An Inconstant Land

I remember the place as a vast flat expanse, largely silent other than bird calls and with the unmistakable odour of dimethyl-sulphide, or the ‘smell of the sea’. My intention in making the photograph was not to convey my direct experience of the location but instead, to create an abstraction which invoked a specific and limited vision, an authorial ‘cut’ if you like, which included what I considered the visual elements that characterised my interests in what lay before me. The causeway provides a land route to Lindisfarne which is closed by the tide twice a day. It creates a very particular change of character on Lindisfarne itself, depending on whether it is open or closed. The road determines if Lindisfarne is an island or a spit of land, whether it is bustling with tourists and coach parties or largely deserted, quiet and the preserve of the inhabitants only. Hence my interest in the causeway, and its role in in the image was predicated upon the rhythmic binary pattern of access and isolation.