Rockface - a photo on Flickriver

Rockface

            "What's this?" you say.  "That's not Iceland!  It looks very much like Cornwall.  Porthtowan if I'm not mistaken!"  And yes, you'd be right.

I've decided to very briefly interrupt the recent deluge of Iceland drama for the odd interlude, just to keep things fresh and to confirm that, yes, I am still getting out with the camera here and there.  Fear not though Iceland fans - I still feel like I've barely scratched the surface of the 106 folders into which I've divided the fourteen days we spent there.  Yes, I did say 106 - I don't know whether that frightens of excites me in truth.  Not all of them will produce an image worthy of sharing with you, but I think I can safely say that there are a lot of pictures in those files that are straining at the sidelines, like fish waiting to jump into an angler's net and be turned into another entry to these pages.

But just now and again, and nowhere near as often as usual, I've been out for the odd half-hearted escapade with the camera.  This image barely hides that half-heartedness in fact.  Taken with the rarely used "walkabout" lens, the one that I resort to when I want a large focal range without carrying much, and shot on the scarcely visited beach at Porthtowan just three miles from home are both factors that tell you I wasn't completely in the zone.  It was only a late decision to get some fresh air, driven by the fact that I'd spent most of the last few days inside, gradually working my way through some of the contents of those 106 folders, that brought me here.  "We'll borrow the dogs and walk over the clifftop at Porthtowan," I suggested.  I took the camera, more for practice than anything else.

And so we found ourselves down on the beach, on the last day of the half term break.  By now pretty much all of the tourists had headed for home, and so the mood was a distinctly local one.  The Blue Bar at the edge of the sand had the usual Sunday afternoon crowd within its walls, nursing cups of coffee and pints of lager, while the beach was festooned with families wandering across the beach and back again in no particular direction as the children clung to the last moments of pleasure before the autumn term resumed.  The only way to declutter the scene was to move over to the left hand side of the beach and shoot across the sweeping curve of cliffs that lead the way to St Ives and beyond.  I had at least taken my lightweight travel tripod, the one that went to Madeira with me, but definitely wasn't going to stand up to Iceland's rigours.  The incoming tide here tends to come in sudden instalments of several yards designed to catch the unwary, and without my welly boots I had to keep repositioning the tripod as the light started to do what it so often does in these soft clear evenings here.  In time, the yellows morphed into tinges of pink, that bounced across the beach and onto my sensor.  Once again I pondered at the mostly overlooked lens in this mostly ignored location on the doorstep.  Both were performing admirably, or so I felt.  Maybe there's something in the budget lens's lack of commitment to absolute sharpness that lends itself to a soft and dreamy scene such as this.  And maybe I ought to stop ignoring Porthtowan quite so much.  Although there's no obvious focal point, the light is really rather special here when the colder months arrive.  And look - can you see it?  I'd never noticed it before, but there's an enormous stone buddha carved into the side of the cliff right in front of me.  It brings a whole new meaning to the term "Rockface."

In the next couple of posts, I'll take you back to Iceland for further adventures there.  I've just double checked, and only 27 of the 106 folders have even been visited so far.  It could take years of discovery and memory jolts before the story is anything like complete.  But soon Ali and I are off on our travels again for a while - this time for a sunshine holiday, but it does happen to be a location with some photography to be had from it.  I've got some stories that I hope to post while we're away that are "oven ready" as Boris would have said before he jumped into the oven himself.  Meanwhile, I'm off to join forces with one of our Flickr friends later on this very day.  Watch this space!

Taken in: UK / England / St. Agnes / East Cliff (show map)

Taken on: October 30, 2022

Tags:

porthtowan

Beach

pink sky

Cornwall

Coast

cornish coast

Great Britain

British Coast

low tide

silhouette

long exposure

Water « less

Sets appears in: • Book - Landscape • Porthtowan

Groups appears in: • Amateurs • Cornwall more » • UK Coast and Harbour • Cornwall - Kernow • Photography Week • Amateur Photographer Magazine • "El Mar / The Sea" • phenomenAgraphy « less

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