Burns Beach Trilogy
I photographed many of Perth's beaches during my trip in December and January, Trigg, North Beach, Pinaroo, Mullaloo, the list goes on but I have a need to immerse myself in a place to really convey what I see and feel there, to spend time with just one beach out of many. I had limited time in Perth and I knew that I wasn't going to be able to build the same sort of relationship that I have with Tollesbury or the Chelmer Valley at home but time builds a bond that a single visit just doesn't emulate. So which one to choose, Cottesloe the Perth icon, maybe City Beach with it's strong architectural backdrop or the recently renovated resort of Scarborough?
I looked further north to a beach nestling beneath rocky outcrops, a smaller beach but one with a big character, Burns Beach. Like all the beaches along Perth's coast, it looks out westwards towards the setting sun and after busy family days it made an idea place to soak up the ocean whilst exploring it's rocky shoreline.
The water is never still here, the constant wash of waves which have travelled a vast distance, carving and shaping the coastline here, the rhythmic whoosh at times soft like a lullaby and on other occasions more forceful, reminding me that I'm standing at the edge of a great ocean. So I have found a place to explore, to understand how the light plays, how it changes through the day and to reflect on my own emotional response, which is so much a part of the final image.
I have enjoyed getting to know Burns Beach with it's gnarled, razor sharp rocks, comfortable on it's small sandy beach maybe because it is a smaller beach, maybe because it has some of that familiar atmosphere of an English west-coast cove albeit one that rubs shoulders with the warm Indian ocean under azure blue skies.
