The first of our daffodils flowered on Ocober 24th !!!! I thought that the first week of November last year was good. We still have a lot of the summer flowers in bloom, our Autumns certainly seem to be getting milder.

Let's hope that we are as successful with the rest of the bulbs that we planted, although Trewoon's family of badgers have dug up quite a few.

As many of you are interested in photography I thought that I would share with you an article written by Phil Pook of A Way of Seeing.

With around one month to go before we are in Poldhu Cove, Cornwall. I am preparing my thoughts ideas and photographic kit. In recent years, the cove has become one of my favourite places to photograph Seascape and Coastal images. We will be there early/mid November staying very close to the Cove, some 50 meters from the beach, in “The Chocolate Box Cottage” (yes, that really is it’s name, and how!) on the Trewoon headland directly above the Cove where I can afford to wait for the light and when it looks good, wonder down through the gardens or roll the car down into the cove.

This year, I hope to be sharing some of my photographic skills with Nicola and John Wright at Trewoon in a workshop idea I am developing. It will be great to share my love of seascape and coastal photography with Nicola and John, both keen wildlife photographers, in turn it will be great to swap ideas and techniques regarding our love of capturing different aspects of the Cove.

I have been capturing images from around this coast for a few years now so I am thrilled that Nicola liked my images of around Poldhu Cove so much that she has hung LTD Prints Exhibitions in all the cottages she has there, if you have experienced the standard of finish Nicola sets within her holidaycottages, you will understand how thrilled I am.

So to capturing the cove. This year, I am planning to experiment further with dusk to just after sunset low light photography, as the cove is perfect for that sort of image. The Cove’s shallow gradient can leave the beach very wet and often it shines reflecting the large light canopy of skyover this very special place. This mixture of flat wet sand and beautiful colour coloured sky is only enhanced by the lack of haze or light pollution there, in the winter months this is especially the case.

Over the weeks and depending on the light, I will be using various Nikon lenses, very wide angle lenses for capturing images of the cove and it’s fabulous rocks, pools light and sky etc. I will be carrying both Macro lenses and lens magnifying filters for those shots of the glorious textures that are to be found in the rocks, sand & driftwood through to my largest lens at 400mm as there are often some great images of birds and other wildlife to be captured both around the cove and in fact,right outside the Chocolate Box Cottage doors set in the gardens of Trewoon.

I will also be trying out sets of strobes & gels in an attempt to highlight some of the rocks that make Poldhu Cove so interesting to photograph. I plan to be experimenting with longish exposure times mixing in strobes with the often beautiful ambient light that twilight brings to Poldhu. As I haven’t really produced images in this way before experimenting is indeed the word. I will of course,at times, be mixing more traditional filters, mostly graduated ND filters, to balance contrast and polarising filters that will, hopefully, help enhance the light and allow me to capture what it is I see.

You will be thinking by now…how on earth can you carry all this kit around a wet beach and access it. Well, I won’t be! As my mobility has been an increasing problem over the years it has deteriorated. I choose Poldhu Cove as it has great flat access and can be much easier to walk on than some. To help this year I have “Beach-cam-Buggy” a converted golf trolley which, it is hoped, will allow me to bring all the kit I would like onto the beach easily without carrying it and have my kit both accessible closeby and dry all the time I will be working. This contraption should allow me to sort and change filters without constantly walking back to my kit, which is usually lodged in rocks some distance away. Using the trolley, I should also be able to have lighting kit and stands etc etc with me where ever I wonder in the cove with relative ease…Will it work or will it sink?....watch this space !

I do hope that you enjoyed this article as much as we did. Thank you Phil, we look forward to seeing you and John soon, safe journey.