The photographer bet
- 📍 Location: Mers-les-Bains, Somme, France
- 📅 Date: 2021
The sky went from orange at the horizon to hot pink overhead in the space of a few minutes, and the whole seafront — the villas, the casino, the lights already on — was reduced to a black strip with the colour above and the same colour reflected below.
Another photographer had come down onto the shingle and set up facing the sea. I framed so that he stands alone in the lower half, tiny, with the dark beach running away on either side of him, and left everything else to the sky.
The exposure protects the gradient and abandons the rest. The buildings keep only their lit windows, the beach is a solid black wedge, and the one recognisable human gesture in the frame is a person standing very still in front of a tripod.
The title is honest about what the picture is. He had bet on that evening the same way I had, and neither of us knew until the last ten minutes whether it would pay. Photographing someone taking the same gamble felt like the right way to record it.
Limited-edition fine-art print from the Skywaven Studios collection, available in several sizes, papers and framing options.
