Seaford Head | alan frost photography

The Coastguards – Escaping the classic view

This image was captured at Cuckmere Haven in East Sussex earlier this week. The approach is from Seaford Head Nature Reserve. It’s an extremely well known spot, not only for tourists but also for photographers who wish to add the ‘classic view’ to their collection. By ‘classic view’ I mean the one which is taken from the top of the footpath on the right of this picture. Looking east, the coastguard cottages are in the foreground whilst the majestic view of the cliffs of The Seven Sisters and Beachy Head fill the background. It is a wonderful view but metaphorically speaking there are thousands of tripod holes in the prime spot. Just Google – Coastguard Cottages Seaford – and you will see what I mean.

On my Instagram feed, a fellow Worpress Blogger, Lensscaper by Andy Hooker, rightly pointed out in a comment that the view isn’t as good as it used to be. The brambles are quite overgrown and the view of the cottages is quite obscured.

This didn’t matter to me as the point of this post is to look for alternative viewpoints and not to follow in the footsteps (or tripod holes) of all the people that have gone before me. The ‘classic view’ might be the one to appear on the picture postcard or a tin of biscuits made for the tourist, but I prefer to explore a popular location and look for an image which is not often seen by the majority.

In case you were wondering I did take the ‘classic view’ about a year ago and here it is. Even then I still made the focal point an elderly gentleman with his walking stick. I was still resisting a shot of just the view itself. You can read this post here.

I would argue that even in the most popular locations there are new shots to be found if you take the trouble to look around and not be tempted to repeat the obvious.

Reminiscing perhaps?

chabce-to-reminisce

There are no prizes for guessing where this shot was taken; as anyone familiar with this iconic location will know that it is the view from Seaford Head towards the chalk cliffs of The Seven Sisters, with Beachy Head just visible in the far distance.

This image is less about the view and more about the story it has to tell. The elderly gentleman with white hair sits on his own, his faithful walking stick at his side. Quite possibly a location he has visited many times before, we can only begin to imagine the thoughts that are passing through his mind as he looks over the coastguard cottages and across the bay to The Seven Sisters. Perhaps he is reminiscing about days gone by and the times when walking the landscape in front of him were a little less challenging than they might be today.

Photographically a key ingredient which makes this shot work for me is the careful placement of his head and the horn handle of his stick, so that both share a dark background. As a result your eye is drawn to this part of the picture, which is of course the main point of interest. The view is stunning, but on this occasion it plays second fiddle to why I pressed the shutter. It’s the story within the picture and not the view itself that I was trying to capture.