This weekend I decided that a walk by the sea was in order. Not sure quite why but it felt like the right thing to do. ‘m lucky in that I can be at the seaside in about 40 minutes if I try real hard, with the North West Coast have a variety of different seaside locations, for all tastes. I guess my decision was based upon wanting to be by the sea but not wanting to be surrounded by “kiss me quick stalls”. Sculptor Anthony Gormley has a very impressive collection on the beach at Crosby in Merseyside, all based upon his own physique in believe. I guess this was a walk by the sea rather than a specific seascape photography visit. My Sony A6600 with the 16 to 35 f2.8 lens did come with me…….just in case.
Quite a number of the 100 or so sculptures have been taken up and are being renovated as the salty sea must take its toll on them over time. There where, however, still a good few on the beach that I would capture as the walk progressed. This first image came to me as I walked onto the beach from the car park. The small structure that has the buoy on top of it, with the very much shorter tip section of one of the sculptures. I saw this as a moody image and one I’d play with in post production. I’ve really gone to town on the sky in this and added quite a large vignette. Very much out of my comfort zone, but I guess it’s the only way to learn.
The next two images are all of the same sculpture, and I’ve tried to capture the different views that this “man” has from his point on the beach. This first image shows the “man” looking out to sea at the wind turbines and gas platform out in the bay. I deliberately, used a wide aperture for this image as I didn’t want the wind turbines to be in focus, but the viewer can clearly tell what they are as they aren’t blurred beyond recognition.
The next image is a close up head shot from behind the sculpture, again with a wide aperture.
My intention here was to show a closer view of the textures of the sculpture, and the pink writing added later. These sculptures aren’t just raw metal, they have a texture to them, which I assume is meant to replicate some form of skin. I also wanted to get something of the view out to the other side again without complete clarity of what is out to sea, which would be very boring if in focus.
his final image of the sculptures shows the view over towards the City of Liverpool, again slightly blurry by choice. This :man” stands nearer to the sea edge (as it was whilst I was there) and allows you to get more of a sense of what the face of each sculpture looks like, and they are all the same. Well the ones I looked at are all the same. This is a great place to take images and there will definitely be another visit to this location, when there is better light. As I said earlier this was a walk not a photography trip, but I like the images I captured of sculptures on the beach.
If you walk along the beach, away from the City, you will eventually come to a section of the beach where fishermen, ply there trade from the shoreline. The beach gets much more rocky and not many people where walking down this end of the beach. What this end of the beach does have though, is an ice cream van. To make it even better it was a mr Whippy Ice cream van. I like this. Why am I telling you this? Well as I ate the cone of ice cream, I one handedly pointed the camera at the marker post just off the beach. A little manipulation of the focal length and the above image was taken. I like the reflection and the colours in the water on the sand. The more closed down aperture for this image gives a better view of the off shore wind turbines as they are less blurry.
Crosby beach is a great place to walk, its also a great place to emirs yourself in a little artistic culture, or you can just sit and enjoy an ice cream and let the world go by. I will be back to this location with my full kit, at either sunrise or sunset where better light will add to the great images of these sculptures.