I’ve always wanted to go down to Cornwall, but never quite managed it. Don’t ask me why I want to go there but I suppose it’s to do with it’s history and the rugged coastline I’ve been hearing a lot about. The small harbours nestling among the ragged cliffs. Sounds great doesn’t it?
Well, a few weeks ago I had a chance to do just that and my wife and myself stayed in Cornwall for a total of 7 days. Not a lot I know but I thought it was better than nothing. We could at least cover a small part of Cornwall. I swear, every time I travel back to the UK it rains, and it was no different this time. It rained non-stop throughout the duration of our stay, except for a couple of afternoons. Apparently, June 2016 was the wettest since records began. Typical.
So what do you do when the skies are grey and the rain just keeps coming down. Apart from discussing what shade of grey it was during the day you visit museums, churches and buildings of general interest. Or, you could just wait for the weather to clear up.
I like churches for their architectural value and I visit a lot of them, but there’s only a certain amount of churches you can take in in a 7 day period.
Waiting for the weather to get better is like trying to get blood out of a stone. You could wait for a month of Sundays. As an avid landscape amateur photographer grey rainy days aren’t ideal and you can forget any ideas about great landscape photography. Grey is grey and there’s nothing you can do to change it. The answer to this of course is just to enjoy the holiday. Go and see things and places, scout around for likely places to photograph when the weather is better for it. By all means take your photographic equipment with you, you never know if an opportunity may arise. If one doesn’t come along then it doesn’t. Just live with it.
One rare moment when the rain stopped.
Not every planned photographic journey is going to pan out as you planned it. Some are going to turn out disastrously as my trip to Cornwall did, but I did take back some nice memories and a shot or two but nothing to add to my portfolio.
However, when you realize the trip is going well, make the most of it. Grab the opportunity by the horns and get out there and photograph as much as possible. From early morning until the sun has finally set. Embrace it and use the time well, because those times when things turn out well are precious moments indeed.
Some images I managed to salvage from one of my wettest weeks on this planet, up to now that is 
I've noted what camera and lens was used for the image.
Taken from the ferry on the way over the English Channel.
The remaining few that follow were taken with the GX8. Nice camera by the way.
NOTE: Some of these have been labelled with the wrong aperture value for the 45-150.
It is actually f4.0-5.6 and not f3.5-5.6.
The next one was taken with the GX8 and the amazing Panasonic 7-14 f4 lens.
The following three images were indoors with the GX8 and the Panasonic 25 f1.4
P.S. I wanted to travel pretty light for this trip so I only took a Sony A7II with the Sony FE 24-240 f3.5-6.3 OSS lens. I also wanted to finally see what the Panasonic GX8 could do and I paired it with the Panasonic 45-150 f4.0-5.6 lens. Most of the time the Panasonic with the 45-150 was just too long and the Sony was used most of the time. Now I know why I like those m43 14-150 zoom lenses. Another lesson learned.
