On the Edge
What I try to express in the majority of the images I make (not always successfully) is natural beauty as I see it, most often in the commonplace. When I stray from the path, I endeavour to create mystery and intrigue, designing a composition that brings an element of tension into the frame.
This picture has strong, tactile strength. Its essential ingredients are contrasting colour, mixed with a sub-plot of competing form, finished off with a dash of differing textures and finally served up with a side dish of conflict between diagonal and circular movement.
Did I visualise all of this when I was making the image on a wind-whipped beach at Clactoll in the far North West Highlands of Scotland? No I did not. It was early February and single-figure cold. I was holding my waterproof coat over the tripod to stop inch-long rain harming the camera and disturbing the pool. The tide was coming in, about to cover the rock, my fingers were numb, the tea flask was empty and I had dragged myself out of bed two hours before dawn and it was now nearly sunset (not that I had seen the sun once all day). My B&B was in Ullapool, a 30-mile drive back through Highland darkness along mainly single track road. And I would be too late for a hot supper. Art? You have to suffer.