The West Ring

I don’t know whether to be disappointed or laugh at my naivety.

Let me explain. Our holiday cottage in Cornwall was booked long before the 350D arrived and blew me away with its potential. In the weeks before the holiday I read a load of back issues of a variety of photographic magazines (thanks go again to Stephen ). Some of the pictures that really grabbed my attention were the coastal scenes, particularly sunrise/sunset ones. So, I was really looking forward to coming back with some stunning shots in the bag.

It turns out it’s not quite that simple. First time out the only thing that I tried was the rain cover on my new camera bag. (I’m loving the usability of my Lowepro Slingshot 200 BTW.) The following day the early evening looked promising – dry and not too much cloud so I grabbed my tripod and set off on the long walk to the beach… 250 metres away

I was very conscious of composition because the beach at Sennen is really quite large, and therefore quite likely to appear flat and uninteresting in a picture. Luckily it does have quite a selection of large rocks on the shoreline at one point. With the sun setting behind me I was able to use a couple of them as foreground interest as they were quite nicely lit (click for the larger version):

I think everyone who’s seen the (unprocessed) holiday pics has has liked that one so I guess I shouldn’t be so critical!

The other thing I was expecting/hoping for was that as the sun settled below the horizon it would light the underside of the clouds. It was looking great until it dropped behind a narrow band of cloud right on the horizon! However, I did manage a couple of shots whilst it was setting. I took one shot exposing for the ground and one for the sky with the intention of combining them in Photoshop. So here it is, my first attempt:

Again, I think I’m perhaps being a little too critical (or wishful perhaps?) as that’s not a bad shot, but it’s not magical.

The following day I deliberately planned things so that we’d visit The Lizard late on in the afternoon. I did this so that I could go to Kynance Cove near sunset as this is reputed to be the most beautiful part of the Cornish coastline. Sod’s Law: the tide was in and the cloud blocked the sun as it set!

So what have I learnt other than to not get my expectations up? Well, I think I can see why people use sun compasses. I didn’t realise how much the time of year affects where the sun sets. I can now imagine finding a great location and coming back at a different time of year in order to “place” the sun in a better position. Studying the tide times is also useful. And I can’t believe how harsh a critic of my own photos I am! Oh well, hopefully I can turn that into a positive, learn from it, and take magnificent shots in the future!

If anyone thinks”I can do better than that” in a post processing stylee the please shout. I’d quite happily pass on the RAW files so you can work your magic. This would be on the understanding that you’d have to explain what/why/how you did what you did though!