Au revoir, West Somerset. Aloha, West Sussex

And welcome to the first blog post of my new website in my new location.

After almost twenty years of living in the beautiful county of Somerset, I have relocated to Sussex and, stress of moving house to one side, the change, photographically, has been a tremendous challenge for me.

Above image: The extraordinary Kilve beach on the northern coast of Somerset.

The coast of Somerset boasts a spectacular richness of mutable geological grandeur. It also enjoys world-record tidal movements that in turn both conceal and reveal a diversity of alien-world topographies every few hours of every day. From the sands of Brean and Weston and the Steart mudflats in the east, through Lilstock, Kilve, St Audrie’s Bay, Doniford, Watchet and Blue Anchor Bay, to Dunster and Porlock Weir in the west, much of the inspiration for my Somerset images, such as the example above, is derived from its extraordinary coastline.

Above image: Breakwater on Felpham beach.

On first association with the Sussex coast's (at least the morsel that I am in and have been exploring) endlessly uniform, colourless shingle banks and military lines of wooden breakwaters - not to mention a tide that goes in and out no more than a couple of hundred metres, I don't mind admitting that, initially, I was at a loss as to what to do with my camera.

Looking back at the first few attempts to make something out of my new photography neighbourhood, I realise that, in truth, I was yearning for the scenery I had grown accustomed to and had left behind; I was out of my comfort zone and I was simply not seeing the opportunity I was being offered - image simplification.

More recently though, I have been very happy with some of my material and, if not so much flowing, the creativity has at least been trickling. The scenery is growing on me and I'm relishing the prospect of the exploration and the experimentation ahead.