FEBRUARY 2026 · WATERLINE
A grey Weston day
Somerset, England
A train out of Bristol Temple Meads on a grey February morning to see what a grey February seaside town had to offer. The answer: more than expected, less than nothing.
The streets around the seafront were empty. Not pleasantly quiet — simply empty in the way that February resort towns are empty. Closed. Waiting for a season that isn't this one. Nothing was happening.
The low tide on the Bristol Channel is a significant event. The sea retreats so far that the beach becomes a geography. Two motorboats stranded on the mudflats: a worn blue one chained to the ground near the Grand Pier, a yellow one a short distance away beside it. Beached with the air of things that are always beached at this state of tide, maybe more often than not. Knightstone Island's Edwardian buildings visible across the empty flats, small boats tilted in the mud in front of a danger sign.
Not pleasantly quiet — simply empty in the way that February resort towns are empty.
Weston-super-Mare — February 2026
Under the Grand Pier. Rusted iron columns and cross-bracing, the sandy floor dry at this tide, a lone figure seated at the far right margin of the frame. The pier structure from below is a better subject than from the end. From below it reads as engineering, not entertainment.
A yellow stuffed toy behind a black-taped broken window pane in a 1930s seafront house. Red door below it. The tape careful, specific. The toy placed — or forgotten there. The distinction barely matters.
A graffiti-covered wall nearby: white chicken stencil, a paste-up portrait in a blocked window, an orange bin and a scooter. Everything that makes a seaside town readable, in one frame.
The crow filled the frame from close range. Iridescent black plumage, dirty beak, a keen eye against flat grey sky. It let me approach further than they usually do. That became the starting point for some experimental work. But first: just the crow, sharp against grey, exactly as found.
Colourful 'THE BEACH' graffiti mural covering a building end beside a fenced construction site, Weston-super-Mare
Weathered blue motorboat chained to the mudflats at low tide, Weston-super-Mare Grand Pier and grey sky behind
Tight head portrait of a crow with iridescent black plumage, dirty beak and a keen eye against a flat grey sky
Graffiti-covered brick wall with white chicken stencil, paste-up portrait in a blocked window, orange bin and scooter
Rendered 1930s seafront house with red door and a yellow stuffed toy peering through a black-taped broken window pane
Looking straight down at railway ballast with a fallen leaf, weeds and a weathered wooden sleeper, Weston-super-Mare
Rusted iron columns and cross-bracing beneath Weston-super-Mare Grand Pier, sandy floor, a lone figure seated far right
Knightstone Island's Edwardian buildings across the empty low-tide beach, small boats beached in the mud, danger sign foreground
Worn blue motorboat and yellow speedboat stranded on Weston-super-Mare mudflats, town seafront stretching behind
Families with children and a dog playing on a grey winter beach beside Weston-super-Mare Grand Pier, Steep Holm beyond