SOMERSET LEVELS 242 – SEAWALL WITH LICHEN

 

 

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The seawall at Burnham-On-Sea, looking northwards along the promenade; 12 Oct 2015.

The Somerset Levels run down westwards into the muddy waters of the Bristol Channel, and last Monday we were on this often bleak coast at cheap and cheerful Burnham-On-Sea.  It was a beautiful autumn day, with bright, wall to wall sunshine, and the tide was actually almost in, so that its waters hid many of the vast expanses of dark, glutinous mud for which this stretch of coastline is justly infamous.

We walked south to where the sluggish River Brue empties into the much larger River Parrett, and then turned our backs on the sun to walk back northwards into a distinctly chilly northerly breeze.

And there, beside us and always with us, was the inland side of Burnham’s tall and solid seawall, speckled with bright yellow lichens and converging off into the distance as if there was no tomorrow. 

That converging mass of masonry hit me in the eye, so I dropped down onto one knee, endured several well-meaning passers by asking if I needed any help getting back up again,  and took that convergence in with a 24mm lens.  The sky was blue, and the flat promenade was being seared by blazing sunlight that grazed across the vertical wall.

Back at my computer, the resulting image yelled at me to be turned into portrait format.

D700 with 24-120 Nikkor at 24mm; 200 ISO; Color Efex Pro 4; rotated 90 degrees clockwise.

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