Epic England – Part II

After the forgettable session at Durdle Door we went back to Swanage for an english breakfast. I dont know if the english eats this stuff on a regular basis, but for their sake i sure as hell hope not. I felt like a fried pig walking out of the dining place… Still i ended up eating the same stuff the following mornings

The wonderful town of Swanage…

Later on we hooked up with Antony Spencer, Landscape Photographer of the Year 2010, or Mr.Epic as i like to call him. It`s actually a quite fitting name since his landscape shots are nothing less than…epic. And the fact that he uses the word “epic” in every other sentence kinda makes the picture complete.  Such a great guy!

We went down to Kimmeridge. A place with basically a long rocky tongue sticking way out in the sea. And damn those rocks are slippery. If you ever go there, be really careful. Anyway, light was crap…and my shots were even more crappy.  Friday night was spent over at Tony`s place. Curry and printing….a great combination. I also had the pleasure of taking a dive into Mr.Epics rawfiles, an event that forever has ruined my confidence in photography…

Saturday

Woke up way to early for my likings…again. Time to meet another great photographer, Hamish Roots. A great lad and always a pleasure to hang out with. We went out to Peveril Point in Swanage, or at least thats what i think it`s called. We actually had hints of warmer light this morning, but miles away from something decent. I went down to some rocks and once again i was soaked within a minute. I got nothing….again. This is all i got. Some painterly qualities in the sea…

Peveril Point

We did the obligatory shot of Swanage Pier, but the best one i got from there was with my mobile…pretty much sums it up..

Having fun at the pier…

I just realized that this blogentry will be quite boring. Basically just a step-by-step story…ah well, i might as well wrap it up.

Later that day me, Håkon and Andy drove for 3 hours down to Cornwall. We were meeting up with two of the greatest guys i`ve ever met. Joe Rainbow and Tony Armstrong.

We went out to a fantastic place called Botallock.  Huge cliffs and some really old mines. Just an amazing spot! But the weather was horrible. Pouring rain and strong winds…didnt even bother taking out the cameras.

So we just went back to our basecamp in Cornwall, a charming little house in the picturesque town of Penzance. Ive never seen a place like this. Everything was really old and so nice. There was something about the atmosphere that just seemed really appealing to me. I loved that place! And they serve the best fucking beer in the world! Spingo! This beer was alone worth the 3 hour drive… We ordered some take-away chinese. When i looked at the menu i almost ended up ordering something with “salty rainbow sauce”. Perhaps Joe has some sort of part time job…delivering sauce to this chinese place. I dont know, but i didnt have the guts to order it…

This evening was so much fun. The stories were somewhat strange…some stranger than others. Håkon had a couple of Spingos and decided to do the spiderman ( http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=spiderman ) God…i swear i`m still laughing!

Late at night we were browsing through the channels. And there was some pretty interesting stuff in there…

Joe and Andy was studying maps trying to put together some plan for the following morning.

Strange look on Joes face..

Next day we headed out to Prussia Cove.  On our way down we passed a sign saying “welcome to Chris & Adams wedding” Were we about to witness a gay wedding down on the beach? Now that would have been epic…After watching Gay Rabbit the whole evening i was kinda in that mode ya know..

When we came down, Chris & Adam were nowhere to be seen. And Prussia Cove was pretty unepic actually.

We then decided, after another english breakfast, to head down to Godrevy. Now that place was cool! We spend hours watching huge waves pounding the rocks. I`m not used to waves bigger than a foot or two, so this was something else…

After some dangerous moves up and down the cliffs we were located right in front of the action. The highlight of this trip for me… I pulled out the 50mm and shot a few tight frames of the waves with the lighthouse in the back. Andy won the lottery when he caught a flying fish in one of his shots. Lucky bastard!

Godrevy Lighthouse (click the pics for larger views)

While the others kept shooting the action with longer lenses, i pulled back a little and did a few shots @ 16mm. Turned out pretty damn cool…the waves pounding in along the whole shoreline! I loved that place!

Godrevy Waves

The only thing left now was the sunset. Settling for a location was quite challenging. Everything had to be right in terms of wind, spray and sundirection. After going through all the options we decided on Botallock. I was excited to see this place in decent conditions…

We spent quite some time shooting the mines and the waves coming in. The waves were amazing.

Botallock Mines

And we also were treated with hints of a decent sunset

It`s hard to get the scale of this place and the waves. The wave coming in on the sunset shot is insanely big…

Thats it…end of the english adventure. Despite having shitty conditions 95% of the time, i had a freakin amazing time! Thanks again to the best guys in the world: Andy Farrer, Tony SPencer, Joe Rainbow, Tony Armstrong & Hamish Roots. And of course my wingman..Håkon.

Take care!

-Arild-