Beach of Dreams 2021

*Out of Season at Kessingland *

There are many photographs of a sun baked Kessingland, with families enjoying the beauty of the wide, shingle beach. I deliberately wanted photographs that were taken on a dull overcast day, a cold grey spring day, when the beach was empty and the sound of the wind and the crashing waves were the only noise to be heard, where the Suffolk coast becomes an empty expanse until you reach Southwold a few miles south.

Here you exchange the humdrum of the built environment for the peace and solitude of an empty landscape and yet there is so much to interest those who chose to walk this stretch of coast. An isolated fishing boat, wrapped against the elements, a ship out to sea, harbouring from the storm, a tree trunk washed upon the shore, smoothed from years of being tumbled by the sea, sand and shingle.

There is a beauty to Kessingland whenever you may visit. Whether it’s on a hot summer’s day with just a comforting cooling breeze or a stormy winters day when a biting easterly wind chills you to the bone, a lazy wind that doesn’t go round you, it goes right through you.

I walk this stretch of beach often, I walk it to relax, I walk it to exercise, I walk it to think, I walk it alone, I walk it with family and friends, I walk it to remind myself of the beauty on my doorstep.