Saltmarsh, Shingle Street

Date: July 2005

Camera: Ebony RSW45
Lens Schneider 110mm Super Symmar
Exposure: not recorded
Film: Velvia 50

This is an image that, quite honestly, does not work when boiled down to 600 pixels! The beauty of this picture is in the detail: in this case the countless tiny sea lavender flowers, lit by the warm summer sun. Such is the resolution of the 5x4 inch film that every detail in this image is clearly visible in the original, allowing the colour and texture of the saltmarsh to achieve its full impact.

This picture is also a successful example of pre-visualisation. I'd wanted to find a way to represent the flat expanses of shingle and salt marsh that are such a feature of the Suffolk coast, but without resorting to inappropriate photographic artifice. By chance, I remembered a painting of the outback I'd seen by the Australian artist, Sidney Nolan. By adopting the same basic composition with a high horizon and a lack of visual cues to provide a sense of depth, I achieved a picture that seems almost flat and completely lacking in any unnecessary distractions, thus allowing the saltmarsh to simply speak for itself.