Footprints to the West
We left it rather too late this winter to make full use of the big council car park on what I always think of as the other side. My favourite beach you see, is flanked by twin car parks. On the east side is the National Trust car park, free to members of course. In fact we've now joined the seventy-thousand other hard of spending members of the National Trust for Scotland with home addresses in England as we get the Togs' rate; which allows us entry to English sites and saves us enough for a couple of lunch outings over the course of a year. So I always park on the east side. It doesn't cost me anything and it leaves me within comfortable walking distance of the lighthouse, something especially useful on those bitter January afternoons when I'm heading back to the car in the darkness. On the west side is the council car park. Both of them exact eye raising amounts during the busy season from visitors who aren't National Trust members, but throughout the winter the council allow users to park on their site free of charge. On 1 April each year this suddenly changes to an hourly rate that sets me ranting about the UK in comparison to the extensive free parking we always manage to find in Portugal, Spain and France. Why we hadn't ever made more use of this before now I can't really say, but in the week before the end of March we suddenly "discovered" the big almost empty space and visited several times - just to be sure we'd maximised our freeloading opportunities. There's nothing quite like pulling up in front of an unobstructed sea view in a big red van, opening the side door and putting the kettle on. In fact the first thing I always do is make a cup of tea (or coffee if I haven't had my daily fix yet), just because I can. I've found few things more liberating in life.
Moving to this side of main stretch of beach opens up an entire new world to the west. For a mile or more the dunes roll away towards the Hayle estuary where Ali's father once almost managed to drown himself many years ago. Quite how he's still with us at 87 and counting considering all of the various escapades he's managed during his long life remains a mystery - but that's another tale. I'm not sure he ever learned to swim so quite what he was doing in there in the first place is another tale of the unexplained. The sands here are often lonely, especially at low tide with only a few places allowing an easy descent from the dunes, and looking west there is usually a kind of haze in the distance. be it sand, sea spray or the approach of some good old fashioned Cornish mizzle mixed into the formula. Even without sunlight that haze is a draw in itself in fact. It's a world I've largely ignored in favour of the rival attractions of lighthouse and the Red River that runs across Gwithian Beach and into the sea. Finding a focal point has usually been the challenge that has found me seeking refuge around the easy and the obvious, but it's a place that deserves attention, and recently it's been reminding me that I've left it largely unexplored. There are a couple of sizeable pull ins before the car park itself - maybe I'll try my chances there again before the summer hordes arrive.
Those of you who pour yourselves another cup of coffee and take a few moments to read the rambling and not always focused essays that accompany the images I post may have recently picked up on my regular annoyance at the sudden appearance of footprints (or more often pawprints) in a composition that I've been eyeing up. More than once in the last few months has an errant dog bounded enthusiastically across the empty stretch of sand on my viewfinder, and more than once have I felt myself tightening as I reined in the inner angry old man that lurks ever close to the calm veneer in such moments. "Sorry!" cry the more empathetic owners as they trample their own course across the once pristine sand. "It's ok," comes the no doubt irritated sounding response. It's not really ok of course, but there's little you can do unless you want to buy your own beach a million miles from humanity and ban everyone else from using it. I'd buy a big boat but then I'd have to go back to work to pay for it. When you've been standing here for quite some time waiting for the light to do its thing before taking the shot, it really is frustrating to see your unsullied landscape laid to waste by an over eager Spaniel.
But then again in other moments, what usually sends me sliding at breakneck speed down the helter-skelter of despair turns out to be the perfect addition to the composition. Somewhere in Mads Peter Iversen's wonderful archive there's a shot of his partner Sophie standing atop a sandy undulation under a brooding sky, a series of lonely footprints leading to her, the focal point of the image. If that's not a good example of where those tracks suddenly make a shot then I don't know what is. In this shot, the prints left behind by the lady and her two dogs are only just about noticeable, but they jumped out at me when I looked at the image on the big screen. Even though you could zoom in and find the sand littered with all sorts of evidence of humans and their canine companions, it was the marks left by the happy trio below the opaque bluish-grey shroud that stood out to me at least. Those soft blues against the sand also caught my eye - Mother Nature has a knack of combining colours I so often think. They were walking in the direction of that sketchy Hayle Estuary so I hope they had their water wings at the ready, just in case. Best not fall in there.
There are lots of possibilities among those dunes, lying in wait for me to discover them, although I refuse to pay eye watering sums for the privilege of parking right next to them - as Ali always says, "we didn't retire in our fifties on what we earned by having holes in our pockets." In fact I've already found a composition I'd never known of before that leads straight back towards the lighthouse. Whether I've produced the shot that brings out the best of it remains to be seen - maybe it'll be the next post.
Have a great Easter if that's your thing - I'll bet my chocolate egg didn't cost much. Wouldn't surprise me if she waits until they're forty-nine pence in the bargain bucket on Tuesday in fact. In which case I'd like ten of them please..............
Footprints to the West
We left it rather too late this winter to make full use of the big council car park on what I always think of as the other side. My favourite beach you see, is flanked by twin car parks. On the east side is the National Trust car park, free to members of course. In fact we've now joined the seventy-thousand other hard of spending members of the National Trust for Scotland with home addresses in England as we get the Togs' rate; which allows us entry to English sites and saves us enough for a couple of lunch outings over the course of a year. So I always park on the east side. It doesn't cost me anything and it leaves me within comfortable walking distance of the lighthouse, something especially useful on those bitter January afternoons when I'm heading back to the car in the darkness. On the west side is the council car park. Both of them exact eye raising amounts during the busy season from visitors who aren't National Trust members, but throughout the winter the council allow users to park on their site free of charge. On 1 April each year this suddenly changes to an hourly rate that sets me ranting about the UK in comparison to the extensive free parking we always manage to find in Portugal, Spain and France. Why we hadn't ever made more use of this before now I can't really say, but in the week before the end of March we suddenly "discovered" the big almost empty space and visited several times - just to be sure we'd maximised our freeloading opportunities. There's nothing quite like pulling up in front of an unobstructed sea view in a big red van, opening the side door and putting the kettle on. In fact the first thing I always do is make a cup of tea (or coffee if I haven't had my daily fix yet), just because I can. I've found few things more liberating in life.
Moving to this side of main stretch of beach opens up an entire new world to the west. For a mile or more the dunes roll away towards the Hayle estuary where Ali's father once almost managed to drown himself many years ago. Quite how he's still with us at 87 and counting considering all of the various escapades he's managed during his long life remains a mystery - but that's another tale. I'm not sure he ever learned to swim so quite what he was doing in there in the first place is another tale of the unexplained. The sands here are often lonely, especially at low tide with only a few places allowing an easy descent from the dunes, and looking west there is usually a kind of haze in the distance. be it sand, sea spray or the approach of some good old fashioned Cornish mizzle mixed into the formula. Even without sunlight that haze is a draw in itself in fact. It's a world I've largely ignored in favour of the rival attractions of lighthouse and the Red River that runs across Gwithian Beach and into the sea. Finding a focal point has usually been the challenge that has found me seeking refuge around the easy and the obvious, but it's a place that deserves attention, and recently it's been reminding me that I've left it largely unexplored. There are a couple of sizeable pull ins before the car park itself - maybe I'll try my chances there again before the summer hordes arrive.
Those of you who pour yourselves another cup of coffee and take a few moments to read the rambling and not always focused essays that accompany the images I post may have recently picked up on my regular annoyance at the sudden appearance of footprints (or more often pawprints) in a composition that I've been eyeing up. More than once in the last few months has an errant dog bounded enthusiastically across the empty stretch of sand on my viewfinder, and more than once have I felt myself tightening as I reined in the inner angry old man that lurks ever close to the calm veneer in such moments. "Sorry!" cry the more empathetic owners as they trample their own course across the once pristine sand. "It's ok," comes the no doubt irritated sounding response. It's not really ok of course, but there's little you can do unless you want to buy your own beach a million miles from humanity and ban everyone else from using it. I'd buy a big boat but then I'd have to go back to work to pay for it. When you've been standing here for quite some time waiting for the light to do its thing before taking the shot, it really is frustrating to see your unsullied landscape laid to waste by an over eager Spaniel.
But then again in other moments, what usually sends me sliding at breakneck speed down the helter-skelter of despair turns out to be the perfect addition to the composition. Somewhere in Mads Peter Iversen's wonderful archive there's a shot of his partner Sophie standing atop a sandy undulation under a brooding sky, a series of lonely footprints leading to her, the focal point of the image. If that's not a good example of where those tracks suddenly make a shot then I don't know what is. In this shot, the prints left behind by the lady and her two dogs are only just about noticeable, but they jumped out at me when I looked at the image on the big screen. Even though you could zoom in and find the sand littered with all sorts of evidence of humans and their canine companions, it was the marks left by the happy trio below the opaque bluish-grey shroud that stood out to me at least. Those soft blues against the sand also caught my eye - Mother Nature has a knack of combining colours I so often think. They were walking in the direction of that sketchy Hayle Estuary so I hope they had their water wings at the ready, just in case. Best not fall in there.
There are lots of possibilities among those dunes, lying in wait for me to discover them, although I refuse to pay eye watering sums for the privilege of parking right next to them - as Ali always says, "we didn't retire in our fifties on what we earned by having holes in our pockets." In fact I've already found a composition I'd never known of before that leads straight back towards the lighthouse. Whether I've produced the shot that brings out the best of it remains to be seen - maybe it'll be the next post.
Have a great Easter if that's your thing - I'll bet my chocolate egg didn't cost much. Wouldn't surprise me if she waits until they're forty-nine pence in the bargain bucket on Tuesday in fact. In which case I'd like ten of them please..............