Light glider eclipse
- 📍 Location: Berck-sur-Mer, Cote d’Opale, France
- 📅 Date: 2022
A paraglider crossing the sun at Berck-sur-Mer, at the end of the day, with a man and his dog standing on the dark crest of the dune below. The sky is a furnace of orange and grey cloud; the ground is a flat black band; the two subjects are silhouettes.
This is the only colour frame in a series that is otherwise entirely monochrome, and it is in colour because the colour is the event. Rendered in grey, this sky becomes a set of mid tones and the picture loses its temperature completely.
The composition is a straight line and two accents: the glider high and slightly left, the walker low and slightly right, the sun between them. I exposed for the brightest part of the cloud, which drops everything terrestrial to black and leaves the canopy of the glider as a clean shape against the light.
The Opal Coast has a long tradition of kites and gliders, and the wind here is reliable enough that there is almost always something in the sky. The dog, as far as I could tell, was unimpressed.
I wanted a photograph where a machine and a man share a sunset without either of them noticing the other.
Limited-edition fine-art print from the Skywaven Studios collection, available in several sizes, papers and framing options.
