. . . a birthday treat. The train meandered through Devon – Newton Abbot, Totnes, Plymouth, and on to Cornwall, threading it’s way down the county, stopping everywhere – Saltash, Liskeard, Bodmin Parkway, Lostwithiel, Truro, Par, St Austell, Redruth, Camborne and Hayle, before we changed at St Erth, with time for a coffee in the tiny station cafe. And then Lelant Saltings, Carbis Bay and finally St Ives, to step from the platform into a world discovered by artists long before the holidaying public came to stand and stare, to eat pasties and ice creams and tempt hungry seagulls that know no better.

(Click on image to enlarge)

It’s the vibrant light that makes the place so extraordinary – continuously transforming the cluster of cottages, the sand, the rocks, and the ever-present sea.

The Tate currently has a photography exhibition – The Modern Lens, which I enjoyed for the experimentation of subject in the ’30s – the varied use of camera and film that is impossible to repeat with digital photography.

The St Ives Society of Artists’ spring show also lifted the spirits in the way that only art can. I experienced the disappointment of seeing a Melvyn Evans print that I really liked, of mulling over whether I could justify buying it and of then returning to do so only to find someone had beaten me to it  – he was paying for it when I arrived! I wish him well, I know he will enjoy it.

While we were wandering through the galleries, others were practicing an art of their own.

(Images by Bill Whateley; camera: Lumix TMC-CZ60 with 30x Leica lens)