Category Archives: travel

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns

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Jersey, Channel Islands

                            … For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things…

William Wordsworth, ‘Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey’ (1798), ll.88-102

Last light at Kimmeridge

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Another photo from my evening shoot at Kimmeridge Bay last month. The iconic landmark on the headland is Clavell’s Tower.
Built in 1830 by Reverend Clavell as an observatory and folly, the tower has inspired writers ever since. Thomas Hardy took his sweetheart, Eliza Nicholl, to the tower and included an illustration of it in his Wessex Poems. It was also the inspiration for P. D. James’s novel, The Black Tower and was used as a location in the television adaptation of the story. Moreover, it appeared in the music video for The Style Council’s single, ‘Boy Who Cried Wolf’.

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Between 2006 and 2008 the whole tower was painstakingly moved, stone by stone, 25 metres inland to save it from cliff erosion that threatened to send it crashing into the Bay. It is now operated as a holiday let by The Landmark Trust.

Kite surfers do it in style

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St.Ouen's bay jersey
While I was on Jersey last month I had a chance to watch kite surfers doing their thing. What an amazing sport.
La Rocco tower, Jersey
I wonder what the eighteenth century builders of La Rocco tower would think if they could see this scene.
St.Ouen's Beach, Jersey
I got chatting to one of the surfers and he told me it’s really quite easy. Not sure I believed him. The lighthouse in the background is La Corbiere, which featured in a couple of my earlier posts.
La Rocco tower
One of the tricky things I discovered about shooting kite surfers is that you have to choose between wide shots to get the kite as well as the surfer or close ups to capture the jumps and rolls the surfers do. The trouble with the latter is that without the kite the shot can look a little weird. Needless to say, however, I gave it a good try and some closer shots will feature in a later post.

Grosnez castle

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castle ruins, Jersey

Our visit to Jersey gave me an opportunity to add to my castle series.  Grosnez Castle was built in the 14th century.  Little remains of the castle but it makes a very atmospheric ruin, perched atop the headland at the Northwest corner of the island.

Ruined arch of Grosnez Castle

‘Grosnez’ comes from the old Norse, grar nes, meaning ‘grey headland’, rather than the French for ‘big nose’.  According to an interpretation board at the site, the castle was probably built in around 1330.  It was taken by the French in 1373 and 1381 and was likely demolished during or shortly after the French occupation of 1461-8.

Jersey coastline

The castle certainly has a commanding view of the Jersey coast.  Just along the headland stands another martial construction taking advantage of those views, a German WW2 range-finder tower, part of Hitler’s ‘Atlantic Wall’.

Tower among heather on cliff, Jersey

It is a strangely forbidding construction, a stark contrast to the tapestry of heather and wildflowers at its base. The two structures together are a reminder of Jersey’s history of occupation, straddling some of her most beautiful landscape.

WW2 observation tower seen from Grosnez Castle, Jersey.

 

 

Little White Cottage

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La Caumine de Marie Best, JerseyThis image is a little more arty than my usual style but, despite appearances, it is still a photograph.  It is made from three exposures, one sharp:

one panned:

and the third, a ‘texture’ made from a close up of the whitewashed walls of the cottage:

The cottage is Le Don Hilton, also known as La Caumine de Marie Best.  It stands on the wall above St.Ouen’s beach with spectacular views of the surf and sunsets.  It can be rented from Jersey Heritage and makes a charming, if basic, base for surfers. A more straightforward shot of the cottage appears in my earlier post, Jersey Shores.

La Corbière lights up

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lighthouse after sunset on JerseyMost photographers out to capture the sunset go home once the sun has dipped below the horizon.  My fellow photographers during my session at La Corbière last week were no exception.  But it is always worth waiting around for a little longer.  If they had, they would have seen La Corbière lighting up.  A different mood from yesterday’s shot, taken at exactly the same location only minutes earlier.  Doesn’t the landscape at low tide look otherworldly?

 

Lovers on the Cobb

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Kissing couple on the Cobb at Lyme Regis

I wonder if he has just proposed?

A couple kiss on the Cobb, Lyme Regis’s iconic harbour wall.  Many writers have been inspired by this landmark, including Jane Austen who featured it in Persuasion and John Fowles in The French Lieutenant’s Woman.  The scene where the heroine (played by Meryl Streep in the film) walks to the end of the Cobb during a storm has made its way into movie legend.  Perhaps this couple are fans.