Raves & Rants . . from Penzance

F8 and Be There The phrase 'f8 and be there' is an old press photography adage explaining that the sure-fire way to get a great photo is to set your camera aperture to f8, and make sure you're in exactly the right place when that dramatic something happens!  Although 'f8 & be there' is a simplistic aphorism, a witty joke giving you only two parameters to get a great shot, those two central ideas can be used by photographers of all skill levels to achieve a good result.   For landscape photographers this means finding the right spot to set up your camera & tripod, at exactly the right time of day.  As you know, sunsets happen over the last half hour of the day, so you need to time your photo trip to be in place and ready for that half-hour.  An hour early and the scene is too bright, an hour later and you've missed all the fun.  Timing is key. As is being in the right spot. The luxury of planning where to be is something that press...

As ever it's been a while since I posted here, so 'Hello!' and thanks for checking back. There has been busyness in the photo world with a variety of local shoots. Artist of the Month shoots for Cornwall Today magazine always provide interesting people, frequently with amazing art works, and I feel privileged to be able to photograph this aspect of the creative Cornish life.  Mary Mabbutt, Cornwall Today, May 2014 Rachael Kantaris, Cornwall Today, June 2014 I usually shoot quite a few pictures when we (writer Alex Wade and I) visit the artists, of which sometimes only three will make it on to the printed page, so it's great for the other images get an outing too. You can now find the rest of the shoot in the magazine's new Artists Gallery . So much for culture, for God's sake tell us about the extreme sports! I hear you cry. Well the surfing end of the extreme sports spectrum is alive and well in Cornwall, with Spring time blue swells aplenty thu...

I had been out on a windy, rainy, grey and overcast day to do an interior shoot. Naturally the interior had to have a 'sunny, summery feel'.  Presumably that was the reason it was commissioned in mid December then. Plus it was incredibly urgent, needed immediate post-processing and sending to the client immediately after that, if not sooner. A-Frames  So much, so normal. But I knew there was a decent swell running which, if the correct bit of shelter from a difficult wind could be tracked down, would undoubtedly turn up some decent looking waves. With only a brief window of opportunity due to the shortness of the days at this time of year, looking was all I had time to do. Empty, but no time to surf it The First Law of Surfing being what it is, I presently came across several sheltered spots which were firing. Solo pilot Having driven around looking at all the places I couldn't surf, I ended up in St Ives with just enough daylight left to make the in...

Yesterday was a fantastic day down here in Cornwall, the second sunny one after a massive storm that smashed sections of Penzance promenade, the Jubilee Pool and Newlyn Green. On Sunday the promenade was almost as crowded as on Pirate Day with locals and visitors alike inspecting the damage to the prom and pool.  A sort of Dunkirk spirit pervaded the atmosphere. Waves in the 'ride-able' size now  At Sennen it was the same story, the cove filled with half-term holiday makers strolling in the sun, having a look at what all the fuss was about in the national press when '200ft Waves' were reported crashing into the cliffs at Sennen.  Today there were decent surf-able waves, the sunshine making Sennen look more like its normal inspiring self. Apart from the sand, that is. The bed rock of a beach There is a distinct lack of sand on the beach at the moment, the giant scouring swells of the last weeks having shifted it out into the bay, an oceanic action repeat...

It was morning, and work timings had unusually left me free for a couple of hours. That would normally mean the surf was onshore, or blown out, or flat or something, adhering as it usually does to the First Law of Surfing . But not today. Blue Rinse Today looked like a bleak, grey, midwinter day with (from a brief glimpse of the sea on the school run) a weak looking swell and the wind threatening to go onshore. But I had time. Time to take pictures. So I trawled along the coast looking for surf or seascape images, but found very little. Until I came to the reef. Which, oddly, seemed to be firing. Fryer  Several locals and some of the Aggy crew were making the most of a small day before the expected 'Hercules II' storm at the weekend. An acceptable peak Empty Dan Joel Mole getting critical Captain Fryer on a set wave A chill wind cut through the grey pall that hung over the break, warmed slightly by the relaxed atmosphere. Styling ...

Luckily, summer arrived this year, immediately stymieing the 'It's so grey and rainy and cold' critics. Of course, up to this point, no one was quite sure if summer would put in an appearance, but as you know, we got hit by a heatwave. And no sooner did it arrive than the critics cry changed to 'It's too hot and muggy, bring back the grey'. During the heatwave I was at home, stuck in front of the computer, editing video footage from a two week surf trip to France . Apart from when I was out making more video of things in another hot zone - of which more in a later post. The video footage, the two week stuff, consisted of nearly 100Gb of clips and stills, totalled nearly 10,000 files, and has taken (alongside PR, press and editorial work) the last three months to condense into a 45 minute promo film.  Sifting stills, naming clips, timing them to music and the myriad finer points of tweaking footage into a narrative is massive multi-tasking job for someone mor...

Dear Reader As ever, it has been a long time since I last typed words into the ether, however this time I have a proper excuse. A right royal one, even.  Earlier in the year I took a call about photographing some people who would be visiting the area later in the year. 'Would love to,'  I said, 'Who are they?' 'Umm, we can't say at the moment', the caller replied. We talked some more and then, even having sworn me to secrecy, they would still only give away that 'They are an eminent, high profile and newsworthy couple'.  As it turned out, the eminent personages were none other than HRH The Queen and Prince Philip. Unfortunately, the date they were coming conflicted with a date I already had booked on a ferry for a two week surf trip/photo shoot to France. Should I blow out the trip and get an HRH portrait or two in my portfolio - by Royal Appointment?  What a quandary - photograph the Queen or go on a surf trip?  What would you do? 'Can...

There's such a lot of imagery and video coming out of Teahupoo, the massively challenging reef break in Tahiti, that I thought I'd keep adding things below as I find them. This is the biggest swell to show up since the Code Red swell of 2011, and the world's elite/ craziest big wave surfers have shown up to the Code Red II party. SurfLine's Fantastic crop of photos Wave of the Day Yesterday:   Mark Healy, pic by Ted Grambeau Raimana, pic by Shane Dorian Koa Rothman, pic by More photos from yesterday here: Teahupoo Photos In the video below you can see the green bottom of a boat getting caught out and flipped over the falls on the inside. Hopefully no injuries, but that would have been a nasty wipeout. Tomorrow is supposed to be even bigger, keep an eye on the Teahupoo Live Cam More photos of the scene here:  Teahupoo Code Red

Unsurprisingly, the Canary Isles are mostly dry and sun-drenched, set, as they are, on a similar latitude to the Sahara Desert. And perhaps a perfect holiday destination for a surfing Brit since their location just off the coast of Africa attracts all north Atlantic swells. As a soubriquet 'The Hawaii of Europe' is thus well earned, though these volcanic islands are less lush than their Pacific brethren, having had their last eruption a mere 300 years ago.  From a choice of seven larger islands - Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, Tenerife, La Gomera, La Palma and El Hierro, long time surf buddy Clyde and I picked the easternmost island, Lanzarote, which, I was told, had been an entirely dry and perfectly sun-drenched destination for the past two years.  Until, of course, the day we touched down under dark storm clouds and pouring rain.  Mind you, we had landed in Fuerteventura. For a run down of the following seven complex, misery inducing, lost surf opportunity h...

Alas, words elude me, and seem to have done so for a couple of months.  In fact over this time words have been escaping from me but only as speech rather than as written or typed examples of the form.  At one point during the recent festivities they started escaping from me in song form at the same time as a catchy tune, which I'd rather taken a fancy to, came on the pub jukebox.   My pleasure in voicing the words was immediately arrested by my companions with their use of other words like 'off-key' or 'tone deaf' and even 'droning'.  Harsh, cutting, not to say painful orismology , I was forced to shout 'Them's hurtin' words!' at the undeniable truth. Perhaps not floods of words, but certainly floods of water have been the order of many days, and nights though, with last year being the second wettest on record for the UK, though apparently not for Cornwall. Some of my photos got published when floods hit Newlyn recently. I did a lot o...