During the summer Mawgan Porth on Cornwall’s north coast is full of people, due in no small part to its sandy, family friendly beach. But it was looking very empty and sorry for itself when I went there yesterday. Read more…
While I was photographing some more 360° panoramas for my ongoing series on the parish churches of Cornwall I came across this really touching memorial to three sisters of the Yeo family who all died young in the 1630s. Read more…
I’ve just updated six of the 360° panoramas from my series of Cornish Parish Churches. The original panoramas were some of the first ones I ever made and although I thought they were quite good at the time I’d become increasingly dissatisfied with them. The ones I’ve replaced are St Ervan, St Mawgan, St Columb Major, St Columb Minor, St Wenn and Withiel. Read more…
No one knows when the ‘Obby ‘Oss festival, which takes place on the 1st of May (or the 2nd if the 1st is on a Sunday) every year in Padstow, Cornwall, started. The earliest written reference to it is in about 1800, but it’s likely that the festival dates back to much earlier times and is probably related to Celtic Spring rituals.
The celebrations start at midnight the night before when the Night Song is sung to the landlord of the Golden Lion Inn. The next morning, with the town decorated with branches of green leaves, bluebells and cowslips, the children’s parade, with smaller sized, colt ‘Osses, starts at about 8.00am. The Day Song is accompanied by drums and accordions.
Unite and unite and let us all unite,
For summer is a come unto day,
And whither we are going we will all unite,
In the merry morning of May. Read more…
Two days ago I went to Polzeath to take some panoramic photos. My main objective was to create a wide image to make into a large print (I still haven’t processed all of the photos yet and only done a couple of test stitches) but while I was there I made a 360° panorama for my website.
Very stupidly I totally forgot to shoot one section of the panorama, but I managed to repair this by using two of the photos I’d taken for one of the print shots. If you know where to look you can just see where the patch is, but I’m still quite pleased with the result. In my defence, I was in a position on the edge of a 10 metre drop where I couldn’t walk round the tripod as I panned the camera, but even so it was a silly mistake and I was lucky to be able to salvage the image.
A couple of days ago I was doing some more panoramic photography in my ongoing series of Cornish churches. In St Winnow church, which stands on the bank of the River Fowey, are some really nice medieval carved bench ends. The best two were of a ship in a storm and a drunken man wearing a Cornish kilt. In the ship in a storm you can see a demon in the sky with his cheeks puffed out blowing up the storm while four men cower in the boat. And the drunken man is swigging what is presumably cider from the bottle. Read more…
I went to Constantine Bay yesterday morning and in between the heavy showers and gusting winds I managed to take a few nice photos. I was particularly pleased with this one – and yes, I thought it would work well in black & white as I was taking it.
Click on the photo to see some more of the photos on my Flickr feed.
In the last few days I’ve added some new 360° panoramas of some Cornish Churches, namely Ladock, Crantock, Lanlivery and Luxulyan. They all had some amazing features: the altar painting at Ladock, the font, rood screen and wood carving at Crantock, the bellringers’ painted sign and ceiling bosses at Lanlivery and the font and memorials at Luxulyan.
You can see more photos of Cornish Churches at my Flickr pages.
Had a great day at the Rock Oyster Festival today. Loads of good food and drink – including Stingers a very pleasant cordial made from nettles and a great mackerel burger from Nathan Outlaw.
I flew my Crane Rokkaku with the Carp streamers and was surprised to see a large white inflatable angel kite appear from behind me and even more surprised to see it being flown by Martin Lester – I’d forgotten that he’d moved to Cornwall from Bristol some years ago.
One of my oldest friend’s son, Jethro Jackson, has just opened a studio/gallery at Porthilly, near Rock, on the North Cornwall Coast. Jethro and his father, Paul Jackson are both potters and more recently Jethro has started painting beautiful seascapes. The gallery is also showing the work of other potters including Chris Prindl and Eddie Curtis, sculpture and jewellery – and some of my photographs! This is the first time in nearly 20 years that any of my photos have been seen in public. Most of the photos are of Cornwall, either the North Coast or Bodmin Moor.
You can see some of the images in my Cornwall collections at Flickr and animated versions of the panoramas here.
The gallery is very light and airy and you can see Jethro at work in his studio at the rear.
About 100 metres down the road is the beautiful little church of St Michael which stands right on the coast at Porthilly Cove with views of Padstow across the Camel Estuary. It’s a fantastic spot and well worth a visit if you’re in Cornwall this summer.
