A Study in Tides

It can take quite some preparation to make the landscape photographs you have in your mind's eye, a certain amount of planning to arrive at the right place at the right time, with just the right light, tides, clouds, fog, mist, wind. It often takes patience of the glacial kind, the dogged willingness to go to a place, realise the conditions are not quite right, pack away your gear and return on a different day, again and again and again.

Disappointment can turn into something beautiful though, if you just wait it out, take the time to let the eye wander, find serendipitous beauty in the moment.

I got to this beach at dawn, before the warm bathe of sunrise, the gentle, soft glow of twilight that shimmers in the ocean air. I'd arrived to photograph a pier, find a composition of it extending into the sea. The tide was too low though, leaving the pier dry, perched too far out on land to make a compelling photograph. The tide was coming in, but by the time the pier was partly submerged, the light just wouldn't be right, too bright, too harsh. A simple disappointment, a wasted trip (one of so many), at least I'd learnt something about the need for high tide at this location - shelve that away for a future visit on another day. Most days I take a quick look around, then head back home after a trip like this. This day, I felt the urge to lurk, to enjoy this beach, cherish and bask in my solitude. I had the morning to myself, so I simply wandered, aimlessly, watching the birds, the light dance on the waves, the tides. I returned to the pier and watched those tides. How they moved, the gentle lapping of waves, the softly swirling eddies of water, the patterns they coursed, the little islands of sand slowly sinking under the rising tide. The slow, patient, inexorable rise.

In that soft, quiet light, I tried to capture the gentle swell of the tides.

A study in patience.