New scans from my negatives of our hike around the Cornwall Coast Path from St. Ives to Penzance over the August Bank Holiday in 1995.
New scans from my negatives of our hike around the Cornwall Coast Path from St. Ives to Penzance over the August Bank Holiday in 1995.
We were hiking lightweight, with just 30 litre rucksacs each; we stayed in pubs or B&B’s that we hadn’t booked in advance. High-top trainer hiking boots were a new thing then, I’d brought mine back from California.
Viewed (only) twenty-four years later, these are clearly old photos but it’s difficult to work out why that’s so obvious. I think it’s partly the lack of evidence of drought damage or storm damage on the landscape and the lack of technology toys on the boats, the surf shack or the beach. The mine ruins near Tintagel are well-known but the footpaths haven't been stabilised and the Lands End development was in its infancy.
I like the “look” of these images, not only do they convey the change in the light as we progressed from the north coast to the salt haze of the south coast facing the sunshine but there’s a coherence in my shooting style, my compositions are consistent because I was using just the one lens, not a zoom.
I shot just the one roll of film, so a ration of eight or nine pictures per day. The Reala film I was using gives a very dense negative but these scans have the same super-saturated “look” of the original prints, which were made optically.
New scans (Epson 4990) of my Reala 35 mm negatives; Canon AE-1 Program 35mm SLR camera with FD 50mm f/1.8 manual focus lens.