The harbour wall

I recently published a pair of photographs taken this summer in Cullercoats Bay. I mentioned that I photograph this harbour wall relatively often and here's another image, made on Christmas Day last year.

As the mid-afternoon lull of Christmas Day set in, I went for a walk around Cullercoats Bay and along Longsands beach, with the light waning into twilight so early at that time of year and leaving a lovely pink tint between the clouds.

This composition appeals to the graphic designer in me, creating a kind of layout grid upon which elements are arranged—sky, sea, sea wall—and across which the steps provide the one dissenting, diagonal line. 

I think it's this photograph that awakened the desire in me to document this same wall over time as a subject in itself. It's not something I've done particularly rigorously just yet and I don't get up north often enough for a really in-depth study but I do try to keep an eye out for interesting conditions to re-photograph each time I'm there. In my photography, I'm still a bit of a magpie—taking photographs wherever and of whatever interests me at the time rather than having a singular focus or theme—so I'm enjoying reaching the point where I'm starting to pick up a couple of locations or themes that I'm enthused to return to repeatedly. The Cullercoats harbour wall (specifically this southern branch of it) is one of them while a particular view at the top of Greenwich Park is another (also featured in one of my location scouting posts).