid and panic induced search for the microfibre towel in the depths of the bag.
Finally, I ended up here, happily alone as the sun made its final descent towards the horizon. There were no clouds at all, but the upside to this ever challenging absence of texture in the sky was the unbroken path of gold reflected in the benign Atlantic waters. It wasn't really an evening for photography, but it certainly was a moment to linger and watch as the shadows lengthened.
As I packed my bag and made ready to return to the car, that lone swallow appeared, swooping around me in an elegant dance of springtime. It seemed a good way to end the day.
Running water means an opportunity to make a milky water capture. This not-to-big waterflow is the beginning of Rauma, one of Norway's most valued salmon rivers.
Makapu'u, Oahu, Hawaii
The background island is known as Rabbit Island, which resembles a swimming rabbit's head with flowing ears above water.
Captured with an infrared converted camera, 665nm.
It was the untimely arrival of the pandemic in our household that changed the plan. Somehow Ali and I had managed to avoid it for almost two and a half years, but a brief coffee stop at the college where I used to work found me unknowingly coming home with an unwanted gift to share with her; one that developed into headaches, sore throats, chest infections et al a couple of days later, just before we were due to head off in the van towards the Brecon Beacons for a return to the bothy we’ve stayed in for several of the last half-dozen summers. Even though we both had a clean bill of health a few days later, the prospect of a combination of a Covid hangover, steep mountain paths and the hottest few days on record in the UK seemed one we didn’t quite feel up to. Add to this the fact that our “Mr Van Fixit” had also been wiped out by the virus, leading to a delay in him being able to fit our new compressor fridge, and for a while we gave up completely on the idea of getting a few days away in Brenda before the schools broke for summer. “We’ll have a few days in September,” we consoled ourselves. “It’ll be lovely when everyone else has gone back to the grindstone and the campsites are quiet again.”
But then the call came. Our caped crusader had returned to full fighting fitness and with his customary advance notice of about three hours he announced his imminent arrival, demanding coffee and biscuits as he built a frame to fit the new fridge where the previous one had been. “Now only a step away from being a garden ornament,” was how he described the old one. Brenda now had a fridge that would run day and night on the power from the solar panels alone, we were feeling more or less back to normal, and there was still a very narrow window of opportunity to escape to the open road before half a million buckets and spades headed towards the A30 and Cornwall. So we went to Devon for a while. With our passports stamped and our jabs jabbed, we loaded Brenda with a pile of things we wouldn’t need and a handful of things we would, told the cat she was in charge of the house and set off for the border.
More than once recently, Ali has mentioned Exmoor, and then gone on to wax tales about Lynton and Lynmouth, where she’d stayed on a campsite half a lifetime ago. No further invitation was needed for me to find a suitable looking site and make a booking while there was still space to be had. And so we set the satnav for North Devon, not an easy area to get to, no matter where you come from; especially in a big old van that’s never in too much of a hurry to get anywhere at all. On a hot sunny day we laboured along ever steepening windy roads, at one point somehow ending up on a single lane farm track for four tedious miles, before eventually making that final ascent towards the Lynmouth Holiday Resort, a peaceful hilltop hideaway overlooking the Bristol Channel with the mountains of South Wales that we’d forsaken on the not too distant horizon.
And then I found myself in Lynmouth, at the end of a damp day gazing up at the famous cliff railway, a funicular that connects the village with Lynton, hanging over the slopes above. Somewhere in the distant memory banks lie the memory of my last and only other visit, as a small boy, fifty summers earlier. My father grew up in nearby Barnstaple, and summer holidays would often be taken with his parents, who’d take us to Croyde and Woollacombe, Saunton and Ilfracombe, and then Braunton where they spent the last years of their long lives together. I can barely remember those adventures on the North Devon beaches, but the funicular railway had somehow stayed with me, bringing to mind the six year old, complete with ridiculous pudding basin cut gazing up at the steep tracks planted into the cliff side and wondering whether he was going to get an ice cream before much longer. Never was there a more true affirmation of how quickly our time here passes. How on earth could I have got to an age where I can remember things that happened fifty years ago?
Of course the six year old is still here, although the pudding basin has long since vanished with almost all of the rest of his hair, and the choice of seaside delicacy may have altered – somehow I’d persuaded healthy living obsessive Ali to have fish and chips for the second time in three evenings, laying it on thickly about the drudgery of dragging the dishes across the campsite late in the evening to wash them. As we sat beneath the boulders, shielding our dinner from the watching gulls, I looked again at the array of posts down at the water’s edge. I’d already made one foray in that direction, but now as what passed for the golden hour on this damp day arrived, the greys and blues intensified. My chip tray now empty, I headed down towards the shore again, now a few yards further away on the receding tide. As I took my shots, the rain drove in from behind me, and while I could protect the camera with the trusty purloined hotel shower cap, keeping myself dry was more of a challenge. Like the proverbial six year old, I had brought the wrong coat with me, and before long the rain had joined me inside its lining. It was time to go and find the ice cream that I knew was lurking in the freezer compartment of Brenda’s new fridge. She’s a very resourceful van at times you know.
A Great Egret hunts along the edge of Caddo Lake, illuminated beautifully against the roots of the old cypress trees. The mirrored reflection in the dark water captures the stillness and wild elegance of this remarkable place. Caddo Lake is a 25,400 acre lake and wetland located on the border between Texas and Louisiana. It is an internationally protected wetland under the RAMSAR treaty and is the largest natural fresh water lake in the South. Caddo was first seen by Native Americans in the 8th century, and was named after the Southeastern culture of Native Americans called Caddo or Caddoans, who lived in the area from the 16th century until their expulsion in the 19th century. Caddo Lake has the largest Cypress forest in the world. The submerged bald cypress trees, wrapped in Spanish moss, glow with fiery reds and oranges. Many of these trees are over 200 years old, offer refuge to a wide variety of wildlife. Egrets, blue herons, owls, eagles, and kingfishers nest among their branches. Beneath the water’s surface, creatures like otters, beavers, snakes, and alligators thrive.
Experience the timeless beauty of Kinderdijk in Holland at sunrise. The windmills stand majestically against the picturesque Dutch landscape. The gentle reflections in the water capture the magic of the sunrise. A UNESCO World Heritage site, historical landmarks, and a tranquil morning adorned with warm colors like pastel skies and orange horizons. Immerse yourself in rural charm, feel the Dutch culture, and embrace the serene atmosphere of this iconic location. A dawn palette with vibrant skies and a classic scenery make this place a timeless piece of Holland.
Serene twilight on the Nile: A lone donkey crosses a quiet sandbar, silhouetted against the soft glow of a fading sunset. Captured during a peaceful dahabiya cruise through Egypt's timeless landscapes. Somewhere between Esna and Edfou.
Lumix S1 & Leica Vario 90-280mm
Of the four larger Canary Islands, there’s no denying that Fuerteventura is the one that best suits those of us who lose countless hours and days dreaming of escape. The numbers alone tell you this. It’s the second largest island by area, yet barely five percent of the population of the Canaries live here. Put another way, it’s slightly larger in area than Gran Canaria, but the latter has seven times as many residents. We’ve only been to Gran Canaria once, and somebody broke into the boot of our hire car and stole our phones. They weren’t particularly valuable, and we’re talking about an era before smartphones so nobody hacked into our personal lives or relieved me of the two farthings I was hiding in a mouldy old potato under the floorboards, but stored on mine was a priceless picture of me with one of my childhood heroes, former Blue Peter presenter John Noakes, taken by Mrs Noakes no less. We’d bumped into each other at Gatwick Airport and struck up a conversation. Just to add insult to injury, the hire car company we used that year took advantage of our tiredness after travelling all day and arriving close to midnight and charged us ninety euros for a tank of unleaded, even though the capacity was only thirty-five litres – pushing on towards three euros a litre on an island group where fuel costs far less than anywhere else in the rest of Europe.
That’s enough of numbers – I don’t want to lose you just yet. Suffice to say, that even though I’m aware that it’s a bit of a photography hotspot, we’ve never felt inclined to return to Gran Canaria. But Fuerteventura is a different matter. Fuerteventura is under my skin. Not particularly so from a photography perspective, although it certainly has promise, but more from a crash out, lie in the sun, go snorkelling, eat good food and watch beautiful sunsets sort of angle. Fuerteventura is being booked again for next year. Same place, same time, same vibe. So laid back that there’s a danger of it slipping beneath the Atlantic shelf without being noticed, it’s our sort of island.
And clearly, we’re not the only ones. On our first outing we tried our hire car along the bumpy coastal track that runs from the straggled collection of fishing huts and beach houses on the north coast that call themselves Majanicho, to El Cotillo, just a few miles down the west side of the island. We only managed a mile before deciding that it wasn’t suitable for a two wheel drive car, but for an hour we sat in one of the many horseshoe shaped volcanic stone circles, gazing at the sea. And gazing at the campervans too, because they seemed to be everywhere. One of them had a wind turbine as well as a pair of solar panels on the roof. There was even a red Renault Master, our Brenda’s Spanish cousin, parked on a lonely dune facing out to sea. If you’d parked them side by side, only sixteen years of British climate would enable you to tell them apart.
The next day we drove to El Cotillo, this time taking the public road, and heading around the back of town towards the clear turquoise waters of La Concha beach. As we arrived at the far end of the dirt track we’d crept along so tentatively the previous afternoon, it seemed as if we’d stumbled upon a holiday park for motorhomes. But if visions of state of the art, pristine sleek white wagons are what has jumped into your mind as you read, I’ll invite you to hit reverse gear and instead envision a collection of ramshackle heaps in varying states of decrepitude, just a journey or two from the scrapyard instead. It was almost as if we’d stumbled across the film set of “Nomadland.” Here a cark park, there a ruler straight off road track, and there a random scattering of spaces overlooking the sea, all of them filled by vans that were anywhere up to forty years old. Quite how some of them had got here was one question, and whether they’d ever make it back to where they’d come here from or even intended to do so was another. Mostly they had Spanish plates, but now and again we’d see one that had arrived here from Germany, The Netherlands or Italy.
Of course, I had to do some research. We already knew we could make a twenty-four hour crossing from Plymouth to Santander across the Bay of Biscay. Apparently, it’s a whale watcher’s delight. What I soon learned was that we could drive Brenda from Santander to Cadiz on the opposite coast, wait until it was Tuesday and then board another ferry for a thirty hour trip to Puerto del Rosario, from where we could be here, parked on our own dune along the track from Majanicho to El Cotillo. It would cost a small fortune to do it, but then again there would be a strong temptation to only go in one direction. We’ve already noted the BP garage where we can deal with some of the more perfunctory elements of living on four wheels that you other campervan owners will know about. And unlike almost everyone else who gets off the flight, the Spanish border guards don’t glare at me and engage their stamps with pursed lips when I show them my Irish passport. I can still stay for as long as I like. And apart from the short trip from here to the ferry port at Plymouth, and the even briefer one after rolling off the boat at Puerto del Rosario, just nine hundred and forty-three kilometres of exploring the mysterious western interior of the Spanish mainland would need to be driven. Extremadura? Don’t mind if I do!
While I fantasise about joining those happy campers on the islands that never grow cold, Ali reminds me we should have some adventures in mainland Europe before we get too carried away, and she keeps mentioning Portugal. “We need to go to Portugal in the van,” she says. And she’s right. That’s still a big adventure and a whale watching trip thrown into the bargain. But maybe just one day we’ll board that ferry at Cadiz and set sail for Nomadland. Brenda’s just about the right age to fit in with the local crowd I reckon.
I didn’t intentionally include the unusually new looking Transit van in the shot as I stumbled about the rocks at Majanicho on the only day that the weather misbehaved – we actually had at least five minutes of very light drizzle in the morning. But with so many of them around, one was bound to creep into the shot at some point. In fact if you start drilling into the pixels, you’ll find at least two more of them hidden in plain sight. Which kind of tells the story itself really.
For some people, 2020 has delivered high points in their lives. Take my friend Helena, who told me on 2 January that she'd just discovered she was having a baby and imagine her puzzled expression when I told her I already knew. Sheona had told me you see. When I asked Sheona how she knew, she simply confided to me, "I just know. I've done this before." Nowadays we call her "Septic Peg" - which may require further explanation if you live outside the UK. Not at all miffed, Helena and her partner Sam still laugh at the fact that they were only the third and fourth people to know that baby Harry was on the way. "At least we made the top five," she says when I meet her for the occasional lunchtime walk.
Then there's my son Tom. This was the year that a new lady came into his life. Rhi arrived just before lockdown and they ended up living together almost immediately as a result of it. Being thrown together in a crisis so instantly seemed to prove successful, so much so that I think she might be the one. Anyone who finds something funny in having a bacon, lettuce, hail and tomato sandwich as she did today whilst trudging up the side of a busy sodden road during yet another spell of exciting weather has got to be the one hasn't she? She's a paramedic too - what could be better?
I think I've had a pretty good year too if I'm honest. After 45 years of living here I finally fell in love with Cornwall during 2020. Don't ask how it took so long to grow on me, but being confined to home for almost the entire year has seen my relationship with the coastline on my doorstep blossom. Ok, so I was disappointed to wave farewell to what may have been my last chance to see Lionel Messi play for Barcelona when Spain went into lockdown shortly before we were due to head out there for Easter, but in the grand scale of things I've learned to live with it. Worse things have definitely happened.
So while it has been an undeniably awful twelve months for all of us, looking for the positives has kept the sun shining over our heads - although having said that, this adventure was the fifth in a row that resulted in my waterproof apparel being tested to the full. It has been a very wet Christmas in these parts. As I write this tale, my coat and my backpack cover are hanging over chairs in the kitchen while they continue to shed raindrops onto the floor. Still - you don't get a sky like this without paying for it do you?
I was going to share another image with you today - one that I really like in fact, that I took at Chapel Porth a couple of weekends ago. I have a story to go with that one too of course, but it feels more appropriate to post a shot from a location I've come back to again and again this year in all kinds of weather throughout the seasons, and come away happy every time. Today I arrived in the middle of a hailstorm. As the sky filled with beautiful yellow light to the west, I parked up on the cliffs with the intention of walking the mile or so to a space above the lighthouse that I'd not returned to for more than a year. Within minutes of setting off, the weather changed completely and I decided it wasn't a day to stray too far from the car, so I headed down to the National Trust car park instead. Wandering about aimlessly in a burst of cold heavy rain, I found a couple making the world's smallest snowman at the edge of the dunes - or perhaps "hailman" would be more appropriate.
A huge curtain of thick, featureless grey cloud hung over St Ives to the west and I feared that I may have missed the best light yet again - at times like this I just hang onto the hope that the journey might not have been wasted. With high tide approaching, my patience and sheer bloody mindedness were finally rewarded as the sky went black over Godrevy Lighthouse. Drifts of rain were clearly visible out to sea as they headed inland over the cliffs behind the lighthouse, contrasting so strikingly with the white foam on a powder blue sea. Something told me I didn't have long, and five minutes later the camera was safely tucked away in the pack as I communed alone with half a dozen seals under yet another downpour.
With a flask of hot tea and a raincoat from Slovakia that never fails me in wet weather it was impossible to tear myself away until the light had departed 2020 completely. I even got to drive home in a snowstorm. Now that's really rare in these parts. I'm currently hoping that New Year's Day is going to bring something very unusual. I'd better do some revision on the cardinal rules for shooting in snow - just in case. It might be a good start to 2021.
So farewell 2020. It's certainly one we'll remember, although most of us want to forget it and move on quickly. I hope that 2021 brings better things for all of us. I might have a glass of something warming now. It is New Year's Eve after all.
PS - Five points for anyone who recognises which Scottish film I borrowed an especially sarcastic line from and slightly tweaked to make a title for this image.
As the sun bids farewell to the day, Jokulsarlon's lagoon transforms into a mesmerizing dreamscape. An ethereal reflection of icebergs dances upon the water, captured within the curve of a glass sphere. The delicate hues of sunset paint the sky, blending with the crystalline forms that float serenely. It's a moment frozen in time, where nature's grandeur converges with artistic expression.
Traduzione in Italiano: "Mentre il sole saluta il giorno, la laguna di Jokulsarlon si trasforma in un paesaggio da sogno affascinante. Un riflesso etereo di iceberg danza sull'acqua, catturato nella curva di una sfera di vetro. Le sfumature delicate del tramonto dipingono il cielo, mescolandosi con le forme cristalline che galleggiano serenamente. È un istante congelato nel tempo, in cui la grandiosità della natura si fonde con l'espressione artistica."