The idea for my project actually started before I signed up for this course, I had read a book called “The Coast Road’ by Paul Gogarty which is a story of a guy’s attempt to journey around the coastline of England in a camper van documenting the changing face of coastal communities. I had around the same time seen the work of Simon Roberts and his project “Pierdom” which was a quest to capture images of all of the remaining pleasure piers in the UK using a large format camera. These two books ticked several boxes for me, piers, the seaside, camper vans, the great outdoors, fish and chips, ice cream and photography - What’s not to like!
So the idea was given to me by these two gentleman, I decided to combine the two and take pictures of piers using my camper van. My first port of call (pardon the pun) was to join the National Piers Society which lists all of the remaining piers in the UK including locations and information on the piers themselves. This presented me with the “target list'“ and a geographical map of where I was heading. Other research showed there were wharfs and jetties as well as piers used by the RNLI to launch lifeboats from in certain locations, so all in all plenty of subjects to capture.
I started by taking some images of local piers in the South East to get a feel for the type of pictures I wanted or could take, I didn’t have a clear plan but decided to start out and see how it went. On cue Andrew Newson’s course dropped into my email inbox and gave me some focus (I know - sorry!) I realised in the time frame of the course, I would not be able to get around all of the piers in the UK and so decided to limit myself to a geographical location but to expand the idea of piers to include wharfs, jetties, lifeboat platforms and other structures built in the sea.
So here we are, I will be travelling the highways and byways of the South East of England trying to capture images of interesting structures in the sea. Travelling by camper van whenever possible or just doing day trips depending on locations and constraints of family life, I need just one last piece of research material and then I am off. Now where is that guide to the best fish and chip shops in England???????????