Turner Contemporary, Margate

28 Jul 2021
Morlene Fisher
Morlene Fisher
332 Words
2 mins

Wow, what an unexpected bonus today was.

Walking today was limited, but it really wasn’t the reason for the trip. It was to visit the Turner Contemporary gallery to see the exhibition The Tourists: Ellen Harvey & JMW Turner, and the very excellent Ashes by Steve McQueen.

The location today, the beach at Margate, a stretch in front of the gallery which is the site of Anthony Gormley’s Another Time installation. Unfortunately, by the time we’d finished with the exhibits inside, the tide had completely engulfed the piece and it was no longer visible.

I was able to go to sea level and set up for about 10 minutes to make some pictures before the tide came in too far for me to get off the beach. I still managed to soak my boots though and this is something that you need to remember when making images on a beach with an incoming tide.

Notable Images

The mirroring of the clouds and the retreating waves with the narrow corridor of horizon showing the buoy and the container ships I think makes for an interesting composition here. I also like the colours which are quite muted.

Although this image is a tad overexposed, I do like the leading lines from the jetty, and the way the water line changes the colour of the stonework. I think the clouds are not wispy enough, the wind not blowing very hard or fast means that they take on a blurred but not quite pleasing effect. Through the long exposure, the sea is smoothed out in a way that’s attractive, but I think if I were to spend time making this image again, in the same conditions, I would take a still using a faster exposure and one with the long exposure setting, and composite them to enable an overall more aesthically pleasing complete image.

You can see both of these images in their post-production variation on the homepage of this site.