I always think of myself as a creature of wood and moor yet a huge part of me is pulled to the edges of our island. Coast lures me in a way that I can’t express in words and I can only hope that my photos convey a little of the mystery that I feel when embraced by the ocean.
I swim in her often, sometimes even sensing the very edges of my own mortality as I strike out for a hidden cove or secret beach. Although I try to deny my attraction it’s no use. The sea has me in her fluid grip and calls my vision more and more as we spend time together. I don’t feel complete unless I have a current booklet showing the local tide tables!
It’s not as though it’s a yearning for the drama of cliff and swell, no, the lonely expanse of my local beach is equally entrancing. Ainsdale in any weather, preferably without the company of crowds, can be all I need to sort out my head or reframe my outlook.
The shots here are of Ainsdale and there’s not a lot going on here, but it’s what’s underneath that matters. Can you feel it too? Is coast tugging at your tides?
The video is two minutes of meditative swell and drift, captured at St Bee’s Head in Cumbria. Best watched full screen with the audio turned up.
Oh my…what a feast, Jason.
These images are tantalising…I want to be there! Now!
It is a long held dream of mine to live near the sea and that yearning has just magnified. It’s the light, the wide open horizon, the smell and the sound, constant yet never the same that attracts me.
Do you think it’s because we are bathed in water from the moment of conception, always moving, always hearing the sounds of our mother,although muted in the womb,secure and nourished and free, that creates that ‘pull’ ?
And the video, thank you – I shall be returning here again and again and again ???
P.s And maybe too it’s because up to 60% of our body is made up of water. It might be like mercury trying to flow together…
Thank you Peggy. We are fortunate in that we live only 40 minutes away from the coast and I often take the trip over, especially at the end of the day, or first light.
Lovely. I think the stillness of these shots and the clean sand without footprints, without plastic ! and it beckons. I love the shoreline, and the horizon where earth and sky meet – yes definitely my favourite place. thank you for sharing.
Thank you for your thought Brenda. Far out down the beach at Ainsdale it’s possible to not hear anything other than the whisper of the tide, and to have nothing of civilisation immmediately nearby.