Of schools and other stuff

St Ives harbour low tide 50 minutes before sunrise

I have been away. I am now back albeit somewhat jaded having spent a week in St Ives (Cornwall).

Now, sometimes it takes me a while to cotton on to the ways of the wily (as in coyote) and the penny dropped when Mrs O was in need of a Cornwall fix, she likes a fix now and again and Cornwall always scores. Sadly we could not get into our usual haunt on the South coast but a place in St Ives was vouched for by one of her chums. ‘Book it’ I said but on the proviso that I at least drive down overnight. That is the one of the ‘schools things’ that I had cottoned onto. For a journey that has route planners auditioning for Christmas cracker joke writers stating 6 hours 36 minutes – wait for it – ‘without traffic’ – when in the bejaysus has there ever been no traffic in and out of Cornwall or down the A12 , or around the M25 I ask you?

Well we sprinted down there in a 00:30 dash and arrived in St Ives kicking our heels at 08:30. Not bad but yes, you guessed it, we had to kick our heels until 16:00 to take over the ‘penthouse’. ‘Let’s do Land’s End – we should be able to get something there and take the wiggly waggly road back along the North coast?’  Bad move dear reader, bad move. I had forgotten just how grim the Land’s End experience was. Last time was in 1979 and I swear it was grim then but it really has got grimmer. Shite is a word that comes to mind so do yourselves a favour and give it a wide berth. Two things learned from schools stuff then. Night driving is a good thing, grockle attractions are not. Remember that.

One of the things I had tasked myself with was to get schooled on multi-layer panorama making and what better place to test out the rules of parallax than in a harbour full of boats and stuff.

Taken yesterday morning about ten minutes after sunrise, this is a multi-layer panorama made up of 16 images. Not every morning was like this though. Some were grim but it was worth falling out of bed at 05:30 each morning to test the light.

St Ives harbour boats and sunlit houses ten minutes after sunrise

 

St Ives harbour low tide 50 minutes before sunrise

 

On the first dawn shoot here on the Sunday morning I happened upon a fellow grockle out to catch the dawn and astonishingly he had travelled down from Suffolk also. Such is the way with destinations. You never know who you will bump into. We met most mornings to chat whilst I attempted to make more panoramas and on only showery morning I had retreated to the shelter to make some images that were going nowhere and Lakenheath as I shall call him and I were chatting either side of the harbour wall when a woman popped her head around the corner and said ‘The dolphins are on this side’. Well, how marvellous was that. Although the camera was in my hand I did not even contemplate making images. It was a joy to watch the school weave through the fishing boats that had set out earlier. Such a delight to see their arched backs and dorsal fins breaking the golden rays of light as the sun rose over Godrevy Lighthouse. Every morning this woman comes down to the harbour to look out for the schools and I am so glad she shared that experience with Lakenheath and me.

Talking schools, there was a surf school just below us and surfers are a subject I have never contemplated before. On our first evening it was blowing a stiff force 5-6 Northerly straight onto the beach and the tide was in with quite a swell and a mist of salt-driven haze blasting onshore. Not good camera conditions and I had left mine back in the ‘penthouse’ but as we gazed at the swell  and  a fit chap who was doing some form of hydrotherapy exercises in the surf, two very long sleek seals sped parallel  to the beach in front of him in the translucent pale jade water. A delight that we never experienced again but then I got into where to wait just as the surfers do to make some images and this is another from yesterday morning – yes it took me a week to learn what to do.

surfers at Portmeor beach

Then it was a question of lessons learned from the trip down and 24 hours after getting up to make the image of the harbour I switched off the engine outside our house. Another epic eight and a half hour run. I fell into bed exhausted and missed the first sunrise of 7 days, but hey I have a few in the bag yet to be published and yes night time runs are the only way to travel to and from Cornwall (out of season). I hope Lakenheath had a good train trip home.

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