Day 7: Sunday, September 30

Today is our second full day of shooting the wild west in Cornwall. Our team set out from the hotel in our vans at 6:00AM in order to catch the sunrise, if there is one today – it’s somewhat misty and cloudy.

Today’s Shooting Locations:

• Godrevy Lighthouse
• Cape Cornwall
• St. Just (lunch)
• Woods walk / St. Loy’s Bay
• Logan Rock, near the village of Treen

Godrevy Lighthouse

The first stop of the day is at our sunrise photo shoot – Godrevy Lighthouse.

Godrevy Lighthouse was built in 1858–1859 on Godrevy Island in St. Ives Bay, on the north coast of Cornwall. Standing approximately 300 metres off Godrevy Head, it marks the Stones reef, which has been a hazard to shipping for centuries.

The lighthouse was made famous by Virginia Woolfe in her novel To the Lighthouse. The lighthouse stands on the small and rocky Godrevy Island, at the centre of a circular grassy area enclosed by a low stone wall.

It was a moody morning on the rocky shore:

Cape Cornwall

Cape Cornwall is a small headland in West Cornwall. It is four miles north of Land’s End near the town of St Just. I loved this location; it had a little bit of everything I find interesting to shoot – an ancient, crumbling chapel,  cliffs, seashore, rolling hillsides, boats both new and derelict. There was plenty of ambience and character here.

St. Just

St. Just is a very small town on the western side of Cornwall. It is a beautiful little place with a lot of history, and I regret we could not have spent more time here, as we had only stopped for a quick lunch en route to our next location.

We had a real challenge to find some lunch, as it was Sunday. Sunday in the U.K. means Sunday Roast, which is a real tradition here. Everywhere we went the pubs and restaurants were only serving roast; since we didn’t feel like a heavy roast beef dinner in the middle of the afternoon, we sought out something a little lighter. We found Warrens Bakery and had the ever-popular Cornish favourite – a pasty!

And Warrens also had these meringues, which were a thing of beauty:

And now, it’s time to hit the road again, and on to…

Woods Walk & St. Loy’s Bay

Our two leaders had a small surprise for the group. Clive and Phil had set up a half-mile long walk through a beautifully – and heavily – forested area (there was an existing pathway to follow). When we emerged from the woods we were met with the impressive boulders and cliffside of St. Loy’s Bay.

St. Loy’s Bay is a small wooded valley and beach in the civil parish of St. Buryan, near the southwest tip of Cornwall. The U.K. has a designation called an AONB – Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. St Loy’s is within one of these AONB areas. These areas are, in a way, akin to our National Parks in Canada.

Logan Rock, Near Treen

Our last stop of the day was for our sunset shoot, and the subject in question is Logan Rock, which is perched high atop the cliffs near a little village called Treen.

Although the rock weighs some eighty tons, it was dislodged in 1824 by a group of British seamen, intent on showing what the Navy could do. However, following complaints from local residents for whom the rock had become a tourist attraction and source of income, the seamen were forced to restore it. The South West Coast Path, which follows the coast of south-west England from Somerset to Dorset passes by on the cliffs to the north.

We were very lucky to have the sun actually break through the clouds for our sunset shoot. I took several progressive shots as the sunset deepened:

…and then it got dark. That was our queue to head back to the hotel for the day where a lovely, hot meal was waiting.

It was a very full day today but it was full of many beautiful things I’d never seen before.

Over and out for Sunday in Cornwall.