APRIL 2024 · WATERLINE

UNHARVEST OUR SUN

Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset

The low lighthouse at Burnham-on-Sea stands on nine wooden legs in the middle of the mudflats. When the tide is out — which it is, dramatically, on the Bristol Channel — it stands alone on a plain of dark mud about 100 metres from shore, accessible only by knowing when and where not to walk. It is a red and white striped wooden tower on stilts. The nine legs are a specific solution to a specific problem.

White and red striped 9-legged wooden lighthouse standing on expansive sandy mudflats — Alone on 100 metres of dark mud

— On the mudflats

From the concrete seawall the only context is the mudflats and the sky. The lighthouse is small at that distance and strange at any distance. The legs are timber, creosoted, buried in sand and mud that shifts around them with every tide. The circular detail on one leg — the cross-section of the wood against the beach — is purely abstract.

They mark the channel, but at low tide the channel is invisible, and the poles just stand there like punctuation in a sentence with no other words.
Burnham-on-Sea Low Lighthouse — April 2024

Black and white circular detail of lighthouse wooden leg against sandy beach — Cross-section of a leg, purely abstract

— Seawall text

I was working with longer exposures on the seawall when a child ran through the frame. Not a slight blur — a ghost, the long exposure turning movement into a white smear beneath the text carved into the concrete. The text reads various things. One says UNHARVEST OUR SUN. I have no idea what it means. It was there before I arrived.

Ghostly figure on concrete steps, red and white striped lighthouse in distance — Long exposure, movement into smear

Graffitied concrete seawall steps with text carved into weathered surface — UNHARVEST OUR SUN

— Wind and exposure

The wind was persistent and shook the longer exposures into softness. Three yellow marker poles stand out on the mudflats beyond the lighthouse. They mark the channel, but at low tide the channel is invisible, and the poles just stand there like punctuation in a sentence with no other words.

Three tall yellow marker poles standing isolated on mudflats at low tide — Punctuation in a sentence with no other words

— Through the railings

The seawall steps are weathered and layered, the kind of concrete that shows its age in horizontal strata. Curved metal railings run the length of the promenade. The lighthouse visible through them, distant on the flats, impossibly geometric, impossibly solitary.