A black and white weekend...
21st February 2011
Having taken relatively few photos in recent months I really enjoyed a visit to Chapel Porth, a bay on the North Cornish coast near St.Agnes. This is quite a magical place - not least because it has an amazing little cafe in the National Trust car park that serves fantastic baguettes and "Hedgehog" ice creams (not for the faint hearted)! There is very little sand when the tide is in, however when the tide goes out there is miles of beautiful sand.
Chapel Porth is surrounded by old tin mines and their famous engine houses. I can't help but feel a particularly special bond to this place as one of my great Granddads was a mine Captain who tragically died in a mining accident not far from Chapel Porth. Almost certainly the most photogenic engine house is Wheal Coates standing proud on the edge of the cliffs just a few minutes walk along the South-West coastal path to the east of Chapel Porth. It's amazing to think that less than a century ago Wheal Coates was a working tin mine, it closed in 1913. The standard shot of Wheal Coates is taken from just a little further up the cliffside looking down with the sea in the background. I have seen so many variants of this photo on the covers of all sorts of magazines and newspapers, it is practically a photographic cliche (that's not to say that I wouldn't mind my own version one day!).
On this occasion I was trying to capture something a little more unique by shooting from the beach looking up towards the cliffs. It was a very strange day, being very misty and whilst I was tucking into my "late breakfast special" baguette (yum!) I wasn't sure if this was going to be a wasted trip from a photography perspective. However, with practically the last mouthful the Sun emerged from the clouds and started to burn off some of the mist. It was a spring low tide but it had already turned and I knew I only had about an hour to get my shots.
My first shot is my favourite with sand, a rock pool, mussels clinging to the rocks and of course Wheal Coates in the background. The brightness of the engine house contrasts well with the dark foreground cliffs. For my second shot I was walking around the many puddles in the sand and spotted that it was possible to get a reflection of the engine house in the shallow pools. You can see large version of these photos in the Cornwall gallery.
