Tommy Two Cameras - a photo on Flickriver

Tommy Two Cameras

            Well, I have tried to take a shot of it from here before at sunset; more than once in fact.  Always half-heartedly, and always as an afterthought to what I’ve gone on an outing to achieve, but if the long lens is in the bag, then I’ll often give it a whirl.  Just for fun.  Rarely does the raw file make it into the editing suite though.  Godrevy from the East is a shot I’ve attempted from a number of locations along this coast.  Along much of the coast path route here it’s clearly visible.  Five years ago, I went through a phase of making for a headland much closer to the scene from where the lighthouse occupies the right hand side of the image, failing to balance out the neighbouring cliff that dwarfs it - the neighbouring cliff that struggles to separate itself from the headland across St Ives Bay that is.  It’s a messy one, and each time I go, I wonder why I bothered.  While the various attempts I’ve made to deliver a result I’m happy with from this side of the lighthouse are still to garner success, I remain convinced there’s a shot to be had.  I’ll keep trying until I can feel that tell-tale grin spreading across my face.  But thus far, not even a slight upturn at the corners of the mouth.  

It was getting towards the end of the final week of January when I came to the clifftops at Porthtowan each day, hoping in vain for the repeat of the dolphin show and evening fireworks extravaganza of Monday’s blood red sunset.  Each afternoon I’d shuffled up the steep slope from the car with two cameras straining to get out of the bag, one mounted with the telephoto lens, the other with the standard zoom.  One in the hopes of grabbing that elusive wildlife shot, the other set for the moment when I would inevitably give up and revert to landscape photography.  By Thursday the steadfast attention that I’d fixed upon the sea was beginning to shift focus, and while the dolphins had evidently followed that shoal of mackerel further along the coast, I was simply enjoying just being here.  The weather had been fine, and so long as I kept myself wrapped up in sufficient layers of merino wool beneath my down filled coat, I could stay here for three hours until sunset, taking in the big vista to the west, past Portreath and Basset’s Cove, on to North Cliffs and Hell’s Mouth, all the way to Godrevy and then St Ives and the imposing hinterland of West Penwith beyond.  It’s a view I never tire of.  A coastline which never bores me, no matter how often I photograph it.  

And I guess here is one answer as to why I’m forever taking pictures along these ten or twelve hallowed miles of waterfront.  As I fell into conversation with another tog from Bristol who was spending a couple of weeks house sitting for some absent friends from the village, the sky changed again and again.  “What camera do you use?” she asked, as I told her the answer but then pulled the other one from the bag and put it on the tripod.  By now I’d swapped the lenses around - usually just one camera is enough to keep me confused by the excess of available options.  With an hour until sunset the sky was filled with dense clouds, but with enough gaps for the mostly hidden sun to throw its golden crepuscular rays onto the cliffs and sea.  Then the gaps began to fill, leaving a single hole through which a yellow spotlight shone as if it were a beam from the heavens.  For a moment I wondered whether Captain Kirk was dropping into Becks at Carbis Bay for an early fish and chip supper.  And finally, just when we weren’t expecting it and had assumed the show was over, the sky glowed, blazed, and then ebbed through fading shades of red that underlit the darkening clouds.  Luckily the camera on which the long lens was mounted happened to be sitting on the tripod.  The moment passed in less than a minute before everything turned grey and I bade my new friend farewell as she set off down the slope for tea.  The glow had been almost as good as the one I had witnessed without my camera on Monday.  Today I had two of them.  I could have had double helpings.   

Do I wish I’d tried a slower shutter speed to smooth that silvery sea just a little bit?  Yes.  Is it a good thing that I didn’t?  Well, probably yes – after all there were only a few moments in which to capture those colours, and I’m not sure my excitement would have helped deliver a sharp result at 330mm.  But from this side, it’s undoubtedly the first time I’ve taken a shot towards the lighthouse that caused those corners of my mouth to shift upwards, just ever so slightly.  Maybe a little bit more than slightly in fact.  Maybe I should go and try that tricky composition again before too much longer.  Eventually I might just puzzle it out.

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

Taken on: January 26, 2023

Tags:

Godrevy

Lighthouse

Coast

British Coast

cornish coast

England

Great Britain

Britain

Atlantic

Ocean

seascape

Sea

Water

St Ives

Canon 100-400 Mk2

glow

red sky

orange

sky

Cloud

epic

Sunset

Porthtowan « less

Sets appears in: • Porthtowan • Sky Drama more » • Godrevy « less

Groups appears in: • Amateurs • Cornwall more » • Cornwall Flickr Users • Photography Week • On Landscape • Amateur Photographer Magazine « less

Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, f/11.0, 1/6 sec, 330mm, ISO 100 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Canon EOS 5D Mark IV
Lens:	EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM
Aperture:	f/11.0
Exposure Time:	0.167 sec (1/6)
Focal Length:	330mm
ISO:	100
Exposure Bias:	-1/3 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)
Show full info

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