Landscape Photography at Looe Island: A Sunrise Guide for the Sleep Deprived
All that remained was the small, localized tragedy of setting an alarm for 4:30 am.
To look at my portfolio, you might reasonably conclude that I am a man who views sleep as a redundant hobby. I can assure you this is not the case. My duvet is a formidable opponent, capable of pinning me down with the strength of a professional wrestler. It was only the looming, mountainous spectre of my impending credit card bill that finally goaded me out of bed.
There is something about @thephotographyshow that compels a man to rummage through the hall closet, blow a thick layer of prehistoric dust off his gear, and remember exactly why he owns a tripod in the first place. It was four days of unadulterated, wide-eyed geekery, the sort of event where people discuss sensor cleaned-ness with the intensity of theologians. I spent my time listening to the formidable Rebecca Douglas and Josh Edgoose, and clumsily wrapping my oversized paws around pieces of kit so expensive they practically glowed. If my credit card possessed a voice, I suspect it would have spent the weekend screaming in a high, thin register before eventually seeking asylum in the wallet of someone far more sensible.
In my defence, the urge to go out and photograph a landscape has been difficult to satisfy lately, mostly because Mother Nature has spent the last month suggesting quite pointedly that we all stop what we’re doing and learn how to build arks. We have endured what feels like forty days and forty nights of rain, delivered with a persistence that can only be described as "biblical."
Consequently, when the sun was finally granted a day pass to appear in public, I knew I had to act. I consulted my "shot list" a document brimming with optimism and doomed intentions, and settled on Looe Island. Now, Looe Island is one of those places that requires a celestial alignment usually reserved for the return of Halley’s Comet; you need the right light, the right tide, and a specific lack of atmospheric grumpiness. For once, the universe blinked and agreed to cooperate. The tide had curiously decided to show me mercy, and the sunrise promised to be nothing short of spectacular.
All that remained was the small, localized tragedy of setting an alarm for 4:30 am.
To look at my portfolio, you might reasonably conclude that I am a man who views sleep as a redundant hobby. I can assure you this is not the case. My duvet is a formidable opponent, capable of pinning me down with the strength of a professional wrestler. It was only the looming, mountainous spectre of my impending credit card bill that finally goaded me out of bed.
And so, here I find myself: standing on a small, damp, rocky beach in the predawn gloom, waiting for the sun to do something worth recording. I am pinning my hopes on capturing an image so undeniably "saleable" that my bank manager might be persuaded to put down the telephone and leave me in peace.
A long-exposure sunrise over Looe Island in Cornwall, featuring a vibrant pink and orange sky reflecting onto dark, wet coastal rocks. The seawater is blurred into a soft, ethereal mist as it flows around the foreground rocks, with the silhouette of St George's Island on the horizon.