September 2020 - Saunton Sands

Walking back from the sea

Last September – well before there was any hint of coronavirus and lockdowns – we went to stay at a hotel in North Devon for a few days. We have friends just down the road there who moved away from this area a number of years ago, but we are still close and try to see them at least once a year. Last year was a bumper with two visits by us, and a third by them when they came up to visit their family. 

We stayed at the Saunton Sands Hotel – very lovely and perched on the cliffs above the beach. Our room looked right over the beach, which was an absolute delight. The beach didn’t seem to be far away – until people started to appear on it looking like the little stick people in Lowry’s paintings. We were lucky enough to have good weather for almost all the time we were there, so we could walk and sit in the gardens or on the beach. 

A lot of people were on the beach … the car park was pretty full even though it wasn’t school holidays. I took this photo form our bedroom: a photographer coming back from a session down at the water’s edge. He was carrying his tripod over his shoulder and was making his way home for the evening – except that I took this photo at twenty past seven in the morning. An early starter obviously, doing something that I always consider doing, but very rarely do: to go out early to catch the morning sun and a lack of people.

The photo itself is fairly minimalist, with the three bands of beach, water and beach again at the top. I like the way that the man is portrayed right in the centre walking with a determined stride back to his well-deserved breakfast. I am increasingly fond of photos that have large areas of empty space (or what photographers call ‘negative space’. And I don’t know why either) and force you to focus on the whole photo in order to get the point.