That Pesky Thrift

Like most seasonal flowers, photographing thrift not only requires skill but also good timing. There is probably only a two or three week window when the flowers are looking their best. It’s not that you can’t create lovely pictures outside of that window, but if you can get them just at the right time, when the conditions are lovely, you can end up with a superb photograph!

And here lies the problem. The thrift along the Cornish coast is lovely, but the drive is anything between 1.5 and 2 hrs for me, so it doesn’t take much for that journey not to be worth it or even possible. And before you know it, the peak has passed, or sometimes I’ve missed the whole thrift season!

I made a commitment to myself that 2024 would be different. I would fully commit to capturing the thrift! Unfortunately, life got in the way, and I only made to Cornwall twice! I’ll talk about my visit to Bedruthan in a later post, but in this blog post I’m going to share the photograph I captured from Trevone.

The photograph is a three frame focus stacked image. (If you want to know how to focus stack then check out either of my videos here or here). I originally shot the sequence using four frames, with the last frame being a longer exposure to smooth out the sea. Capturing the four frame was tricky as the light on cliff tops would change too much between the first and forth frames.

I did manage to get a couple of four frame sequences, but the post processing proved too tricky. The frames would focus stack, but it would then involve a lot of manual blending in photoshop between the short exposure frame and the long exposure frame. I’m sure someone with greater Photoshop skills than me might have managed it, but I gave up in the end!

As it turned out, I rather like the three image stack with its rougher sea. Either way, at least I have a photograph of the thrift looking its best!