Earlier this week I went beach walking. It was windy, mild and dry. The combination of a camera, a beach and free time works well for me when I need to clear my head and find my inner location once more. Some other people do the same. I passed several folk on my walk, some spoke, happy to share the enjoyment of wind, waves and sand beneath the feet; some looked away, having come for privacy and with the same need to rediscover inner equilibrium; one or two were there with their dogs, those excuses for exercise, and less demanding than human companions. On a beach dogs don't need much other than enough attention to throw the ball.
My own enjoyment is the odd, childlike interest in the noise of waves and the recurring art forms of water on the tumble, impelled by the immense energy of an ocean; and the fascination with stones washed into shape by the friction of millions of pulls and pushes over miles of sand; and the humbling awareness of those other creatures for whom the sea is their home and I'm a visitor expected to be careful of the space and leave the place the way I found it. Along with such positives, the negatives of plastic and the varied detritus of those who, instead of leaving the place the way they find it, leave their rubbish, like trashing footprints.
I spent a while on Tuesday trying to capture images of the waves in their moments of celebration, their approaching restraint giving way to release of energy and the surrender to landfall and journey's end. Two or three times I stopped to watch turnstones, sandpipers and seagulls, feeding and flying, going about their business of living, and trying to do so in the overwhelming proximity of human beings, those not to be relied upon creatures whose own ways of living threaten us all. Here and there, old bricks, rounded and worn down by the lapidary motions of the sea, now embedded in sand, their inner construction of compressed shale and slate, oil and grit, fused by fire so long ago, and now the fading signatures of buildings long gone.
So the photos on this post are moments captured in time, each of them taken at the transient whim of the observer, a coincidence of external interest in an object, and the inner sense of significance that cannot be articulated, and which may only reveal its secret later. The question, "Why did you take that photo?" can sometimes be difficult to answer. There is the pleasure of the image; but also the significance of the moment. Photography has its own aesthetics, technical skills, human satisfactions and restorative power.
Few photographs taken by the glad amateur are going to make it in a calendar competition. Such perfection of execution and technical know how and required equipment is not what matters to the beach wanderer, the hill walker, the observer of life keen to bring the outside world into friendly dialogue with the inner moods and moments of the thinking mind, the feeling heart and the spirit in search of who knows what - until it is found. What I mean is best told by a photo.
Amongst the people walking yesterday was a man who smiled briefly, then hunched his jacket closer and walked on. He was well ahead of me when his dog bounded past me - I was busy photographing waves. Think of an alsatian with short legs; or a corgi with long legs and XXL ears. It didn't stop till it reached him. That bond of companionship between them, based on the assumed trust and belonging that had been established by all those previous walks and conversations and food and balls thrown and retrieved. The dog was happy. The man? Well he smiled, but his walk and body language suggested he was busy with his own inner puzzles. He hunched his jacket closer, so perhaps pondering the perplexities that need a counselor on the scale, and with the discretion, of the sea.
The photo is not footprints in the sand. But paw prints. And they are every bit as suggestive as the more famous "Footprints in the Sand". Faithful follower who will find you. Constant companion wanting to be with you. Eager friend glad of the time and glad of your company. A moment of time fixed in an image of life's commitments, illustrating the interdependence that is as much a part of our humanity as our much vaunted autonomy. The man is in the photo, you just have to look carefully, near the top, where waves and wall seem to intersect. No idea where the dog is - but if you follow the paw prints...
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