If in Doubt, Trust an Old Friend

Living in the south west of England I am spoilt for choice when it comes to locations to capture landscape photographs. I have Dartmoor National Park, Exmoor National Park and 600 miles or so of the South West Coast Path to photograph. There’s a lifetime worth of locations to visit.

So why is it some locations keep calling you back again and again? Even when you already have a fine portfolio of photographs from that location, you still feel the need to return. Is it because you know you can capture good images there? Or because it’s just a beautiful place to be?

There is one such place in Cornwall that falls into that category for me, and that’s Trevose Head. Looking at my free landscape photography locations map, I can see that I’ve written about Trevose Head at least 6 times here on the blog. But why do I keep going back? Is it because I consistently capture photographs that I like at Trevose Head? Or maybe because it’s a dramatic and stunning section of coastline? Whatever the reason, I like it there.

I built up a bit of a back log of blog posts so the photographs you see in this post are a few months old now, but I’ll be honest with you, I can’t remember the real reason I went back to Trevose Head. It might have been that the weather conditions and tide were going to suit Trevose Head, or I was in a bit of a creative rut, and I felt safe going there, or maybe I just drove there subconsciously! I don’t know, and maybe it doesn’t matter, because the evening I took these photographs was special.

**Trevose Head Sunset #1, South West Coast Path, Cornwall** - Nikon Z8 with Nikkor Z 14-30mm f/4 S at 18mm, f/13, 0.5 secs at ISO 640, Kase Filters CPL

I could tell just standing there on the cliffs that the conditions were good for photography and that feeling continued as I captured the photographs. On the long drive home, I knew I had captured some photographs that I would be happy with. When I imported them into Lightroom I could see the raw files had promise.

So why has it taken so long to share them? Yes, I had a backlog of blog posts to write, but the main reason I’ve left it this long to write about them is that I was nervous about processing them. What if I found they weren’t that good after all? I wanted to hold onto to magical time at Trevose Head and I didn’t want it to be spoilt by disappointing photographs. Maybe that’s missing the point of enjoying my time there. Perhaps I should just enjoy the memory of that experience.

As it turns out though, I needn’t have worried. I’m very happy with the photographs I captured that evening. So much so, I want to go back. But that’s no bad thing.