Is there anything a Barclays pen cannot do?? My flash diffuser brolly broke on Friday when it blew over in the wind, but I still gotta shoot! Only went and mended it with some masking tape, a little bit of gaffa tape and a Barclays pen didn’t I?

A whole day of portraits kinda went down the pan yesterday when my flash setup blew over in the wind and the brolly snapped in half…daarrnn!

This is a portrait I took of Luke Marshall of Rock Shellfish just before the aforementioned occurred. I pretty stoked with it, but wish the sun hadn’t been so bright, turning flash into fill-in flash.

I have been busy travelling round Cornwall gathering portraits of each of the nine people I have photographed over the course of this project. This morning I visited artist Kurt Jackson in St Just. It was great to catch up with him and of course take his portrait. This is the one that is making the cut.

Kurt Jackson, St Just, Cornwall. May 2013.

These are some photographs from when I shot the first day of the Freedive UK course at the pool. The idea of this session is to get the guys familiar with freediving techniques before tackling the depths of the ocean on the second day.

There were signs in the pool that said no photography, bit I ignored them and nobody said anything! We just kept in our corner of the pool. I’m super pleased with how these turned out - the top photo is really dynamic, and the bottom makes the freediver look so out of place in the pool. Creating this unusual feel was exactly what I was aiming to do. Nice.

I spent the day with Ian Donald from Freedive UK today as he led a freediving course. We went out on kayaks from a place called Portmellon, and visited different spots. It was really good fun, and I even learnt a bit about eating seaweed!

I took my camera in the housing all day which was awesome fun. As Ian instructed, I swam around, diving down and around to get photos of what was going on. The water was about 15m visibility which was pretty epic for this country! And once you got used to it, it wasn’t too cold either.

I’m stoked to have added these photos to my project, I think they are really interesting visually, and freediving is something that is not very well known, and I think holds a sense of mystery. I think the bottom photo in particular reflects that.

I’m hopefully going to be working with Ian and Freedive UK more in the future.

Dan Jarvis works at the Cornish Seal Sanctuary in Gweek, and has done for about 6 years. He cares massively about what he does, and does a huge amount of environmental work throughout the whole of Cornwall, giving him very little free time. Earlier this year he won the Environment Award at PirateFM’s Local Hero awards.

I spent the day with Dan and the rest of the team at the seal sanctuary today as they went throughout their daily routine of looking after both the seals and the visitors. It was the seal rehabilitation and the seal pups that really interested me - they put loads of work into looking after them and building them up to ‘full health’ ready to go out into the wild.

At the end of the day, I took this flash lit portrait of Dan. I was slightly worried about how it would go because I haven’t shot all that many flash portraits, but in the end I was pleased with the results. I am going to be building a set of flash lit portraits of all the people I have photographed over the project, and I feel like this is a good start.

Dan Jarvis, Cornish Seal Sanctuary. April 2013.

Ian Ashton is a researcher and lecturer at Exeter University. He is currently doing research into Marine Renewable Energy, and I joined him today as he went 4 miles off the coast of Falmouth to service the wave buoy at the test site there. The way buoy suplies data to accompany the test device that is converting wave energy into electricity.

I really enjoyed the trip. The four members of the crew were a good laugh to be around, and I find the work they are doing really interesting. My camera decided to play up massively, metering and focusing not working. I think it was a good for me to be thrown back into complete manual-recovery mode, but I could have done without the sudden shock.

Ian Ashton, Marine Renewable Energy Researcher. April 2013.

Simon Hughes, Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrat Party, came to Tremough Campus in Falmouth to engage in a question and answer session with some of the Exeter Students who study there. Cartel Photos commissioned me to grab him for a few minutes to take his portrait.

He was a really nice guy, very happy to give up his time to spend a few moments talking to anyone and everyone. He really took an interest in everything I talked to him about.

Simon Hughes MP, Tremough Campus. March 2013.

Surf. I got back in the water today for the first time since I fractured my wrist, it was so good to be back! I joined Jake, Jack and Dan at a secret north coast spot. It was pretty chunky on sets and was pretty cold, but a super fun session, only people out.

I haven’t used the housing in ages so it took me a few waves to get back into it, but once I got into the groove I was loving it! Dan stole the show today - he was having heaps of fun, getting in just the right spot to catch all the beauties coming through. Check him out on these two! He was buzzing!

In England, In Cornwall, In Winter. Epic times.

Today I met with Markus Mueller, Lecturer in Applied Mathematics at Exeter University. The reason for this is that he is carrying out research into Wave Energy, a way of getting renewable energy from swell out at sea.

Markus was really interesting to talk to. The research he is doing is fascinating, and the potential for renewable energy from the ocean is enormous - the ways of harnessing it need to be refined more before we can really utilise it though.

For the purposes of my project, there are other researchers who I am going to get in touch with who have a more hand-on roll in wave energy, but it was great to meet and talk to Markus, and to take a cheeky portrait too.

Markus Mueller, Lecturer in Applied Mathematics at Exeter University. March 2013.

This is Luke and his father, Tim. Together, they run Rock Shellfish, an Oyster and Mussel farm on the Camel estuary, Cornwall. The Camel river is massively tidal, so when the tide is out, they plant baby Oysters and Mussels on the river bed, which then grow when the tide flows in and covers them in sea water. It sounds simple but is a fascinating process.

I spent five or six hours at Rock Shellfish today, joining them in the cleaning process of the shellfish, the ‘grading’ (sorting out which Oysters are ready to be sold and which need to be put back to grow further) and in the harvesting process. I had been in contact with Luke, who I finally met today. He’s a great guy and kindly showed me around and made sure I got to see some really interesting stuff. All the Rock Shellfish team were good fun to be around.

This is a progression of my current project on Man’s relationship with the ocean.

No Heating. Cold hands and how to warm them…without heating…

See top - my hands. They are cold and purple. It’s pretty nippy in our house tonight, and I have been typing away at my computer, which tends to lead to severe coldness and numbness, tonight being no exception. So how to warm them I hear you ask?

See bottom - the solution. I’m off on a shoot tomorrow in which I need to take my own lunch, so I’m cooking pasta take with me. Perfect. The steam rising from the pan is the perfect cure for cold hands. You get heaps of condensation on them which gives you what I am now calling the “sauna effect”.

Just another evening without heating.

These photos were arranged by myself and taken by my good friend Jack Neale. Cheers Jack.

I met with Kurt Jackson yesterday. Kurt is a well known painter and artist who paints sea-scapes ever week, and has done for the last 20 years. Almost all of his work either has a connection to the natural world or an environmental stance.

It was great to spend a few hours with him, observing the way in which he builds up a painting. We talked about the difference between the way in which a photograph is a snapshot of time, taken in just a fraction of a second, but each piece of his work can take days, if not weeks or months. It is a blend of different light, weather, tides, conditions and feelings, all wrapped up into one portrayal of a scene. I thought it was really interesting to compare the two mediums from this angle.

Kurt Jackson, Cape Cornwall. March 2013.

The south coast of Cornwall was crazy today! With 12.5ft easterly swell and 40mph cross/onshore winds, the sea got angry in Falmouth! Swanpool had the waves running way up the beach, over the rocks and flooding the road, and Gylly got some sizeable messy surf.

I’m unsure who it is, but check this guy out - tucking in on the reef. Yeeww!

I’m really excited to have arranged some shoots for my project this week, so watch this space.