Everyone photographs the coast in August. The pictures worth having are made in February.
There is a version of Cornwall that exists on postcards: flat blue sky, turquoise water, a beach at midday. It is real, it happens for about six weeks a year, and it is the least interesting light the county produces.
Come back in February. The sea is a different colour entirely — grey-green, sometimes almost black — and the weather moves fast enough that you can get four different skies in an afternoon. Weather is the subject as much as the landscape is.
Low winter sun stays low all day, which means you get side-light and long shadows at eleven in the morning instead of having to be up before five. For anyone with a job, that alone makes winter the practical season.
The harbours are working rather than decorative. Boats being repaired, nets on the quay, nobody queueing for an ice cream. There are photographs there about what the place is for, rather than what it looks like.
Practicalities matter more than usual. Salt spray will get on your front element within minutes on an exposed headland, so bring more cloths than you think and check the glass constantly. Know your tide times — the wave that catches people out is never the one they are watching.
Most of our Cornwall students end up preferring the winter sessions, which surprises them and does not surprise us.
Everyone photographs the coast in August. The pictures worth having are made in February.
A straight answer to the question we get asked more than any other, usually about a lens that costs more than the course.
That little screen is lying to you, politely. Here is what it is hiding and how to stop being caught out by it.