Update: June 2020.
Over a year has passed since writing this blog post about The Photographer's Guide To Cornwall by Long Valley Books, but I did get to Cornwall in March 2019 for a few days of photography, and had an enjoyable time as it was my first visit to the area in about 30+ years, and the weather was very good, blue sky and sunshine......so perhaps too good for landscape photography!!
Using a hotel near Newquay as a base, I used my trip to explore the north Atlantic coast of Cornwall between Bude in the north, and Lands End in the south. The Photographers Guide book was really helpful with its information about photo locations, parking, and walking distances, and having a SatNav that could use map coordinates was ideal for getting to and from locations, as these are more accurate than Post Codes for navigation.
Being on the west coast of the UK, the locations I visited would be best photographically for light during late afternoon and sunset, but I wanted to visit as many places as possible during my trip, so it was a case of just taking the light and weather available when I arrived. So without further ado, here is a small gallery of some photographs I took during my visit (2 images have paint effects added).
In conclusion, I was very happy with the helpful information from the Cornwall guide book, and would thoroughly recommend it to anyone planning to visit Cornwall for landscape photography, but is unfamiliar with the area and what it has to offer.
Original Blog Post.
Occasionally, I like to go out and do some landscape photography, and despite being a relatively small country, the UK has many beautiful and scenic locations to photograph. Unfortunately, these locations are often some distance from where I live which means I am not particularly familiar with any of them. So things like deciding where to go, how to get there, best time of day to visit, photo opportunities available etc, could involve considerable time and effort doing research on these topics. Fortunately, this is not always necessary as a company called Long Valley Books have produced an excellent series of guide books for photographers on various UK locations including the Lake District, Yorkshire Dales, Northumberland, Snowdonia, Scotland, and most recently Cornwall. I have purchased a number of these books over the last 18 months or so and found them very useful being unfamiliar with the locations.
Each book is divided into sections that group locations relatively close to each other, enabling you to organise your day effectively when visiting different places. Along with nice photographic examples of what can be seen in each location, the books also give useful information on:
best time of day to visit (eg sunrise or sunset)
how to get there (including postcodes and grid references for SatNav)
where to park your vehicle
difficulty and duration of the walk from the car park to the location
general photographic interest when at the location
The books also have mini ordnance survey maps covering all locations included, and at the back of the books, there is useful information on things like sunrise and sunset times through the year, tide times, and practical safety advice when photographing seascapes. Best of all, the books are small enough to be easily carried in your camera bag, and reasonably priced at around £12.95.
In the last few days, I have purchased the Cornwall guide, and as its quite some years since my last visit to the area, I am now looking forward to arranging a visit sometime in 2019. I will, of course, be taking my photographers guide book with me.
So, if you are considering visiting some of the UK's most scenic locations in the near future, and would find a guide book for photographers helpful, I can highly recommend the books published by Long Valley Books.
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