Tag: sefton

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Southport Pier

High Tide, Southport Pier

High Tide, Southport PierIt’s not often that the tide comes right in on Southport Beach. It’s less often that high tide is really high. Once in a while it is possible to see the pier completely over water from the breakwater outwards. Yesterday was on such day. The light wasn’t great, but it was better than we’ve had for some time. Of course, high tide’s not of itself a pretty scene. The water is so shallow that the waves are small and choppy and the sand is stirred up along with the waves. The best solution is to take a long exposure of many seconds to smooth out the sea. This shot is a 50 second exposure which gives the sea a smooth texture, with whorls and patterns caused by the movement of the waves and tide.

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Landscapes

Minimalism and Colour

Purple Sky - Ainsdale BeachThere are many paths to making a striking, or memorable image; some images are engineered for instant impact – either colour or composition, but become just as quickly; other images are designed to grow on you – not that tug of instant attraction but the gentle pull of something familiar and pleasant to look on. Ainsdale beach, with it’s lack of features lends itself particularly to the kind of minimalist image that grows on you rather than hitting you between the eyes.

When one thing is lacking in an image I often find that it allows for the enhancement of another aspect. In this shot, for example there is not a lot of micro detail – lines, objects etc. There’s just nothing to work on. So, instead of going for detail I’ve worked on the colour. No, it’s not natural, but then this is a statement, not an objective and functional facsimile, but a bold mind’s eye imagination of what it should be like.

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Southport

Ramada Sunset

Evening LightDriving home along the coast road a little bit earlier than usual, just as dusk was settling I stopped off in the car park on the coast side of the Marine Lake. The sun was setting behind the Marine Way Bridge providing a warm tone to the bridge and the Ramada hotel. The other end of the lake was a colder bluer tone. I love the split of colour in this shot. There was no heroic sunset, just the gentle softening and warming of the light as the sun dropped below the horizon.

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Southport

Ramada Across the Water

Ramada across the WaterSouthport is unique among British seaside resorts in that the best chance to see the sea is in a lake! The Marine Lake is a seawater lake just inshore from the beach. It can be refilled during the spring tides from the sea itself. Although it’s not very deep it does provide a great backdrop for the buildings along the promenade and also allows for some water sport that is impossible from the beach.

Looking back from the seaward side of the Marine Lake the Ramada Hotel stands proud against the skyline. The building, vaguely art deco in style, appears from up close almost like the prow of a ship about to enter the lake. From a distance, the whites of the hotel and surrounding buildings make a fine contrast to the darks skies and water.

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Dunes

Minimal Marram

Minimal Marram Sometimes a particular view or style can become an obsession. Perhaps it’s a range of tones, or maybe it’s a minimal point of view, or a particular point of view, or possibly it’s a combination of many things, perhaps not even consciously understood that all come together to produce the one thing that photographers want – a distinctive – something that is recognisably you.

For me the focus on marram, sea and sky has been impressed on me by the nature of the Sefton English coastline. The entire stretch of coast from Liverpool to Preston is straight, flat and featureless. In order to make an interesting shot certain attitudes have developed: a relentless compositional minimalism, removing even more features in order to produce a clean aesthetic; this minimalism extends to reducing the palette to simple blues and greens with a hint of muted yellows in the sand; a low point of view is probably a result of the compositional needs, but in itself produces a distinct viewpoint on the marram and sky of the Southport coast.

The result is simple, clean images with a muted palette of tones. These aren’t dynamic images in the sense that they produce an immediate ‘wow’, but they are the kind of restful, easy on the eye, hang on your wall and enjoy for years to come type of images, timeless in a sense – timeless in the way that the marramscapes of grass, sand, sea and sky will always be.

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Dunes

Before the Rain

Before the Rain

Driving along the coast road in the beautiful autumn sunshine I got to Ainsdale beach with time for a 15 minute break before moving on to meet a client. I parked up just as the clouds covered the sun. As I wandered and hunted out a good viewpoint the sky darkened, then came the drops, then the camera went back in the bag to keep it dry, and then I went back in the car to keep dry. Of course, as soon as I had to move on to make my appointment the sun came out again!

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Landscapes

Layers and Lines

Layers and LinesThe Southport coastline can be a little featureless, so I’m always on the lookout for something to add a little interest to these images. To be honest, I love the minimal style that this coast imposes on me, but the eye needs a focus and a direction.

I love these heavily cloud covered seas because the darkness of the sky is reflected in the sea, giving a wonderful dark line along the horizon. In contrast, the gentle slope of the beach provides a soft white line of tide rather than the athletic waves of other coastlines.

In combination the grass and sky provide the layers and the dark and white lines provide a focus for the eye to rest on.

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Landscapes

At the Water’s Edge

At the EdgeThe Sefton coast is a vast space, and once the autumn chill sets in the beach is largely deserted. On an overcast but warm autumn day you will see the occasional visitor loitering along the water’s edge. The tide comes in so gently on this gently sloping beach that it’s a rather tranquil experience standing and watching the water lap gently closer and closer to the tide line.

With the flat light on the surface of the water the sky and sea blend almost seamlessly into one vast bright plane of soft colour and light. The couple standing at the water bring a sense of scale and perspective to the image.

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Dunes

Fence through the Marram

Fence PostThe vastness of the Sefton dunes is rarely broken, but in one or two places there runs a thin ribbon of wire supported on wooden fence posts. From a distance these fences leave barely a trace on the landscape of marram grass. But, get up close to a single post, and the grass becomes the backdrop, and the post becomes the focus.