Cornwall 2023

In August me and a bunch of my family headed down to Cornwall for a week in Sennan near Lands End. There was a great selection of locations nearby, so without further ado...

Botallack Mine

The tin mines at Botallack were closed down in the late 1800s , but the remains still litter this part of the coast, known as the 'tin coast' for the vast amount of mining that used to take place here. The Crown engine houses here perch on the end of the sea and its mines went almost half a mile under the sea.

The sunset that night was lovely, but the scene was very contrasty, so I had to make used of bracketing to balance the exposure. For the foreground interest I used focus stacking to keep everything sharp.

Lands End

Lands End is a quintessential stop if you are this end of Cornwall. I went down one evening with some family, and after a short walk ended up back at Enys Dodnan Arch.

I'd been to this spot once before, and got a photo from a different angle, but wanted to try this one this time. As the sun started falling it lined up nicely, with the sin shooting through the arch and into the natural V shape of the cliffs. Shooting into the sun again made this super contrasty, so a bracketed exposure was needed.

Porth Nanven

Porth Nanven (also known as Cot Valley) sits on the west coast and is sometimes referred to as 'Dinosaur Egg Beach' for the round boulders that litter the shore. Strangely, the roundness is attributed to the sea of over 120,000 years ago, which shaped them, but changes in sea level left them suspected in the cliff wall, and they've simply been breaking off from there.

The far away clouds stopped me from seeing anything useful when the sun went down, but just before it dipped below the clouds a go this nice simple shot, with the round boulders in the foreground and the twin peaks of The Brisons in the distance.

Bonus Seals

Definitely not my photographic wheelhouse, but I can't not visit the Seal Sanctuary when visiting this part of Cornwall. They rehabilitate injured seals here and you can get up close and personal with the residents. I strongly suggest a visit!