Corica's photostream  

After a long hiatus due to various things I returned to taking photos last week with a weeks holiday in St Ives.

This is a part of England I've never visited before so was pleasantly surprised to find a number of pretty little coves, my favourite of which was this one at Porth Nanven.

The location stands out because it has a raised beach in the cliff, very visible due to the number of large boulders, which seem to defy gravity, jutting out of the cliff.

The boulders in this picture have gradually been washed out of the cliff, made their way down the beach over thousands of tides and are now being slowly covered by the sand.

Definitely the highlight of the trip.

To view on black flickr2.netbits.co.uk/large/photo/3806904385

On our way back from the glaciers we noticed this roadside river. Once again I've checked on the maps and cannot find a name for this horseshoe shaped waterfall, but it's unmistakable when you travel along Iceland's southern road.

This is the same river recently photographed by one of flickr's most famous uploaders - rebekka www.flickr.com/photos/rebba/3746553763/

To view on black flickr2.netbits.co.uk/large/photo/3791820022

I met up with Matt Harper at the weekend. He was kind enough to give me a guided tour of Selwick Bay and Thornwick Bay and point out where some of the less obvious spots are to set up the camera.

Matt has an encyclopedic knowledge of this coastline, so it was a pleasure to spend a couple of hours in his company getting to know a bit more about this part of Yorkshire.

Selwick Bay is Yorkshire's most easterly point and the cliffs are pricipally made up of chalk formed some 100 million-years-ago, give or take a year or two.

Chalk has been used in the foreground on this photo, and while it doesn't have the interestingly coloured minerals that some other sedimentary rocks contain around this coastline I still find chalk fascinating beacuse of how it was formed.

The formation of sandstone and shale are relatively easy to comprehend - eroded material from rivers deposited layer upon layer on the seabed. But chalk is formed from the accumulation of dead algea shells. It is estimated that it takes 30 years of algea shells to produce 1mm of chalk. The chalk layers can be up to 1000 metres thick! That makes it 30 million years (give or take a year) of continual accumulation to produce what we see today. I find this much harder to conceive because rather than the rock being compacted and eroded volcanic sediment, chalk is essentially the result of organic activity on the grandest scale imaginable.

It looks nice and smooth on photos too :-)

Oh - if you look in the top right hand corner you can just about see Matt setting up a fine array of Lee filters on his 5D.

To view on black flickr2.netbits.co.uk/large/photo/3748691145

Close to where this was taken there's a cave, where, local legend says, a hob (goblin) lives. The hob was famous for being able to cure children of coughs.

After reading about this, I was a bit reluctant to visit the Bay; but as you can see I plucked up the courage to go down the steep hill to the beach and take this sunset shot.

It's the closing date for the Landscape Photographer of the Year tomorrow and I've paid to enter five images. Currently I've entered four photos but am struggling with the final picture for submission.

I'm inclined to enter this one which is a slightly different take on the usual Bamburgh Castle shots, but wasn't 100% sure whether the wreck spoiled the overall beauty of the scene, or added some needed mystery and interest to an otherwise over-photographed scene.

Does anyone have any strong veiws?