The British love the seaside - it is a great place to holiday or just hang out. For a reportage photographer there are plenty of opportunities to create great candid images of people enjoying themselves and living their lives. Most people are too busy being in the moment to worry about the world around them and they generally let their guard down.
In this series I explore the types and variety of people who plonk themselves down on anything resembling a beach or near to a beach to take in the fresh, salty sea air and to spend countless hours looking out upon the blue sea and the blue sky.
I wandered around looking for photo opportunities like these and I composed each shot with the subject in the foreground and framed them within the view. I find there is something tranquil and calm about these moments with each subject lost in their own little world.
I love this type of reportage photography which, although based at the seaside, is really a form of street photography. Sometimes it’s about reacting quickly to something I see, and other times it’s about waiting for something to develop - it’s not happened yet but there is some potential for something interesting to occur. Yet in many of these photographs the people were barely moving and so that allowed me to move around trying to work out the best angle.
Whilst editing the photos from the shoot I noticed that I had, in nearly every case, only taken one shot of each scene. Occasionally a bird may enter the frame after my first shot making me wonder if they might add a different dimension to the picture, in which case I would react quickly as birds don’t tend to hang waiting for me to line up the shot!
And of course being British myself, I love nothing more than a day out at the seaside.