Portreath, Cornwall

A couple of images from Portreath, Cornwall England. Taken in mid-October 2021.

—Stepen G. Hipperson—

A few more boats

A few more boats in the harbour at Lyme Regis.  The main difficulty is the complexity of the detail, trying to work a reasonable composition without too much peripheral information and yet keeping sufficient to give the context I wanted.

——Stephen——

Cannon

——-Stephen——

Calm Sea 2

What did I say in my previous ‘Calm Sea’ post…. maybe the North Sea is calmer than I give it credit for.

As a matter of interest, the contrived composition is deliberate – I waited for the small white ripple of the gently breaking surf to reach just the point it has.  You may find the small patch of white is the thing that pulls your eye.  Looking at the post, you will see that little patch of white, annoying isn’t it?  Small patches of white are ‘dangerous’ in images, especially if they are not part of your subject/composition – they will draw your eye.  In this case, I feel, the little patch of white balances the heavy post, effectively legitimising the negative space and drawing your eye into the picture.

Calm Sea

Like any sea, the North Sea can be a cruel place, the life of many a fisherman has been lost.  In the old days, in my late teens and early 20s, I was quite a keen beach fisherman and I’ve fished in all sorts of weather, but I think this is the calmest I’ve seen it – though ‘calmness’ only applies to the state of the swell and surf.  Just as dangerous, though all but invisible to the casual glance, is the speed of the tide running along the coast – it can rip through at a significant rate – because of this, I’ve never chosen to swim in the sea along the East Coast.

Very dark seaweed covers the foreshore in this spot – it is very, very slippery.

——-Stephen——-

 

Another Holiday Image

 

I just really liked the shape of the distant island through the mist.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have a longer lens – it would have been nice to have been able to ‘zoom in’ on just the island, sea and sky (don’t think my file has enough pixels to make it worthwhile as it is).  Fortunately, I managed to position myself using the usual thirds compositional guidelines. I was going to clone the bird out (maybe just a dot to you but it has a nice stylistic curve in a larger image), but for me it’s essential to the image.

——-Stephen——

Rock Pools For Me

 

From this sort of range the camera does give me the impression of being something MF but perhaps it’s a big dslr.

I was going to push it out to completely b&w but lost something in the toning which seemed to be essential for the sense of distance.

——-Stephen——-

If Only

——Stephen——-

Groyne 1

Despite the staining, the remains of this groyne (groin) were remarkably clean – I suspect that it was a combination of being sand blasted when the wind got up and the equivalent water/sand action when the tide was in.

For those unaware, groynes are constructed as barriers to prevent the movement of sediment.  In the case of these ones, they would be for preventing long shore drift, which is, if I recall correctly, the movement of sand/shingle along the beach/shore through tidal movements of the sea.

I can vouch for this action, as I used to do a bit of beach fishing and if you cast a heavish weight, say 5 oz + hooks, out directly in front of your, say 80 yards, you could watch the line move as the tide pulled the line/weight  down the coast.  In strong tides, leaving it long enough, would mean you would be pulling the weight/hooks out of the breakers very soon – in some tides it was impossible to ‘hold bottom’.

——–Stephen———-

At The Ready

The guy in the back of the boat is doing to fish what guy’s in the back of fishing boats do to dead fish they have caught.  The man in the water is about to act as break and offer steerage onto the shore.  (They build them tough in Yorkshire!)

——Stephen—–