OUR FRAGILE COASTS: A Photographer’S DILEMMA

November 24, 2020

As communities living and working by the sea know well, coasts are among our most fragile environments. Subject to pounding waves and storm force winds, the land itself, with its cliffs and rocks, is eroded to pebbles and shifting sand, while organic matter from sea and shore is torn from its anchorage, thrown up and stranded above the tideline. Only slightly less dramatic are the daily tides that sweep the beaches clean twice a day. Longer time frames are involved in the falling and rising of sea levels which change the coastal landscape, leaving raised beaches, under-cut cliffs or low lying areas lost to the sea.

These natural processes of creation and destruction impact especially on local people but most of us value these places where land meets sea. The scenery, the opportunity to breathe fresh salt air, to play on the beach or look out to far horizons; all this draws us to the land’s edge for recreation and improves our sense of well being. Often it marks the limit of what we regard as our homeland and we feel passionate in its defence from both invasion and destruction. Yet through ignorance and arrogance we have set in motion processes that are accelerating beyond our control and now we must face the consequences of thoughtless pollution of the oceans, the land and the air we breathe. The planet is warming, sea levels are rising and weather systems are disrupted. Although these are natural trends, it is human activity that has increased the speed of change beyond the capacity for biological systems, even ourselves, to adapt. How do we, as photographers respond?

Firemore: Who could fail to appreciate the beauty of this beach and not wish to linger?

*For photographers this is an exciting place where light plays on the wet sand …*

*creating reflections and silhouettes in sky and shade.*

*Surely everyone would be attracted to the colours of sand and sea …*

*and patterns sculpted by wind and water.*

*Many will see textures in the rocks created by erosion, plants and lichens …*

*and will take care to ‘leave only footprints’ beside the stream.*

*Not metal waste glinting but dried kelp. The farmer’s sheep harmlessly wander free but …*

*we are all responsible for human waste! Could we not do better with old tyres?*

Cove Battery: A place of beautiful mountain views and the ugliest of wartime buildings.

*A place of memory and memorial to bravery and loss. Even photographers struggle …*

to lighten the mood evoked here and perhaps we shouldn’t try. — *to lighten the mood evoked here and perhaps we shouldn’t try*.

*Yet the crumbling buildings are morbidly interesting, having a kind of beauty …*

*while slowly nature is claiming back the headland.*

*Light breaks through while the concrete weeps calcite …*

*and colours leach and bleach on the interior walls.*

*Soon the moor will reclaim the concrete blocks and the sea dismantle the brick walls …*

*while we sit, our backs turned, looking out to sea, perhaps trying to forget?*

Cove Harbour: A safe haven from sea and storm for generations of fishermen.

*Old creels and ropes hang waiting to decay into the long grass …*

*while ropes and chains still in use snake over the pebbles.*

*In time old anchors rust away but polypropylene ropes just fray and fragment …*

*and although the seaweed may anchor itself to them, nothing can degrade them.*

*Brightly coloured buoys and boxes make the photograph …*

*but do we glorify the use of plastic that also pollutes the seas.*

*The old blue boat rots naturally away in an unused corner of the harbour but …*

*modern materials resist decay. Yet who would deny fishermen lives made less arduous by their use?*

As photographers we pride ourselves in seeing scenes that others may not notice. Perhaps, through our image making, we can raise awareness and stimulate thoughtful reflection; perhaps we have a responsibility to reveal not only the beauty of nature and what we stand to lose but also to raise questions about the, however unintentional, more destructive aspects of human nature?

GRAEMSAY MAERL

May 23, 2020

The small Orkney island of Graemsay lies in Hoy Sound at the western entrance to Scapa Flow between Mainland and Hoy, the two largest islands in the archipelago.

Looking south over the lighthouse slipway from the smaller beach at Sandside Bay, the high hills of Hoy can be glimpsed beyond the Graemsay farmland, while to the north the town of Stromness, on the Orkney Mainland, can be seen

Despite its size Graemsay hosts two lighthouses, Hoy Sound High (115 feet) to the northeast of the island and Hoy Sound Low (40 feet) to the northwest. Both were designed and built by Alan Stevenson for the Northern lighthouse Board and the lights were first lit in 1850. Less than two miles apart, they are termed ‘leading lights’ since they are placed in such a way that the two lights, if kept aligned from aboard ship, allow safe navigation through the Sound, which is notorious for its tidal race, sunken reefs and hidden skerries.

At the time when the lighthouses were built, Graemsay had over 200 inhabitants mainly working on the 36 crofts but in modern times the population has gradually dropped to around a tenth of that. Many ruined crofts are scattered over the island, especially over the rough moorland in the centre. This contrasts with the rich farmland along the coast where the present community, consisting of one working farm and six crofts, continue to thrive.

Sandside Bay is a large bay to the west of Hoy Sound High Lighthouse. The larger of its two beaches is of fine white sand backed by sand dunes that threaten to engulf the only road around the island. Its windswept strand is patterned like waves, the tide drawing the sand back to the sea.

The smaller beach beside the old slipway, which was used to land materials needed to build the lighthouses, is very different being backed by a rocky grass bank above which farm buildings stand, some in ruins, and against which disintegrating machinery and boats lie. But most extraordinary is the beach itself, which comprises shell sand and sun-bleached maerl.

Many of the famous white beaches in Western Scotland are formed of fragments of dead maerl brought ashore after storms and crushed by the waves. Often, as in Graemsay, the crushed maerl was used traditionally as a source of lime, along with seaweed, to condition and fertilise the acid soil for agricultural purposes. The bright dead maerl is everywhere here, scattered on the rocks, amongst the cowrie shells (‘groatie buckies’) and between the green seaweed in the shallows. In lumps and nodules or as delicate branched structures, it forms chalky white sculptures at the edge of a transparent sea that seems to crystallise the light as it rolls lazily over the shore.

I had heard of ‘maerl’ before and imagined it to be some sort of coral but in fact maerl is a calcareous seaweed, which is purple-pink when living and deposits lime in its cell walls as it grows. It lives, unattached to any substratum, in sheltered sub-tidal areas, above deep gravel layers of dead maerl. These beds of living and dead maerl are an important marine habitat for many animals, including young scallops. How ironic then, that dredging for scallops causes significant damage to their maerl bed nurseries that now require our protection, not least to sustain the scallop industry.

TURF ROOFS OF THE FAROE ISLANDS

April 26, 2020

High pitched roofs of green turf are a common sight in many Scandinavian countries. In the Faroe Islands, set against a landscape of steeply terraced mountain sides and cloud covered peaks or alongside narrow sea inlets and island shores, they are especially symbolic traditional life, past and present.

A visitor might observe that good turf seems to be in quite short supply in these islands. Where it exists, around farms and villages, it is thanks to improvement of the land by human hands and the grazing of many sheep. It is perhaps surprising then that turf has remained the traditional roofing material for many buildings, from dwellings to barns and fishing sheds and in locations both rural and urban, even in the capital Tórshavn.

In modern times, moulded metal or grey slates have become more popular roofing materials to replace overgrown or threadbare turf. I wonder if it is partly the rise of tourism that has seen a return to fresh growing roofs in picturesque villages and in Tórshavn itself, where they adorn administrative and other buildings in the old parts of the capital and around its modern harbour.

Traditionally the turf was laid on a lining of silver birch bark, left to curl against retaining boards usually painted black. Under these, in coastal villages, fish are still sometimes hung out to dry in the salt winds. Both bark and wood had to be imported, since no trees of any size grow on the steep basalt layered and windswept hillsides.

Nowhere are turf roofs more evident than on the churches, especially those built in the 1800s. These were timber-framed buildings, constructed on a stone base or outcrop of natural rock usually painted white in stark contrast to the black-tarred walls. Fine examples are in Kollafjørdur (1837) on Streymoy and Funningur (1847) on Eysturoy.

Other churches have whitewashed walls of stone or wood and may be roofed with modern materials, as seen beside the harbour on Nólsoy and perched between mountain and sea at Kunoy.

The small stone church at Saksun was built in 1858. This tiny farming settlement is at the end of the road on the NW tip of Streymoy, the largest of the Faroe Islands and is a popular place for a day out, enjoyed by both tourists and Faroese alike. Drawn by the remote location and magnificent scenery, there are also historical farm buildings on what is still a working farm and a museum which demonstrates how some aspects of rural life are little changed since medieval times.

When it was built the church probably had a turf roof but a photograph taken in 1991 by Gunnie Moberg* shows it with a modern roof that appears to be metal. Today, with the traditional turf restored, it blends into the landscape between the soaring peaks and the Pollurin tidal lagoon below.

*Book: The Faroe Islands by Liv Kjørsvik Schei and Gunnie Moberg (1991) John Murray (Publishers) Ltd.

BENEATH THE DUNES - Mellon Udrigle

December 19, 2019

Beneath the shifting dunes where breezes breathe sunlight through the marram grass, still water lies.

Fed by streams cutting through the dunes to reach the beach and topped up by seawater from occasional high tides, these shallow pools reflect the sky and sunlit scene above.

But it is in the shadow of the dunes that mysteries are revealed; ripples on the surface, patterns in the sand, mirrored rocks and inverted tufts of marram, create abstracts with stranded seaweed and coloured shapes of unknown origin .

Before the shaded pools I stand transfixed, lost in surreal imaginings, beneath the dunes.

RUBHA NAN SASAN - COVE

May 19, 2019

HORIZONS OF WAR AND PEACE

As the mist rolls back the horizon resolves into a fine dark line between muted grey and milky green. There is a sense of peace here; yet this place knows the twin traumas of weather and war.

Gazing out past the headland I fancy I see human faces, at least three, forehead to chin profiled against sea and sky. Their brows are heavy and their features grim, unsurprising since they stare west along the coast to where, on a winter’s night during WW2, the SS William Welch was wrecked in a ferocious storm. A bitter irony, for just around this headland, whose name Rubha nan Sasan translates as “Wild Promontory” lay the safe anchorage of Loch Ewe.

On the rocky shore beneath the set stone faces a glimmer of sun highlights wartime remains - footings of a brick-built structure that once blocked the view, and everywhere shattered concrete slabs with ceramic shards of pipes, once draining out to sea. It will be many more years yet before the lichens that adorn the natural rounded rocks with colour soften the rough edges of these broken, bleached conglomerates.

Rubha nan Sasan is now home only to the sheep grazing among the derelict wartime installations, where once men of the Cove Battery were stationed to keep watch and defend the entrance to Loch Ewe. From here the Arctic Convoys gathered before setting out to supply war-torn Russia.

I take shelter from a shower of hail among crumbling concrete structures weeping in the wet. Steps climb through overgrowing grass into buildings with no doors or walls and up to the waterlogged foundations of abandoned observation posts.

Beside the highest lookout, with views to the north, west and east, a memorial stands with its back to the weather and the history of war. It’s there to honour all those who lost their lives serving in the Arctic Convoys.

Turning my back also I follow their gaze to the south, towards clearing skies and the hope of safe horizons.

CAMUS A' CARRAIG - MELLON UDRIGLE

April 17, 2019

SANDCASTLES IN MIND

I’ve arrived just in time at a favourite spot to watch the evening light, as the tide races in at Mellon Udrigle. The previous high tide tossed tangles of kelp far up the beach, stranding them beside the burn, and carried sand upstream to smother the rocks and choke the downward flow. Then, the ebbing tide sculptured natural sandcastles and left them perched on foundation stones just large enough to divert the retreating sea around them.

I see him coming and I guess what’s on his mind. Raising my camera quickly to my eye, I make the photograph before the wee boy in his red welly boots hurtles into the frame. Screaming with excitement, he splashes into the burn and sets about the sandcastles, kicking them into formless piles of sand. Dismayed, I can’t bring myself to take an “after” picture to match the one “before”. I feel sad and angry at the wanton destruction; but then, I find myself smiling. The child is having such fun and I remember, the joy of making, and breaking down sandcastles or watching the sea reclaim them.

I wander down beside the burn and watch a group of Ringed plovers feeding on the incoming tide further along the bay. At my feet the waves rush past a shelf of sand, crumbling it away as the surge sweeps by. Currents collide at seemingly impossible angles, forcing the sea up the burn where it deposits its load of freshly churned up sand.

In the fading light, the waves loom dark, almost menacing as they advance across the now near charcoal sands and drown the last of the reflected sunset.

Next day, I’m back at my favourite spot, watching the morning light and a scene transformed by the ebbing tide as it rolls back out to sea. The ruined sandcastles remain, unreached by the previous tide, and the stranded kelp is still high and dry beside the burn, but the fresh water flows free again, carving its way through the sand and spreading its fingers to touch the sea.

Further along the bay, there are people sauntering along the water’s edge while their dogs dash in and out of the gentle waves or chase balls thrown up the beach. In their exuberance, they scatter the delicate coloured patterns made on the surface of the sand. It seems a shame and yet, who among us has not enjoyed planting our footprints in freshly fallen snow or, running across a beach made smooth by wind and wave.

I wander down, beside the burn, watching how the sun and fast moving currents interplay. Deep eddies form around the rocks, creating pools where colour patterns the surface like snakeskin. Where the rocks run out and the currents run slow and shallow over the drying sand, the light is gathered into strands; the pattern still resembles snakeskin but one cast off, as the serpent returns to the sea.

In the midday sun, the white waves tumble benignly ashore and reflect, as if painted, on a canvas of wet sand. Soon the tide will turn again and the waves will break with increasing power to strip the canvas, wash away the footprints made in fun and recreate a pristine strand … ready for the making of new sandcastles.

Camus nan Gobhar - Mellon Charles

March 18, 2019

Between A Rock and a Hard Place

Paradoxically, it is the shadow of the rock that reveals what lies beneath the surface of the pool, while the reflected light draws a veil across, its frayed edge billowing in the breeze. What lies beneath is living colour and rounded pebbles resting between the hard rock and the torn light…