Photographing the enigmatic

This picture is kind of literal, but not to any great degree. It shows an expanse of beach, some buildings on the horizon line and a big open sky. But as a literal depiction of a place, it’s only partially successful. You wouldn’t put it in a tourist brochure. Somebody who lived here would recognise it but also, I hope, recognise that it’s not meant to be a simple ‘record’ shot.

Does it have an emotional layer? I’m not sure it does, really, except perhaps to evoke a different time or a sense of scale and wonder, maybe a little drama too.

Graphically, I think it’s quite simple. I’ve done a little editing to darken the sky and the foreground so that the brighter buildings are ‘sandwiched’ between these two darker zones. It’s a basic but effective way to focus attention on what appears to be the subject and ‘contain’ the whole image.

I say ‘what appears to be the subject’ rather than ‘what is’ the subject. I think that even if you don’t want a photograph to be a simple, literal rendition of a thing, it does still need a focal point, a place for people to start.

Perhaps what I most wanted to create in this photograph was a sense of enigma. It adds a sense of strangeness and richness to an ordinary scene. I am very occupied by this idea of ‘strangeness’. I have this sense that the world is a strange and alien and extraordinary place if you just shift your brain and your eyes a foot to the right, or left – in a figurative, sense, that is.

As a photographer, you are not obliged to record the world as it is. You can also record how it appears to you, how it makes you feel, the memories it evokes and, via subtle or not so subtle ‘reality shifts’, you can exaggerate these feelings. With me, it’s the latent strangeness of the world. With you, it might be something quite different.