A Winter Sunset at the Edge of Eternity

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...

Taken in: UK / England / St. Just / Botallack (show map)

Taken on: December 10, 2022

Tags:

Cape Cornwall

seascape

rain

Cloud

clouds

Water

water_shots

water_captures

Cornwall

Coast

British Coast

cornish coast

England

Atlantic

Ocean

pink sky

Sunset

Great Britain

Britain

Kernow

Kernowfornia

sunstar

sunburst

brisons

longships

lighthouse

chimney « less

Sets appears in: • Book - Landscape • Cape Cornwall more » • Sea scapes and sunsets « less

Groups appears in: • Cornwall • Devon & Cornwall more » • "SEASCAPE" • Flickr Social Club • Photography Week • Amateur Photographer Magazine « less

Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, f/16.0, 1/8 sec, 42mm, ISO 100 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Canon EOS 5D Mark IV
Lens:	EF24-70mm f/2.8L USM
Aperture:	f/16.0
Exposure Time:	0.125 sec (1/8)
Focal Length:	42mm
ISO:	100
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	Uncalibrated
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic 12.1 (Windows)
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