Previous: Part 1 - Easter 2008
There are countless photographs of Southwold, published, fine-art prints, on-line through Flickr and others, through stock libraries and of course many individual web sites including this one. And the vast majority of them include photographs of the beach huts, the lighthouse and the recently (re-)constructed pier, all icons of the Suffolk town. I think we have all seen an increase in the number of people carrying and using a camera, but I was quite surprised at the number of people in Southwold during the week carrying and using DSLRs of one form or another. One of the great things about staying in the town is that I was able to leave mine in the rucksack for most of the day and take it out when the light was other than the harsh mid-day sunshine, which I'm delighted to say we saw a lot of. This meant I was able to try to be a little different to my frankly stereotypical Southwold photographs.
I should add that there are some great photographs of the Southwold icons and I was particularly impressed by the photographs of Peter Farrington that were displayed on Southwold Pier when we visited this year. He has the advantage of being relatively local and can, I assume, make repeat visits at optimal times to capture the best light. He certainly succeeds.
Hazy Horizon
The first image is close to one I had envisioned and then had to find the right conditions to get the picture. I had imagined a picture showing the sea and merging into a featureless sky, with no distinct demarcation between sea and sky. Clearly a photograph of that alone would have been very boring. However, the day started with quite a haze, quite bright and a hazy blue sky being visible inland but rapidly becoming a featureless blur looking out to sea. Just the ticket. As I watched my children playing on the beach and doing my bit to help with the sandcastles, I watched the sky until the horizon was only just still visible. I had already noted the end posts of the groyns (constructed to help prevent the sandy beach being washed out to sea - they don't stop it, but definitely slow things down) to provide something to anchor the image. The camera did at last come out of the rucksack. I had tried to picture this with the post to the left and to the right of the picture, but settled on this version to the right. It just feels to me to work better.
