Salicornia fields

The story behind the photo

The tide has been out for hours and the bay has turned into a field. Salicornia grows here in small stiff tufts, almost evenly spaced, and from low down they line up into rows that run straight to the far shore: a perspective nobody planted, which I only had to find the right height to see.

I kept the horizon high and gave two thirds of the frame to the sand, because here the ground is the subject, not the sky. Le Crotoy sits on the opposite bank as a thin white line of houses under the grey, near enough to be read, far enough to remain a rumour.

The light was flat that morning, and flat light is usually a problem. Here it was the answer. It removed every shadow and left nothing but texture (the grain of the sand, the dry tangle of each plant), so the image could be a study of surface rather than of drama.

I love this bay for what it refuses. No peaks, no waterfall, nothing you could call spectacular. You have to slow down, look at your feet, and accept that the picture lies in small repeated things. That patience is the whole photograph, and standing in the wind with wet boots I felt it settle in me before it settled in the frame.