Sea View
As you know if you have followed my stories, then you’ll know that the Gallerie Schmetterling started after staying at the Wellington Hotel in Seaford. We chose our room based on the owner’s recommendation as having a sea view. And like Faulty Towers (don’t understand the reference speak to your parents and grandparents) there is a sea view if you look up the road and beyond the promenade seating shelter.
It made me chuckle and it still does. So, I have decided to make it a project. I want to make a sequence or feature of this structure either as a book or simply as a series of images.
Every time I am there (and regrettably it’s not as often as I’d like, as Seaford is a little over an hour and half drive away), I take a photograph. There is a drain cover at the top of the road and that is the point from which I take my photograph. If I take it from the same place every time, then in theory it should be framed in a very similar fashion.
Also, other than at different times of year, I also try and take the picture at different times of the day and in different weathers. I have been there very early in the day and quite late in the evening. I love the way the shadows and light changes on the structure. The sky too, is facinating, how it is different eveytime. I have some amazing blue skies with fluffy white clouds. I have some misty days and some early mornings. The foggy day where the whole world is soft. Seaford being right on the south coast, sunrise and sunset are not really in the right place for a romantic picture with the sun setting (or rising) just behind the hut.
Occasionally the shelter has been occupied when I’ve been up to take the photo. Or people have been passing, jogging, walking with dogs or riding their bikes. I have decided to include some of the figures in the images. I do my best to photograph them from the back, I don’t wish to take their portrait, just the portrait of the hut. These two are my current favourites, the elderly man with his dog (you’ll have to take my word about the dog) and the local band practicing in the late afternoon sun. They tell two very different stories. I would like to photograph some more people there, but they have to be telling a relatable story.
I want to tell a few more stories about the promenade seating. Like this one with a rainbow, but would like it to be OVER the hut, it is very frustrating that I had to change the angle to get the rainbow in. I’d also like a proper storm, with crashing waves and who knows with a flash of lightning (very unlikely I know) and anyway I will have to properly plan that. Some snow…maybe… With a strategically sat seagull…. a kissing couple…. A family… with a push bike leant against the side….
I have been back last week and this is the latest option, taken just after dawn on a slightly windy day. The waves are a little choppy but I really would like them higher. (I know there’s no pleasing some people.) More to take though, I think, before I am completely happy with all the images and made a decision how to best present them.
