Cornwall Storm Photos, Huge Waves, Land's End etc (beware 56k)

SkyHighPhotographs · Mar 13, 2008

Cornwall Storm Photos Images, Huge Waves, Land's End etc, UK Hurricane Photographs. March 10th 2008.

Greetings from Cornwall UK.

Here is a selection of Cornwall Storm Photos taken on March 10th 2008 during recent hurricane force winds.

Some of the images may be deemed to be 'low' quality, this was due to the ferocity of the screeching gales, heavy rain at times and maelstrom whiteout conditions out at sea in the Western Approaches of the Atlantic Ocean. If some of the images are blurred or speckled, you can blame this on the very low light conditions at times and the incredible amount of saltwater spray being flung high into the air, soaking many times over both the photographer (me) and my camera, a Canon S3 IS 6.3mp.

It was hard enough often just trying to stand still, let alone take photographs. Met professionals on the day, all putting up with similar conditions. Too, taking photographs in these extreme conditions on top of 200' high sheer drop cliffs with winds over 100mph is not for the faint hearted. The camera was quite literally many times jumping all over the place especially on the more exposed headlands.

If you want me to guesstimate the wave heights, the smaller waves you see are between 30-40' high, medium ones 50-75' high and the whoppers anything upto 100' high plus. To give an indication of this, you will see one photograph below taken from Land's End facing north. The cliff there is over 220' high - as you can see the top of the main body of heavy spray, is about 2/3rd's of the way up the cliff. Goodness knows what the height of the wave was in this shot.

The image below is of Porthleven on the south coast of Cornwall, near the ancient town of Helston. The height of that wave coming in, behind the clocktower is about 70-80' high.

Please enjoy these Cornwall UK Storm Photographs - with my compliments.

First image will be a test to see that everything is good to go with the rest, by all means, make comments inbetween me posting them up if you wish to.

http://www.SkyHighPhotographs.co.uk Cornwall Elevated Aerial Photography.

1/

Antarctican · Mar 13, 2008

Post more, post more!!!! I've been to Lands End many years ago and loved watching the 'normal' waves crashing against the rocks. The scene you described during the storm, with those huge waves and fearsome winds, sounds awesome indeed!!!

(And welcome to the forum!)

SkyHighPhotographs · Mar 13, 2008

This is the Longships Lighthouse off Land's End at the very tip of the the UK getting a battering from the waves. It's about 1 1/2 miles off shore.

Apologies about the watermarks bang in the centre of the images, only I've had too many images gone walkabout over the net lately and now take this precaution, even if it does 'spoil' the photos somewhat.

The sun came out briefly giving a tremendous play of light which had myself and the other photographers there very happy and pleased. This is the actual tip of the country in the very far south west of Cornwall in the district of Penwith.

2/

More to come, I'll do them in batches of three at a time, please bear with me as I'm adding the watermarks as I go along.

Do feel free to comment.

SkyHighPhotographs · Mar 13, 2008

Sennen Cove Storm Wave breaking over the breakwater:

3/

This next shot shows some rocks which you can just make out to the right. These are normally about 30' or so above sea level.

4/

In the one below you can see the slipway which launches the RNLI Lifeboat at Sennen Cove. These are the guys who volunteer without any pay whatsoever to go out in conditions like this, to save lives at sea. The RNLI is by far and away my favourite charity in the UK and the courage and selflessness of these gentlemen and women too is just simply extraordinary.

5/

More to come, bit of a slow process, but getting there.

SkyHighPhotographs · Mar 13, 2008

This is the Longships Lighthouse about 1 1/2 miles off Land's End being buffeted by hurricane force winds and waves of extraordinary height and power. Always wanted to be in one of these places during a terrific storm.

Later in the day, I met another photographer near Godrevy Lighthouse (photos of which you can see later), who used to be one of the helicopter pilots that landed on top of these things to land supplies etc for the lighthouse keeper/s.

Now I know the image quality is awful, that's what you get with trying to peer through 1 1/2 miles of blinding spray, believe you me, before I edited this image to show the height of this wave, the picture quality was appalling and this is just about the best I could make it in black and white, hopefully at least just to show off the lighthouse and huge wave, to the best effect possible under the conditions.

6/

John Ruskin described this part of the coastal waters off the county of Cornwall 'as an entire disorder of the surges ... the whole surface of the sea becomes one dizzy whirl or rushing, writhing, tortured undirected rage bounding and crashing and coiling in an anarchy of enormous power.'

The height of the lighthouse itself is about 120' above sea level and is comprised of 3 storey's. It is now fully automated as of 1988 onwards.

7/

8/

More to come in a bit, and a change of location, scenery too.

Antarctican · Mar 13, 2008

You seem to have several shots duplicated (eg it's the identical shot in posts 1 and 3, and the last in post 4 is identical to the first in post 5). Also, if you could number the pictures sequentially, it lets people refer to specific pics more easily.

SkyHighPhotographs · Mar 13, 2008

Aye, I noticed that, keeping an eye on it, for some reason, the images are jumping around, already adjusted a couple of times, hopefully they're ok now, please let me know if they're not.

Cheers mate!

SkyHighPhotographs · Mar 13, 2008

This is Porthcurno, the home of Cable & Wireless and where the first ever transatlantic voice communications took place between the USA and Europe.

From this beach, all the telephone cables connected the whole of the British Empire.

You can still see the old cables there to this day and then appreciate the mammoth task it must have been all those years ago, actually laying these things on the seabed for thousands of miles around the globe.

9/

This is taken from the bottom of Cot Valley, a site of Special Scientific Interest, about 3 miles north of Land's End, just down from the village of St. Just in Penwith, close to Cape Cornwall. The sun came out again here so was able to get some great shots which I was almightily pleased with.

A photograph like this still cannot begin to show the conditions under which I was taking these shots, what with the wind gusting here at about 90mph, coupled with the continuous spray and foam flying through the air, clamboring over very wet and slippery rocks covered in seaweed in places, keeping one eye on the waves and the other on the image I wanted to take, all the while being buffeted by the winds as I tried my best to maintain my balance.

10/

11/

SkyHighPhotographs · Mar 13, 2008

OK, looks like we got there finally. I realise some images have disappeared altogether from this thread, that's ok, I can repost those ones tomorrow, but at least these ones are now displaying as they should do so above.

My apologies for this hassle.

As I said will post up some better ones, starting tomorrow, taken hours to sort that out, 3:30am now, just couldn't let the problem beat me - there are no problems, only solutions.

G'night.

You can check out further images here:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=528769&in_page_id=1770

Look at the guy on the beach who was blown straight off his feet into the air.

Or the train photo at Dawlish in Devon, the next county up from Cornwall, or the mega-normous (HUGE!!!!) wave at Sennen Cove near Land's End and the other one at Porthleven!!