Photographs of Cornwall

Caerthillian Cove - digital photograph

Photographing locations

Finding locations to take photographs can be a time consuming job if you just go out to collect photographs from everywhere you visit. What am i talking about I hear you ask?

Rather than going out, armed with your camera, finger at the ready, consider taking time to find locations and make a note of what will make that particular location work well for you. Note this down and take advantage of situations when they arise.

It’s a bit like hunting I guess. You first learn about your “quarry” for us the location. Learn how it reacts to different conditions, there are many variables to have in your list, here are a few:

• Tide - will tide height show more interesting detail. Can you get to areas to improve angles on your shots, will a longer looking beach add more to the photograph.
• Cloud - nice strong clouds will help frame many shots and give them more depth. However, sometimes a cloudless shot may well be perfect for the image you are trying to capture, have a look at this cloudless sky at Hayle in Cornwall
• Wind - adding texture to water scenes, movement to trees and flags, storms produce some of the most dramatic images full of action and emotion.
• Mist - Shaded trees enveloped in mist produce fantastic photographs and can be soft and comforting or harsh and cold, it’s up to you!
• Sun - The angle of the sun is possibly the most important single factor for daylight photography. Direct over head sun is harsh, bleaching and flattens images. Early or late sun contains warmer colours and casts long, interesting shadows, catching rocks and other items to add interest to your image. this effect can be seen in the image here on the cap of the cliff on the right hand side of the image.

So, you have the idea. Learn about what makes your location work and when you get the right combination, hop in the car, take a walk and capture the image portraying the picture you want to show.

After a while you will get to better understand this system and you will have lots of options open to you that you can take advantage of depending on the conditions that day!

Cornish Storm Clouds

Strong sun and Clouds in Cornwall

Burning amber’s, yellows and blacks make this impressive winter sky line over the west of Cornwall.

The textures of the cloud across the top and bottom of this photograph, frame the dying sun, as it peaks from behind the cloud strata’s.

I really like the top level cloud, licking the top of the image. It reminds me of a traditional oil painting, Full of texture, depth and tones.

Please click here to purchase this image - Amber Skies over Cornwall

Tehidy in HD

Tehidy House

This fine country house is Located between Camborne and the North Cornish coast.

Tehidy nestles amongst great woodland, amongst lovely walks, a cafe and some lovely wildlife, including the chance to feed squirrels and ducks with your family.

The Basset family once owned the house, using the money from tin mining to establish it and add to its grandeur

To buy this photograph of Tehidy House follow this link

A photograph of Breage Side in Porthleven

Breage Side, Porthleven

This black and white photograph of Breage side in Porthleven was captured with a long exposure to capture any light that was available and smooth out the water, leaving a little texture. There are a few artifacts on the image. An artifact is unwanted information captured with the image. The reason for this is my camera is not great in very low light conditions, and struggles. However, the concept of the photograph is there and I will work on this capture to improve it…… It will be back here soon!!

Falmouth with heavy skies

Falmouth photograph

This digital photograph of falmouth was taken on an overcast day. The cloud was looking really heavy and full of texture. it almost looked like a scene from the wizard of Oz, when the witch gets squashed under the house!!

I have used a gradient map behind the image to tone the sky to increase the impact of it. This was achieved using photo shop CS3 to digitally enhance the image.

Porthleven - Black and White photograph

Black and White photograph of Porthleven

An interesting photograph of the peir at Porthleven. The sea spray has softened the focus as well as the apature being set to around f3.5 to reduce the distant focus.

I really like the way the clouds and the hard line of the pier take you into the photograph, leading the eye into the middle distance. As well as the contrast of the white sea spume against the dark granite structure of the pier.

This photograph is pretty much off camera. The only area I have really adjusted is the clouds. I dodged and burned over them a little bit, to increase the darkness and contrast on the bottom of them.

There are a few more pictures of Porthleven here,

• Porthleven photograph in Colour
• Storm at Porthleven

I would love for you to comment on this post and tell me your thoughts about this photograph, or any others on the Digital-scene blog.

Cornwall a digital STILL

Cornwall, a field of view

This photograph was taken of a field overlooking Loe Bar, near Helston and Porthleven. It was taken at the end of the summer while I was taking some of my grass shots

The depth of field is interesting. It was focused into the first third of the image using around an f3 aperture, which decreases the depth of field, throwing some of the background and fore ground out of focus. I also like the way the grass contrasts with the background fields.

I was not sure if I sould publish this photograph initially. But after looking carefully at it I decided to go for it. What do you think?

St Ives in black and white

St Ives in Digital Black and White

Here I go again, black and white seems to add so much to a photograph for me. The delicate sky, textured with a splattering of cloud then the line of houses and hotels along the St Ives harbour front seem to harmonize.

This part of Cornwall is delightful on a winters day or the best clear day and photographs very well either way.

This image has been taken straight off the camera, with only a quick crop to make it A4 and a little dodging and burning to bring out the houses and the boats. What do you think about this digital photograph??

Hayle in Cornwall

This simple image was taken today at Hayle. The photograph was taken just before midday and it just seems to go on for ever. Its simplicity is its beauty.

For October the weather today was fantastic, combined with the way I am feeling at the moment, this photo sums it all up, peace and calm!!!

Porthleven in Almost colour

A digital photograph of Porthleven

The beauty with photography and other media art work, is you can change reality to suite mood and enhance emotions or aspects to portray your vision on the world….

It is your capture and how you want to express that is up to you - know one else. It is nice when others praise your work, but also it is as nice when others argue and tell you what you did wrong, what was wrong for them. If you get an emotion from them you have effected them in some way, showing a message is getting across.

Color in Photographs

This picture of Porthleven in West Cornwall has had most of the coloured area washed out, but detail is still there in huge amounts. The photograph was taken on a bright sunny day and color was oozing from the foreground, mid-ground and sky. But for the way I felt when I processed this image I did not want that typical postcard shot, I wanted to tweak and adjust it to suit my requirements.

The colour attracts the eye along the main subject of the shot, into the photograph. This same method can work very well indeed for portrait photography.

Young boy in Colour

Bringing out the subject against a desaturated back ground allows the subject to stand out from the back ground and almost pop out of the page.

The beauty with this kind of work is the scene is still set. The image has a purpose and tells a story, yet the eye first sees the main subject, then darts and finds other areas of interest in the photograph…. It becomes a study.