Minimalist lighthouse
- 📍 Location: Mers-les-Bains, Somme, France
- 📅 Date: 2021
A straight concrete jetty runs out from the left and ends in a small white tower. The sea is a flat pale turquoise, the sky a gradient of pink into blue, and there is not one other object anywhere in the frame.
I used a long exposure to take the last movement out of the water, so the surface becomes a plane and the jetty appears to be drawn on it rather than standing in it. Without that, the picture would have had waves in it, and waves would have been one element too many.
The composition is three horizontal bands and one horizontal line ending in a dot. I placed the tower on the right third and kept the jetty low, so the emptiness on the right has room to be empty. That space is doing as much work as the lighthouse.
These seaside towns are full of noise in August and completely deserted at six in the morning out of season. The photograph is what the place gives you when nobody else has turned up for it, and that is usually the version I am waiting for.
Limited-edition fine-art print from the Skywaven Studios collection, available in several sizes, papers and framing options.
