Nansidwell - Photography Week 2 (2016)

Nansidwell (Bream Cove on the map) is situated in Falmouth Bay between Maenporth and Mawnan Smith in Cornwall. It is a small rocky cove with some sand and shingle which is accessed by a pleasant woodland walk from the road.

From a photographic point of view, the cove faces broadly eastwards and into the morning light. At the other end of the day the beach is cast in shadow quite early as the sun dips behind the coastal cliffs.  To one side of the beach is a flat shelf of rock which can be accessed when the tide allows. On top of the shelf are a number of rock pools and course grass areas:

During my time at Nansidwell I was fortunate to have an interesting shaped ship in the Bay which I used as a background focal point form most of my compositions. I believe the ship to be a construction maintenance vessel called the MPI Enterprise from the Netherlands (found on shipspotting.com) - as I have said in previous posts, photography is often the spark for a range of random enquiry and information!

Also fortunate, after some heavy showers, was the appearance of a rainbow. I particularly like the big sky shot over Falmouth Bay with the rainbow appearing over St Anthony's Head lighthouse at St Mawes:

When photographing rock formations it is helpful to have any natural lines pointing into the picture. This tends to produce an enhanced compositional impact often referred to as lead-in lines or perspective. I tried to use this effect in a number of compositions particularly towards the end of the day as the tide was coming in: