The tide was still out when I reached the point. There is a particular quiet to a coast before the wind arrives — a held breath between night and the working day, when the sand keeps the cold and the gulls have not yet found their voice.
I came back to this stretch eleven mornings in a row. The same half-kilometre, the same grey light, and never once the same picture. That is the whole argument of the series, if it has one: that a place you think you know will keep its secrets until you stop expecting them.
You don't photograph a coastline. You wait for it to decide what it is, and you try to be ready.
01Low tide, looking south. 05:40.
Field note
The light only lasts twenty minutes
Before the sun clears the headland the whole bay turns the colour of pewter, and every wet stone holds a little of the sky. It is the closest the sea ever comes to standing still.
I learned to set the frame in the dark and simply wait — camera on the tripod, hands in my pockets, letting the morning arrange itself.
Part two
The weather does the composing.
02—07Six mornings, Bruny Island. Click any frame to enlarge.
On colour
Almost monochrome, but not quite
People ask if these are black and white. They're not — there's just very little colour to begin with at that hour. A single band of rust in the kelp, a wash of blue where the sky meets the water. I never add it. I only try not to lose it.
By the last morning the weather had turned for good and I never got the frame I'd gone there for. I think that's why I kept the series open-ended — it isn't a record of a place so much as a record of paying attention, which is a thing that doesn't really finish.
▶Process film · 2 min. Add a YouTube ID in Tweaks to embed.