Long walks, short notes

For three months I walked the same two kilometres of coast road, always at the same hour, always alone. The idea was to photograph the sunset. The reality was that after the first week I stopped taking the camera out most days.

Here is what I kept instead:

• The light is never the same twice, but it is never wildly different either. You learn to look for the small differences.
• The tide pools are busiest just after high water. Herons eat with their heads low, like they are apologising.
• If you stand still long enough, the gulls stop treating you like a person.

On the hour

There is a word some photographers use — the hour, the window when the light goes soft and long. Walking the same stretch daily taught me that the hour is not a time of day. It is a mood you catch on the way somewhere else.

I did not come back with great photographs. I came back with the road in my legs and the hour in my head. I think that was the assignment.