I have always wanted to visit and stand at Lands End in Cornwall and look west.  Lands End was the ultimate destination of this whole road trip that started in Hastings.  From Porthcurno I was now making my way to Lands End.

Porthcurno to Lands End

I arrived at Lands End early afternoon from Porthcurno.  Check out my mobile phone snaps of Lands End here.  The weather when I arrived turned bad, heavy rain and strong wind.  Lands End is a bit of a tourist trap.  Parking was a minimum of £4.  I not want to pay this much.  There is a hotel with a restaurant and bar but guessed that would be over priced too.

I just rushed around in the driving rain with my canon compact getting what exposures I could.  I not have much time.  Fine if you going to spend the day here and walk the coastline.  I had already decided I would continue my road trip around the coast and visit the national trust site of Cape Cornwall.

Lands End to Cape Cornwall

Just out of Lands End is a pub the first and last Inn that I decided to stop at before continuing my journey to cape Cornwall.  It was there I caught my first rainbow in the beer garden.

And this is why its good to be out with your camera indulging in landscape photography when the weather is stormy and fast changing.  With rain and shine rainbows are inevitable and make a spectacular focal point.

Cape Cornwall

After a nice pint of ale I make my way to cape Cornwall with much more reasonable parking charges.  There was not much light left and the wind was strong with sharp showers on and off.

The old mining chimney on the headland of the cape is its most distinctive feature.  the ruins in the mid ground is called St Helens chapel.  We really have to thank the national trust and all its paying members for preserving these wonderful sites.  Using my compact camera due to the weather I had focused on the ruins and not the chimney.  Consequently the chimney is out of focus.  Should have focused on infinity being the chimney.

In the wind I struggled with my tripod and DLSR and even tried some long exposure photography with some ND filters.  But at this high angle the better seascape shots were with a short exposure.

I made it to the top of the hill with the chimney and fired off a shot of Porth Leddon to the right.  And then of the distinctive rocks out in the sea called the Brisons one mile off the cape.

With the sun setting it began to rain hard.  Without wiping my lens many later seascape shots were ruined.  I think it’s better to switch to hand holding your camera without shelter in such harsh conditions.  Push up that ISO, lower your aperture, switch on image stabilisation and fire away.

That is what I did firing off my last sunset seascape shots from cape Cornwall with the brisons as my focal and focus point.

Great Day Out

Despite the blustery weather, a great day out visiting Penzance, Porthcurno, Lands End and Cape Cornwall.  I wish I could have spent the day at each and walked the coastline.  But now I had a long drive back along the A30 to Newquay.