2021 Gallery
Contents of this page:-
Welcome to 2021!
Welcome to my 2021 Gallery, which - as you might expect - follows hot on the heels of my 2020 Gallery!
Or perhaps I shouldn’t say hot on the heels, as there is in fact quite a break in the timeline between these two galleries. There’s no denying that I entered a fairly quiet spell, photographically speaking, after returning home from Arran in September 2020. It was a struggle to summon artistic inspiration after leaving behind those fine Scottish vistas, while the resumption of national lockdown restrictions throughout the 2020/21 winter season (and beyond) was more than a little enthusiasm-sapping for many of us.
In the event, any spare “photo time” that I had during the first three months of 2021 was spent compiling the current website. My initial plan to display just a handful of Fuji X-T3 images in a modest 2020 Gallery became subsumed by a burgeoning nostalgia trip, leading to the creation of twin archive galleries (Hills & History / Boat-Trips & Composites), plus my inaugural mountain photography blog, Camera on the Crags. (Further reminiscence would follow in my second blog, The Ballad of Bellever Tor - part ode, part essay - later in the year.)
I did enjoy the reflection (ah, those halcyon days of nostalgia!), but it was also heartening when the photographic bug returned to enliven the present and tantalise the future. After all, the ethos of my 2020 lockdown experience had been to explore the wonders of home, while my mountain blog espoused the give-it-a-go spirit of personal adventure. And so it was that, come April of 2021, I began to find my focus… psychologically, if not always photographically! :-)
Finding Focus (Devon, April/May 2021)
Almost all of the images from my 2021 collection were taken using my Fuji X-T3 mirrorless camera (with various lenses), either on planned photoshoots or by adopting something akin to a one-pic-per-trip approach (the idea being that rationing focuses the mind!).
Of the dozen or so pictures in this opening section, over half were taken within a few yards of each other in our Devon back garden… further evidence, if it were needed, that lockdown needn’t be a bar to finding photographic subjects (or indeed pursuing other, more diverse areas of interest).
Season’s Greetings
With spring underway, wildlife provided the initial impetus for picking up my camera (suitably armed with telephoto lens).
Although taken in April, my very first image of 2021 had something of a Christmas card feel... a local Devon hedgerow hosting both holly and a robin.
All that was missing was the snow (which, for some of the UK, would follow in May!).
Secret Squirrel
From one nimble hedge-dweller to another…
Our resident grey squirrel lives even closer to home than the above robin, being a regular visitor to our back garden. (The irony wasn’t lost on me that I’d obtained a similar - slightly inferior - image in 2019 by voyaging all the way to Canada!)
This particular wee critter, and some of his furry cohorts, have quickly become the nemesis of Moogie the dog (whose favourite show is evidently Springwatch, best viewed with a nutty seasoning of Secret Squirrel)! :-)
Birds in the Bush
Well, perhaps not the bush, but the shrubby hedge/trees at the back of our garden…
To “branch out” a little on the theme of garden bird photography, I experimented with focusing on my subject through a wash of foreground branches, as though each bird - such as this chaffinch - were peeking coyly through the undergrowth.
(With spring slow to arrive this year, the deciduous trees and bushes remained shorn of leaves for longer than usual… as a result, the awakening wildlife had fewer luxuriant hiding places!)
Goldfinch
Catching the Sun (but dropping the ball!)
At this point I should confess to a compelling yet troublesome side-project carried over from 2020, which was destined to remain unfinished business (for now at least!)…
On Saturday 24th April (2021), I travelled to the Devon village of Uffculme to photograph the sun. From this location (so I believed), the International Space Station (ISS) would transit the solar disc just after 11:15am, and be gone again within a second. This called for precision burst photography, and of course a powerful solar filter attached to my telephoto lens.
Unfortunately, time-keeping was never my strong suit, and a wobbly tripod at the critical moment resulted in the burst being fired off fractionally late (no jokes please!). So here’s the sun, sporting a couple of small sunspots but sadly sans ISS. On the plus side, it was good to test that solar filter! :-(
By way of compensation, I’ve included a macro shot of a fellow sun worshipper… basically a weed in our lawn, but I’m a firm believer that weeds (in this case a dandelion) are there to be marvelled at too!
Safety Note (you probably know, but can’t be too careful!): Never look directly at the sun. If focusing on the sun in-camera, always use a specialist solar filter (NOT a standard photographer’s ND filter). My own solar filter is made by “Thousand Oaks Optical”, and reduces incoming light by around 16 stops of light (a factor of 2 to the power of 16).
Addendum #1 (6th June 2021): A subsequent attempt at capturing an ISS solar transit was thwarted by cloud, which rolled across with a minute to go and the shot all teed up. The saga continues (only this time it’s personal!)… :-0
Addendum #2 (10th June 2021): For a slightly healthier example of solar photography (with a dash of lunar thrown in), please see my section below on the Partial Solar Eclipse which rolled across the UK and briefly parted the Devon clouds… :-)
Shooting the Exe
During successive weekends in late April / early May, I spent a morning exploring Devon’s Exe Valley (some say it still is a valley!) in the vicinity of Tiverton.
My primary aim was to scout a few locations, although some of those which I had in mind proved to be inaccessible due to Covid closures or an abundance (I hesitate to say over-abundance) of private farmland. My wanderings were therefore vaguely ad-hoc as I searched for compositions in the rolling countryside (which I thought I knew reasonably well, but was now seeing through fresh eyes).
In the end, my results - one from each trip - served as reminders of photographic techniques rather than anything too artistic. The first was a sweeping handheld panorama (perhaps a little too sweeping!), while the other was a bracketed 3-exposure “HDR Merge” of the tree-lined River Exe. Both were stitched/merged in post-processing using Lightroom.
River Exe near Bampton, nestled in the Southern Exmoor foothills (merged from 3 bracketed exposures while stood in the shallows!)
Bloomin’ Lupins
By the time of the late May Bank Holiday weekend, warm and sunny weather had finally arrived across much of the UK… and with it came the rocket-like blooms on our garden lupin. This provided a good opportunity to break out my 80mm prime macro lens and experiment with some focus-stacking.
Before displaying my final image, I’ll provide some brief context (please bear with me if you already know the theory, or indeed if you don’t want to know it!)…
One constraint of macro photography is that, even when shooting with a small aperture, it generally delivers a very narrow depth of field… meaning that the subject is only in focus at a very precise distance from the camera (along a specific focal plane). Any closer, or any further away, and all becomes a blur.
This is often desired, of course… a narrow depth of field helps to emphasise the main subject, while a background blur or swirl - sometimes known as bokeh - can give a pleasingly artistic effect. But for a subject which naturally has depth to it, such as an elongated lupin bloom, wider focal range may be preferred.
In digital photography, a common way around this is to use a technique called focus-stacking. It involves the capturing of multiple images covering the same composition - usually stabilised on a tripod - but each time with the focus set to a different range. Then the source pics are aligned and blended using specialised photo-processing software, producing a “master image” which optimises the in-focus areas.
The lupin shot below is my first attempt at this, blending nine separate source pics courtesy of Lightroom and Photoshop. (I also shot two longer-focused source pics which I didn’t use in the mix, as I preferred a blurry background.) The final result has its anomalies (some edge effects were removed by cropping), but nonetheless I was happy to conclude that the technique has potential!
Incidentally, focus-stacking can also be used for landscape photography if sharpness is desired from close in to far away (though wide-angle lenses generally give a greater depth of field anyway).
The Lupin Bloom (blended macro image, focus-stacked from 9 source pics)
Cornish Coast (Bude, May 2021)
After an unseasonably dry and frosty April, much of the UK endured a wet and stormy May… not ideal for a nation desperate to break out of lockdown. Yet I was grateful to escape to North-East Cornwall for a week with Karen and Moogie, exploring the beaches and cliffs around Bude.
Sandy Mouth Trilogy - Foaming at the (Sandy) Mouth
One of my favourite photographic locations in the vicinity of Bude was Sandy Mouth, which provided a dramatic coastal backdrop just north of the town.
My first shot here was taken during a midday family stroll on the beach (which offers a fine expanse at low tide). Time was short and light was harsh, but I was really impressed by the shoreline scenery… in particular, that archetypally Cornish combination of smooth sand and jagged rock.
The jagged jaws of Sandy Mouth, North of Bude
Seeking other compositions and better light, I returned to Sandy Mouth just before sunset to sample the evening “golden hour”. In truth I hadn’t quite done my homework, as the tide was too high and the sun too far round to allow my preferred angles. Nonetheless, nature had a surprise in store… the offshore wind was whipping up foam (or spume) from the tops of the waves and blowing it across the shore in giant, surreal drifts.
Evening sun and foamy pebbles, Sandy Mouth
To get into position for my final shot, I had to wade chest-deep through the foam, stumbling over hidden boulders before clambering onto a rock island. The morass would surge ominously as waves rolled in beneath it, while sudden gusts whipped up the froth in frenzied flurries. My camera only came out briefly, as it was not immune to the advancing lather. I don’t think I did the scene justice, but felt privileged to be there at all and to witness such a bizarre event.
Tide of flying foam, Sandy Mouth
When I returned in the twilight there was just one other person in the car park, who gave me a very strange look as I passed. I realised that I was still covered almost head to foot in foam, looking like one of the Ghostbusters (probably the nerdy one) after they’d vanquished the Marshmallow Man. The joys of landscape photography were never more apparent! :-)
King Arthur’s Seat (or “The Rain of King Arthur”)
My final image of our Cornwall holiday depicts Tintagel Castle, situated on a dramatic headland and steeped in Arthurian legend.
We visited on a grey day, persistent rain beginning to fall after we’d crossed the modern suspension bridge to “the island” and reached the top of the exposed bluff. On the soggy return walk, I took a short diversion to shoot a hasty handheld panorama, comprising 8 vertical source pics later stitched together in Lightroom.
Rain continued throughout the shoot and beyond - by the end we resembled Knights of the Drowned Table - so I was pleasantly surprised that anything came out. But as Merlin’s Cave is magically located near the centre of the image, it’s possible that the great wizard had a hand in it! :-)
Technical Note for Photographers: I originally shot my 8-frame Tintagel pano using bracketed source pics, with 3 exposures per composition. However, I found that the full “HDR Pano” option (merging all 24 source pics within Lightroom) resulted in noticeable ghosting when zooming in on the figures crossing the bridge. Re-working the pano with just the 8 central exposures eliminated the ghosting and seemed to give just as good a result overall, perhaps due to the gloomy skies and lack of contrast in the original scene! The latter 8-pic pano is the one presented above (although at reduced resolution due to website constraints).
Partial Solar Eclipse (Devon, June 2021)
On the morning of Thursday 10th June (2021), a partial solar eclipse cast its celestial shadow across the UK. Although at its fullest over Arctic regions, astronomers reported that a slither of the solar disc would be masked by the moon as far south as Devon and Cornwall.
Unfortunately, the morning was a very cloudy one in my part of Devon - a full 8 oktas (totally grey!) up to, and beyond, the time of maximum solar obscuration around 11:15. Having set up my camera in the back garden, I fairly quickly cut my losses and returned to my “day job”!
But conditions wavered over the ensuing half hour, eventually allowing the sun to peep through the cloud layer - on and off - just before midday. Tantalising glimpses of the now-diminishing eclipse could be discerned with the naked eye through the drifting haze… dramatic for the casual observer (if viewed with caution!), although still lost to blackness when viewed through my solar filter. Finally, the sun (and moon) broke free just long enough for a few shots to be taken, before skies darkened again and the eclipse window closed for good.
Strangely, one of the trickiest parts of this shoot was lining up the noonday sun, which involved angling my telephoto lens almost vertically while stooping and squinting into the viewfinder. I felt like an inept contortionist battling the tripod, which ended up balanced precariously on a foldaway picnic table for extra height. Thankfully, this merry dance was all performed in the relative privacy of my own garden! :-0
Rains came that afternoon, so I was grateful for the brief opportunity which had presented itself… and for the visual reminder that we inhabit an island of chaos within a clockwork solar system. But I should probably stop there, before it all becomes too cosmic!* :-)
* To burst my cosmic bubble, the first social media comment on this image likened it to a Jaffa Cake… thanks Jon (you have a point!). :-0
A Clockwork Cosmos (or is it a Jaffa Cake?)… the Partial Solar Eclipse of 10th June 2021
Safety Note (which bears repeating!): Never look directly at the sun. If focusing on the sun in-camera, always use a specialist solar filter.
Kynance Cove (Cornwall, July 2021)
Following our springtime break around Bude, Karen and I again visited the Cornish coast for a couple of days in July. This time we ventured further south-west, all the way down to Helston and the Lizard Peninsula (Lizard Point being the southernmost extremity of mainland Britain).
This trip would mark our 10th wedding anniversary - a tin anniversary, appropriately for Cornwall - so most of the photography quite rightly comprised family holiday snaps. However, the final evening allowed a photoshoot opportunity at Kynance Cove, a beautifully scenic stretch of shoreline near the tip of the Lizard.
Kynance Cove is undoubtedly one of those “epic” locations which define the quintessential Cornish coast, featuring pristine sand (at low tide) and a fine array of quirky offshore islets with alluring names such as Asparagus Island, Gull Rock and Lion Rock. If coves were mountains, then Kynance would be Tryfan or Buachaille Etive Mor… relatively compact in scale, yet craggy and full of character. In many ways, a landscape photographer’s dream!
Yet, such a celebrated location is not without its challenges. For those seeking creativity or originality, there is the difficulty of avoiding - or perhaps failing to emulate - the type of clichéd composition which frequently adorns calendars, chocolate boxes and increasingly the internet. And then there is the pitfall of simply not doing the place justice… of finding the wrong conditions, or capturing what you see but not the magic of what it makes you feel.
I don’t claim to have full answers to these questions, and indeed I never do seem to nail a definitive image (if such a thing even exists)… but the point is to have fun trying! :-)
In this particular case, my evening at Kynance would initially yield frustration… the cove was shadowy, high tide had obscured the beach, and a bank of cloud to the west seemed to smother any chance of witnessing that elusive “golden hour”. I spent some time teeing up a long exposure of waves washing into a rock chasm, before admitting to myself that the light just wasn’t there (and the value of the shot hardly justified the precarious position of my tripod and camera!). This first shot was duly abandoned.
Traversing the cove (dodging incoming waves!) and climbing the clifftop path on the far side, I was encouraged to see a slither of clear sky on the western horizon. All being well, the sun would need to cross this before setting. The angle was also improving on the cluster of islands, which I decided to make the subject of a low sun, high tide scenario if only the light would oblige. After setting up and waiting - and generally enjoying the tranquility - the seascape was finally illuminated around 8pm.
In the event I made two attempts at my main Kynance image, both of which are reproduced below (as usual, resolution is reduced for the website). The 3-pic panorama is designed to give the islands some context, while the equivalent single-shot image (also wide-angle) is taken slightly lower down with some foreground cliff framing. (As an aside, a distant cruise ship on the horizon, although clearly not a primary subject, hints at a wider story of Covid restrictions being lifted. Given the choice - speaking as a regular cruiser into-the-sunset - I think I’d rather enjoy the evening light of Kynance!)
To top things off, my initial vertical composition - featuring Lion Rock - was a quick bonus shot taken during the return walk! :-)
Low Sun, High Tide (Part 2)… evening light illuminates the rocky islets of Kynance Cove
Addendum - Kynance Cove Archive
A quick check of the archives reveals that I seem to photograph Kynance Cove every five years or so! For completeness and posterity, below are my earlier Kynance shots which anonymously feature within this website’s History section. (The current page should really be reserved for 2021 Fuji X-T3 images, but this is the exception which proves the rule!) :-)
Hungry Caterpillar (Devon, August 2021)
A quick interlude for an opportunistic macro shot (introducing a new many-legged friend!)…
Eats Shoots and Leaves… These are actually two different crops of the same image, taken using an 80mm prime macro lens (fitted with 1.4x teleconverter) during a rare sunny interval on an otherwise stormy Saturday morning; some might say a typical August weekend!
I think our back garden leaf-muncher may have been caught red-handed… or whatever colour “hands” a hungry black and yellow caterpillar happens to possess! :-)
Bellever Tor (Dartmoor, August 2021)
My Bellever photoshoot was unusual in having a very specific purpose: to illustrate a self-penned poem, The Ballad of Bellever Tor, which I’d decided to fine-tune and publish via a blog. For this reason the task at hand almost had the feel of a commission, although of course I was only working for myself (and unfortunately I don’t pay very well!).
The poem itself was largely inspired by the landscape of Dartmoor, so there was an apt circularity that it should in turn inspire a landscape photography shoot. The narrative relates the apocryphal tale of a convict who escapes Dartmoor Prison and seeks refuge in the rocks atop Bellever Tor. But this place of safety instead becomes a trap; the hapless protagonist is hunted down and falls to his death, being forever condemned to haunt the scene of his doom. And so the moor spawns a modern-day myth… that of “the free-fallin’ phantom of Bellever Tor”.
For the photoshoot’s main image, I planned to play the part of the escapee silhouetted on the rocks, perhaps even in ghostly form. Since the ballad also references The Hound of the Baskervilles, I envisioned the jail-break occurring sometime in the 19th century… so I dressed accordingly in prominent hat and flowing black overcoat, much to the bemusement (no doubt) of fellow walkers clad in colourful gore-tex!
The day of the shoot was a wild and stormy one, more akin to late Autumn than early August. In many ways this suited me - it certainly fitted the ballad’s bombastic themes, and was typical of Dartmoor’s fickle moods. Nonetheless, I was hoping that the evening would bring some “golden hour” light, and ideally a dramatic sunset with suitably brooding sky. Unfortunately the landscape photography gods had other ideas… a grey horizon prevailed to the west, so I was glad to fall back on occasional brighter spells and a little creative post-processing! :-)
“Bellever Tor is a helluva tor”… the ballad’s rocky arena beckons (invitingly or ominously?) through Bellever Forest
Myth on the Moor
The tale of the Bellever phantom is readily suggested in an area so rich in history and folklore, perhaps born of Dartmoor’s austere beauty… and the hardship facing those who struggle to eke a living from the barren land. The moor’s many wind-worn granite outcrops, such as Bellever Tor, must have engendered fascination, awe and a degree of trepidation down through the centuries.
The Myth in Monochrome
Like the apparition itself, myths and legends are only really sustained by becoming a little faded around the edges… too much clarity can rob a story of its nuance, calling into question the vibrant yet sepia-tinged nature of the underlying themes.
And of course, from a practical standpoint, images from yesteryear are seldom seen in glorious technicolour. For these reasons, and to help preserve the mystery and menace of the shadows, I’ve attempted here to tease out the phantom in “olde-worlde” monochrome.
My final plate darkens the scene further, presenting a backdrop to the actual Ballad of Bellever Tor…
Please check out my second blog of 2021, The Ballad of Bellever Tor, for further musings on this ”Ode to Dartmoor”… plus (as an added bonus) an illustrated study of ”The Power of Myth in the Landscape”! (Be warned; this turned into a bit of a thesis!) :-)
Isle of Arran (Scotland, September/October 2021)
The second half of September 2021 brought a further, long-awaited trip to Scotland’s Isle of Arran. As with our 2020 Arran adventure, the constraints of lockdown lent this excursion a slightly surreal air of escapism (a feeling readily evoked on such a magical island!).
The Family Album
My initial mini-gallery contains some family holiday snaps which I took using Karen’s wee automatic Olympus… a reminder to myself that meaningful images do not require a fancy camera, long lens or tripod! :-)
Melissa’s Ferry reaches Brodick (In the Thrall of Goatfell!)
Brodick Castle (Enjoying a Rainy Afternoon!)
Wrapped up on Cladach Beach
The Obligatory Family Selfie (Blackwaterfoot Beach)
Rainbow Coast (Corrie)
Wee Moogie (On Alert at the Beachside Rum Shack!)
Contemplating the Shadowy “Doctor’s Bathtub” (High Tide at Corrie)
Corrie Harbour (Holy Isle beyond)
Sea of Holes: Weathered Old Red Sandstone
(Corrie Seashore)
Arran Portfolio
Subsequent images were taken on dedicated photoshoots (some more impromptu than others!) using my Fuji X-T3 with Fujinon lens kit…
Kildonan and the Islands
Our base at Kildonan, on Arran’s southern shore, provided fine coastal scenery and abundant wildlife throughout our stay. The resulting images were often inspired by Pladda’s Guiding Light (literally or metaphorically), or by the giant, hulking shark-fin of Ailsa Craig…
Kildonan by Moonlight
Over the Sea to Pladda…
Guarding the Rocks (Evening Light on Pladda Lighthouse)
Islands of Light (Kildonan Night Sky)
Various species of Kildonan marine life - whether Heron or Seal - have a strange tendency to pose in front of Ailsa Craig (or sometimes Pladda)… :-)
Applauding Seals (“Seals of Approval”?)
“The Long Haul” - Common Seals on a Grey Day
Seals in the Surf
“Kings of the Castle” (Pair of Oystercatchers)
On Patrol: Hovering Buzzard (West Kildonan Shoreline)
Long-Billed Curlew(s)
Local Hero-style “Boat House”, Kildonan Shore
Beachcombing, West Kildonan
“Hidden Falls”, West Kildonan
Flowers in the Spray, “Hidden Falls”
Bennan Head Sunset
Evening Glow
(Bennan Head from the West Kildonan Shoreline)
That Good Old Dinosaur Footprint!
Arran Explorations
My next section depicts Arran explorations beyond our “home” shoreline at Kildonan, taking us through Lamlash and Brodick to the island’s northern extremity of Lochranza. En route, we will call in at specific sites of beauty or intrigue such as Glenashdale Falls and the Machrie standing stones.
Although my primary pastime of mountain/hill photography is not particularly prominent in this year’s Arran portfolio, my final two sections - respectively covering Holy Isle and (briefly) Glen Rosa - at least give a nod in this direction. I’ll conclude by explaining why Glen Rosa, and its surrounding granite peaks, are not as well represented as they might have been (and this is fine, incidentally, as failed photoshoots are often more informative than seemingly successful ones)! :-0
Gaggle of Gulls, Lamlash Bay
Brodick Bay Panorama (Goatfell and Brodick Castle from Clauchlands Forest Trail)
Red Squirrel Goes Nuts (Brodick Castle Grounds)
Pensive Red Squirrel (Brodick Castle Grounds)
Blue Tit in Green (Brodick Castle Grounds)
Feeling the Buzz - Basking Lizard (Machrie Standing Stones)
Monolithic Landscape - The Stones of Machrie Moor
Seeing the Wood for the Trees (Morning Light, Glenashdale Forest)
From the Forest to the Sea (Glenashdale to Whiting Bay)…
“Taking the Rains” - Glenashdale Falls
The Road to Ruin - Approaching Lochranza Castle
Rainbow’s End, Lochranza
Cioch na h-Oighe, Sannox
The Magic of Holy Isle
Although a regular visitor to Arran, I had never previously set foot on Holy Isle - that magical unspoilt islet just offshore from Lamlash Bay. A sacred place for many centuries (St. Molaise is reputed to have lived here in a hermit’s cave in the 6th century), the island is now home to a devout Buddhist community… as well as many wild ponies, free-roaming goats and Soay sheep. It was a privilege to make the pilgrimage to this tranquil hideaway for an afternoon, during which time I traversed the island from north to south over its highest point, Mullach Mor. Tibetan prayer flags adorned the summit, while the return walk along the western shore revealed colourful examples of devotional Tibetan art painted on the rocks.
[Jokey aside: Given that Arran is often regarded as “Scotland in Miniature”, I sometimes think that Holy Isle should be “Arran in Miniature”. Perhaps this makes Pladda “Holy Isle in Miniature”, although let’s not take the joke too far!] ;-)
Colourful Destination - Holy Isle from Whiting Bay
Mullach Mor Summit, Holy Isle - Colours Seep into the Sky from Tibetan Prayer Flags
Sunshine and Showers (“The Colour of Rain”) - Looking North to Arran from Mullach Beag, Holy Isle
High on Holy Isle - Mullach Mor from Mullach Beag
Mullach Mor Summit (Holy Isle)
Bird’s Eye View
(Whiting Bay and Kingscross Point)
Pillar Rock Lighthouse (Holy Isle)
The South-Western Crags of Holy Isle
(Mullach Mor at upper right)
Pilgrim’s Trail - Holy Isle’s Western Shore
Blending in with Nature - Devotional Buddhist Art (Holy Isle Shoreline)
Holy Isle Vista - Across Lamlash Bay to Arran’s Northern Mountains
Adventure’s End - Holy Isle Jetty
Glen Rosa and the Long-Lost Photoshoot
This year’s first attempt at photographing Glen Rosa turned out to be ill-fated, when a trudge across moorland from the summit of the String Road - designed to give an unrivalled eagle’s eye view along the glen to Cir Mhor - instead landed me in the midst of thickening hill fog. Tripod and camera were primed, I shivered patiently for an hour and a half, but not a single shot was taken! :-(
I returned almost a week later, on the final morning of the holiday, choosing a more traditional approach along Glenrosa Water to “Photographer’s Boulder” (as I call it). With heavy rain only minutes away, I was just in time to capture the theme of “Gathering Storm” before the heavens opened and sent me scurrying. Cir Mhor itself remained mostly obscured - the tapering granite spire of the Rosa Pinnacle lost in the murk - yet the threatening clouds instead provided a different type of drama (aided by a fleeting appearance from the brooding Witch’s Step)…
Gathering Storm, Glen Rosa
Return to start of Arran 2021 Gallery
And so the 2021 adventure continues… with a further trip to Cornwall’s rocky shores! :-)
The Call of Kernow (Cornish Return, November 2021)
There’s clearly something in the water down in Cornwall, for late November found Karen and I visiting the county for the third time this year. Our family week away was spent near Penzance, timed both to mark Karen’s birthday and to escape the onset of winter (not so much weather-wise - as we’ll see - but psychologically!).
This holiday was also notable for being our first official break with wee Rocky, our rascally new canine addition to the family.
A visit by my parents, Meg and Nigel, completed the ensemble, bringing in local beauty spots - places of coastal pilgrimage - such as St. Michael’s Mount and Porthleven.
The two images shown here are family holiday snaps, hastily taken using a Canon “point and shoot” which happily found its way onto Karen’s birthday list. As noted in the above Isle of Arran section, this hopefully highlights that photos don’t need to be carefully planned or technically orchestrated in order to be heartfelt or meaningful! :-)
Moogie is joined by wee Rocky - get off that couch, pooch! ;-)
St. Michael’s Mount, snapped during a family trip to Marazion
In a neat twist of symmetry, we also returned to the very same holiday home that we’d inhabited back in January 2020, when I’d unwrapped my new Fuji X-T3 in blissful ignorance of the lockdown which was just around the corner. Thus, despite the intervening hiatus, my 2021 Gallery ends pretty much where my 2020 Gallery began!
The first tentative foray with my Fuji X-T3… Lanyon Quoit sunset, Jan 2020
Although not consciously intended, it was probably no coincidence that my opening shot of this return visit - a Lanyon Quoit sunset - bore a striking resemblance to my first ever Fuji X-T3 composition, taken almost 2 years previously. (My original, January 2020 shot is shown here for posterity; please see below for the new one…)
Funnily enough, similar feelings of artistic frustration were also rekindled… for in each case (Jan 2020 and Nov 2021), glorious “golden hour” light on the Quoit promptly disappeared while I frantically prepared my camera kit. In the end, then as now, I instead settled for capturing the sun’s afterglow on the western horizon, picking out fiery low-lit clouds but with the actual stones cast firmly in the gloaming. (I quite like this effect, so am not complaining!)
Memories of that initial Lanyon photoshoot - when I’d deliberately emphasised the sky, but had perhaps cut off the foreground a tad abruptly - also allowed me to subtly adjust my composition this time around. If only I’d learnt to similarly adjust my pre-sunset arrival time! :-(
To cut myself some slack, there’s a reason that some of my recent Cornish photoshoots were quite rushed, which I’ll explain here in a little more detail…
The Twilight Challenge (Part 1 - Lanyon Quoit)
With this being a family holiday, it was only right and proper that my “photoshoot” sessions should take a back seat. But in a naturally evolving compromise, the first couple days of our November 2021 sojourn followed a similar pattern… we would return to our holiday home around 4pm, with only half an hour or so of daylight remaining. This brief window of opportunity gave rise to a kind of Twilight Challenge… to head out again with camera kit, and to capture a single image - preferably one which somehow proclaimed “Cornwall” - before the light was lost for good.
As outlined above, Lanyon Quoit became the logical choice for the first of these challenges. Here, somewhere in the space between “golden hour” and “blue hour”, I did indeed capture a single image just seconds before the sun’s afterglow dissolved into dusk…
Lanyon Quoit… evening afterglow (23rd Nov 2021)
The Twilight Challenge (Part 2 - Botallack Mine)
Unlike Land’s End or St. Michael’s Mount, Botallack Mine is hardly a household name (at least, not without invoking inevitable connections to Poldark). Yet, to my mind, no scene is more archetypally Cornish than that of The Crowns, the mine’s twin engine houses, precariously perched amongst rugged granite sea cliffs.
As with Lanyon Quoit, the image is lent poignancy by a compelling combination of natural grandeur and human heritage. But while Lanyon Quoit is enigmatic - an ancient burial chamber with precise meaning obscured by the mists of time - the Cornish tin mines have a more immediate history, telling tales of harsh, even brutal working environments which encroach upon living memory.
To the photographer, abandoned engine houses such as those at Botallack are decaying works of landscape art, slowly but surely being reclaimed by nature… yet it shouldn’t be forgotten that photography, in this context, is merely a means to an end. It is the stories concealed within and around those ruins, the industrial zeal and enduring human drama, which gives genuine pause for thought. You can almost sense the ghosts of our great-grandfathers treading these wild shores, excavating miles of rickety tunnels - which even extended beneath the seabed - in search of tin, copper and arsenic.
Despite admiring pictures of Botallack over the years, it was an oversight that I had never previously visited. Thus, I was genuinely excited to discover that Cornwall’s “Tin Coast” - a UNESCO World Heritage site - was just about within reach of my second day’s Twilight Challenge.
In the event, the desired sunset never really materialised - I was still on the road to St. Just when the western skyline briefly lit up - and dusk was taking hold by the time I weaved my way through the extensive upper mine workings and sighted The Crowns. Light or no light, I certainly wasn’t disappointed… excitement levels soared ever higher as those elusive ruins finally revealed themselves!
But what of the actual image? Shooting with low ISO (to decrease noise) and small aperture (to increase depth of field), I found that a 7-second exposure was needed to allow sufficient light into the camera. This required a tripod, of course… but once in place, I could set the interval timer and add some foreground interest by running along the clifftop to a prominent rocky perch. This concluded Twilight Challenge #2 - a story not just of those decaying engine houses, but of a lone figure quietly contemplating their legacy…
Surveying Cornwalls’s “Tin Coast” - “The Crowns”, Botallack Mine (24th Nov 2021)
(Original 2021 Edit)
The Copper Coast - Botallack Mine
(Re-edited Jan 2024 for a South-West Coast Path Photo Competition - so more emphasis placed on the narrow left-hand path!)*
(*I initially thought my entries had failed to upload to the competition website - the Twilight Challenge was child’s play by comparison -
but finally, in Aug 2024, I was informed that ‘The Copper Coast’ would be included in the South-West Coast Path calendar for 2025.
Unfortunately, this calendar would credit the image to a ‘Peter Mann’ - a rare case of robbing Paul to pay Peter! :-0)
Storm Arwen - Shooting the Breeze
Deteriorating weather conditions toward the end of our Cornish break both prevented extensive photo opportunities, and opened the door to a dramatic final challenge. The driver for this was the arrival of Storm Arwen, which had prompted my Met Office colleagues to issue an amber wind warning for much of the south-west (and indeed, a rare red warning elsewhere in the UK).
There were times when simply walking the dogs from our holiday home seemed challenging enough, whipped as we were by driving rain and hail. But to sign off from a photographic perspective, I decided to return to Botallack just as high tide beckoned and the overnight amber warning (hopefully) abated, to see whether I could capture breaking storm waves lashing the mine buildings.
It would have been nice to re-create my earlier composition at Botallack (see Twilight Challenge #2), to directly contrast conditions before and during the gales… yet I knew that this would be impossibly dangerous second time around, with both figure and tripod liable to be flung from the clifftop.
As it was, just being present under such circumstances had the feel of an adventure. Despite being a Saturday morning at a prime tourist location, there was only one other vehicle in the car park (which predictably belonged to a fellow photographer; our attempt at comparing notes was largely lost to the roar of the wind, or perhaps the “din of the tin”!).
The actual photoshoot was necessarily basic… it had to be done handheld, lying on wet, bobbly ground for stability against the elements. I was also shooting at a fast shutter speed (1/1000th of a second), both to freeze the breakers and to counteract the constant buffeting of the camera. Shortly after taking up position, I was sent scurrying for the shelter of my car by a stinging flurry of hail, where I thawed numb fingers before trying it all again.
I must admit that the resulting images - basically the same composition repeated - were not technically great. The sea and scenery were savagely impressive, yet ocean spray and drizzly rain (at least preferable to hail!) quickly fogged the lens, leading to a vaguely fuzzy effect even after persistent wiping (then Lightroom de-hazing). Still, I wouldn’t have been anywhere else in that moment… with or without a killer shot, it was worth it all for the experience! :-)
Storm Arwen lashes Botallack (27th Nov 2021)
A Note on Safety (hopefully common sense, but worth emphasising!): I should point out that I didn’t venture near the actual waves, which are clearly lethal in this frenzied state. (A zoom lens is your friend in such a context!) Cliffs and steep, slippery ground should also be treated with extreme caution during storms and high winds (hence the avoidance of my earlier “rock perch”).
Obviously, the dangers associated with weather warnings are not restricted to the coast. During my short return drive across the barren neck of land between St. Just and Penzance, a bedraggled traffic officer directed me around a crumpled car which had recently been driven or blown from the road. Documenting the waves is all very well, but there are times when it’s good to get back to the great indoors! :-0
Stay safe, everyone, and see you all in 2022! ;-)
For a selection of earlier (pre-2021) imagery, please see my 2020 Gallery or my photo archive pages, Hills & History and Boat-Trips & Composites.
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