Porthgwarra

Continuing the recent post about my Christmas in Cornwall I thought I'd post a couple of black & white photographs from a tiny cove just to the South of Lands End called Porthgwarra.

Porthgwarra has a great little shop which does amazing tea and cake in the summer but, sadly, it's closed over the winter months. Quite understandable as Cornwall is beautifully quiet in mid-winter with none of the maddening tourists!

Porthgwarra seascape

The photograph above was taken on a windy afternoon with heavy, grey clouds skimming across the sky and waves being blown against the shore by the strong wind. I took several images at ISO 400 trying to catch a lull in the wind; fortunately one was sharp :-) It's one of those photographs that works well large as there is huge detail in the lichen, the moss and foreground rocks.

The second photograph is a little different. To my mind it's a sunrise machine; some long forgotten machine left behind by aliens to control the sun! Well, ok, perhaps not but that's what I was thinking as I stood there waiting for the sun to rise from behind those two great protruberences!

Porthgwarra sunrise

Whilst exploring the area the preceding afternoon I noted the great shape and immediately thought it could work as a black and white. After a quick check of PhotoPills and The Photographers Ephemeris (TPE) - I can't decide which I prefer - I knew the sun would rise at just the right position on the horizon too. The following morning I got lucky as the sun rose through a bank of cloud whilst illuminating the more broken clouds above. I have a colour edit of the same image with great colours in the sky, but I prefer the simplicity of the black and white.

Andy