Cornwall 2015 – Holywell Bay in the Mist

A week last Saturday was the first day of our holidays. Nothing particularly exotic, we had booked a little cottage in a picturesque part of the Cornish north coast, Holywell Bay. As seems to be the tradition, once every couple of years we go away for a week like this somewhere with Hannah’s parents. There are plenty of really enjoyable things about these holidays, family, relaxation, sunshine, all the usual enjoyable holiday attributes… But for me, there is of course the added bonus of photography.

After a good few hours in the car travelling the 225 miles from Worcester, hampered slightly, but not entirely by the mass air filter sensor in our Audi failing and cutting the car to 2000 rpm (damned bloody cars; forever giving me headaches), we eventually arrived at our destination. Despite the weather being a little patchy with rain on the way down, was glorious sunshine… … Oh no, wait, it wasn’t… You remember I said we were on holiday in Cornwall, England? You got it, what we actually arrived to was thick fog! Ok, so being generous we could call it sea mist, but it was thick dark sea mist.

Whilst no one is particularly phased by this mist – we are after all, on holiday – I was pretty excited by the opportunity to take some photos in it. Holywell bay, as it turns out has a stunning beach with vast dunes to explore, so Leica iiic with 28mm Voigtlander lens in one hand, and the Leica M6 with 50mm Summicron in my bag that’s exactly what I did.

Once over the dunes we made it onto a rather bleak, but nonetheless stunning beach.

Once down there couldn’t resist climbing the cliffs. I must admit, it felt a little precarious in the mist, I couldn’t see what I was climbing as I walked to the top, but the view was worth it!

Back at the bottom, I took a shot through the ravine between the cliff and the rock I’d just climbed

It wasn’t exactly traditional summer holiday beach weather, so we quite quickly made our way back to the house. I’d shot all of the above with the Voigtlander 28mm f/3.5 color skopar. It was a great start to the holiday with a camera I intended to shoot a great deal with. I was already feeling more comfortable with the focal length than I had for a while, but not quite ready to commit to it fully. Because of this, I’d taken the Leica M6 and 50mm. This next shot was the only shot of merit I took with it though.

All in all, not a shabby start… A misty one maybe, but I had high hopes that the weather would pick up. Poor weather aside, I did take one other photo on the first day. This was shot in the pub around the corner with the M6 and 35mm Summilux borrowed off the M60

All of the above was shot with Portra 400, developed and scanned by UK Film Lab, then tweaked a little by me.

Day two coming soon…

Thanks for reading

Hamish

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